After last night’s bathroom issues, I am not having coffee today. I’m having tea.

I’m having Earl Grey, which is a black tea (I think mostly China Black or Keemun) and bergamont oil. It’s considered to be a, “scented tea.”

Bergamont oil comes from the citrus of the same name. I’ve always been told it is actually a kind of orange.

I was just reading up on Earl Grey tea and learned I was correct in saying that Keemun, which I think is the same as China Black, was the most commonly used tea to make Earl Grey. I also learned that because people like to add cream to their Earl Grey, tea wizards have begun experimenting using Ceylon or Oolong. One of my favorite teas is Darjeeling, which is from India (I love almost anything Indian, especially the food), but I don’t think it would make a good Earl Grey because on its own it’s pretty tangy.

I was aghast as I always put cream in my black teas. Maybe it is because I love cows and appreciate their hard work. I make strong brews, though. I like bold flavors in coffee, beer, wine, cheese and tea.

I’m munching on a cinnamon raisin bagel, one half of which has natural peanut butter. The other half has plain cream cheese-Tillamook, not Philly. It’s a test. I’ve had the Tillamook veggie cream cheese and it blew the Philadelphia veggie cream cheese out of the water. If my parents were alive they might think such a sentiment was blasphemy. Each half has a layer of butter. I really love cows.

Omg! I just tasted the Tillamook. Sorry, PA; Oregon wins again. Holy cow, it’s good.

My tea is mostly caffeinated because I got mixed up and thought it was my Tazo-originally a Portland, Oregon company-that was the decaf and the Bigalow that was caffeinated. This is what I get for not having coffee first. I freaked out my brain. I didn’t mean for this blog to be mostly about cows and Oregon, I swear. I do think Oregon has a lot of cows, though.

So, I will be ingesting more caffeine than usual. In the caffeine world this is the ranking: coffee has the most, black tea has half that, green tea has half as much as black tea, pure herbals have zero. I forget where white tea falls in that ranking, but I think it’s less than green tea. I’ll look it up and add it to the bottom of this.

I probably should not be having the dairy, but that’s what my body was craving and about all the energy I felt like using on food preparation.

I can’t believe how much more flavorful that Tillamook cream cheese is than the Philly. Maybe it’s the Pacific Ocean sea breezes that make the cows happy.

Making my tea did kind of make me wish I could find loose tea more often here, in the Orlando area. When I worked at Coffee People, in Portland we sold, probably, about 10-15 kinds of loose teas, including herbals, which are technically tisanes. Herbal teas are not teas because more than just the leaves are used in making them.

Because of my bathroom issue last night I put some crystallized ginger in the pot. I did that on a whim one night about five years ago and thought it was a great combination.

I took screenshots because energy is not really my friend today.