bah humbug...give me a white monkey

monkeys and tea? what's the deal, yo?

It's almost Christmas, which means I should probably be writing a holiday-themed blogpost, but that'll simply have to wait. This is NOT a holiday-themed blogpost. 

I'm irritable and frustrated and don't want much to do with either the holidays or humanity in general. So, how am I going to spend the next little while? 

With a bit of White Monkey tea that I got from Claus Kröger in Hamburg. Why?

Because I'm assuming that monkeys enjoy themselves even when the going gets rough. And I'm curious why there are so many monkey-related things when it comes to tea. 

Oolong-picking monkeys have already played a very central role on this blog when Lisa Galaviz went to the Galleria in hopes of setting the monkeys at the tea shop free. Here's Don't tell her it's not tea for your reading pleasure.

And here's Lisa's update on the topic in How can they still be out of monkeys?

Just rereading her gem of a blogpost and even a few moments of mine have put me in a bit better mood. Maybe this tea lark isn't so bad, after all.

drinking tea that I can reach

Maybe I'll live here for a while

Am living out of suitcases right now while I search for a new flat, which means the contents of my tea cupboard is in my rucksack and in various boxes that're either strewn about the hotel room I'm in or in my friend Wolfgang's extra room.

Under normal circumstances, I think a lot about what the ideal tea is for this or that situation. Lately, I've simply grabbed the nearest sack of tea and brewed up. Sometimes, it's been the dregs of a shipment of Assam Mangalam, which is one of my favourite teas to drink in the morning or other times it's been the Ambagastowa Ceylon, which I got from a new supplier in Reutlingen (Spezialitäten-Compagnie).

However, what I've been a bit surprised at is that I keep reaching for really excellent Darjeeling. I should blog about each of these teas in detail, but I don't have the time for that at the moment. As it is, I found in the past that when the weather was cold and snowy, I didn't avoid tea from Darjeeling, but I didn't gravitate toward it, either.

While I was in Hamburg a few months ago, I got a few really nice Darjeelings from both Teehaus Shila and the first tea shop I used when I got into drinking this stuff in earnest - Claus Kröger.

It's very unlikely that I'll do a traditional tea review of any of these teas (I've simply decided not to waste my time with that ridiculousness anymore), but I do hope one of my upcoming posts can go into more detail about these particular teas. If I'd like to get back into the habit of posting here on my teablog, I could do with a topic or two that I'm passionate about.

Darjeeling tea has never done me wrong on that front.