comfy tea gear

In the early days of this blog, I could always rely on Jeff for a snarky comment about something I was being particularly pedantic about here. But he continues to read semi-regularly, and is always game to try whatever tea I'm obsessed with at the moment.

He was over earlier today and we had four of five infusions of a Formosa Oolong in my new ceramic teapot. Aside from questioning why we had to drink out of the thimbleful ceramic cups that came with the teapot, he seemed to enjoy the way the taste developed from one infusion to the next.

Fast forward to the evening, and I'm at Jeff's to watch football. He has a reliable teapot he bought at Whittard in London years ago, and we typically drink a pot or two in the course of an evening. This was a nondescript mix of Indian black tea, but was tasty and certainly did the job.




And then he has a tea cozy , which he says used to seem obscenely touristy, but he's gotten used to. I assured him that at least it didn't scream LONDON in big block letters.







During the holiday festivities, Jeff was given a bizarre specimen of fruit, and I'm curious if any of you have a clue what in the world this could be. Any ideas?: