Tea of the day:

And a mysteriously silhouetted Downy Woodpecker. He's only here a) to provide some sort of photo for a short post, and b) because the blur of the chickadee flying beneath him made me laugh. I didn't see it at the time.

Anyway, today's (well, last night's since I'm not having any right now) tea is Super Ginger, courtesy of Christmas and my brother and sister-in-law (mostly my sister-in-law). As well as being my art supply enablers, you see, they're also my Christmas tea enablers.

Anyway, Super Ginger is what I had last night, and for which I broke one of my own new-tea rules. In general, even though I like a bit of sweet something-or-other in my teas I always make an effort to try new teas without anything at least once so that I can get a feel for the tea itself.

Not last night, though. I put in a little honey for the same reason that I tried this tea first from the selection, and that's because I don't like black pepper in teas. I mean, I like black pepper in itself; I just don't think it belongs in teas because it masks too many other flavours. Thus, the honey to gird myself somewhat against the pepper. Just a little bit of honey, mind. The tea itself has stevia in it already, so I didn't want to take the chance of oversweetening.

Well, I needn't have bothered. Turns out that ginger is as good at masking -- or at least settling down -- the taste of black pepper as it is at hiding green pepper.

A note to those who don't know: I really dislike green pepper. The only way I can eat it is with ginger beef.

Anyway (again), if you like ginger (and I do), you'll like this tea. As advertised, it's also very soothing to the throat, and helps open up the airways a bit. It would probably be decent for an upset stomach as well, given that ginger is good for that in general.

Would I buy it for myself? Probably. Especially if it was on sale.

Back to work now for me.