What is your favorite warm beverage? It’s February, and by now you have tweaked the art of finding comfort in a cup. Is it tea, coffee or a hot toddy?
Maybe it’s hot chocolate!
In promoting the Fifth Season of Downton Abbey, PBS used tea to tantalize. Twitter was chirping with the hashtag #BIGsip and illustrations of how to party like the British:
The tea at these fancy gatherings was probably brewed through ceramic or metal sieves. I doubt there was a tea bag in sight!
Once I was invited to a tea party at my professor’s home. There was a bold disclaimer on the invitation: Tea will NOT be served. Instead, there were other fanciful beverages, none of which was served warm. Twice I invited faculty to my home, and we actually had flavored tea – and coffee.
So, back to the question: What is your favorite warm beverage (and/or treat) this time of year? Spread some sugar, honey, or . . . .
A woman is like a tea bag ~ you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Eleanor Roosevelt
Bonus: RANDOM ACTS OF COFFEE! Coffee drinker pays it forward ordering coffee for the next 500 (gasp!) customers at Canadian coffee shop. Read all about it here!
Plain and Fancy 
I do them all and sometimes mix them up
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Welcome, Ariel. I wonder if you mean by mixing them up, that you mix coffee and tea together in the same cup, which I’ve heard people doing. Thank for visiting today; I hope to see you again here soon.
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I do mix coffee and tea but also cocoa and coffee or cocoa and mint green tea etc
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Good morning, Marian. I’m drinking coffee as I type this comment. 🙂 Although I like tea and cocoa, I am definitely a coffee drinker–that is any time of year and any time of day. During the winter, warm cider and mulled wine are also nice! Tea parties (with actual tea) are fun though, and I have gone to tea places to have afternoon tea with friends. Sometimes I have a cup of tea while watching Downton Abbey. 🙂
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How sweet that you visit here first thing in the morning with your cuppa coffee. Thank you! I notice that you adapt your beverages to moods and season – and TV shows. I agree – only tea would work with Downton Abbey viewing. (Well, maybe wine as the characters consume a lot of it.)
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I also want a big glass of red wine when I watch The Good Wife or Scandal. 🙂
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Ahh growing up as a child our grandmother would make us cafe con leche which today is called a latte. I love coffee. My house is like a Starbucks everyone who comes in drinks coffee cuban coffee of course I have the small little cups and saucers and my expresso machine. Now do change of my not consuming dairy. I’m making my home made chai tea with almond milk. Now the kids want to drink only almond milk which is costly yet good for them. I’m learning how to make home made almond milk. Changes. Yet my favorite is a latte. The smell of coffee in the morning is a great scent. My cousin got into organo gold coffee I joined to help her. But couldn’t drink it. I have a relationship with coffee I need to smell it brewing to prepare myself for that great taste of Java. Now I enjoy the brewing of cinnamon cardamom fennel anise and vanilla to make my chai tea. All great start for the morning and evenings. Great now that we have this wonderful snow. Have a nice day.
Gloria
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Your coffee/tea choices sound as varied as your Hispanic/PA Dutch cooking menus, which for you is as much about aroma as taste. Now you a trying homemade almond milk. Creative, inventive – that’s you, Gloria.
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Count me among those sipping a cup of coffee while commenting. Two cups of coffee in the morning sets my day off right. We drink green tea during break at the Tai Chi class I attend twice a week and sometimes hubby and I enjoy a cuppa in the afternoons. I have some specialty tea blends from Teavana that I enjoy.
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As a writer and reader, you must know the C. S. Lewis quote: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” And I notice that for you tea drinking is both a solitary and shared experience, quite like mine.
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I am sipping tea right now! I have a cupboard that is overflowing with white, red, green, flavoured, herbal, chai, etc. teas! I have loose leaf tea and bagged tea. And at least 7 tea pots! When I hosted card parties, everyone got their own tea cup & saucer, and sometimes their own pot! It feels decadent to bring out the polished silver pot and make a cup just for me!
I only get to see Downton Abbey on Netflix so I am a few seasons behind but really enjoy the show! 🙂
Thanks for sharing my Random Acts of Coffee too – you’re a sweetie!
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Your “Random Acts” post was choice. It takes the ritual of coffee drinking to a whole new level. I hope you get many clicks there today. The polished silver pot and fancy tea cup seems no more decadent than a bubble bath. You/We deserve both!
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I start my day with a hot steaming cup of Earl Grey Tea, then switch to herbals the rest of the day. I love tea. Also hot spiced cider is great on those chilly fall afternoons.
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Joan, as a writer you would enjoy Anne Patchett on tea: “Writing is a job, a talent, but it’s also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.” I imagine tea fuels your writing and herbals keep you healthy. 🙂
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Good morning Marian. I am enjoying my third cup of English Breakfast tea this morning (decaf, thank you). I once upon a time loved coffee each morning. Alas, coffee is one of the treats I’ve given up as the years make decisions about my body and do not consulted me. But, like Joan, I enjoy a nice hot cup of cider now and again, especially if it has a cinnamon stick in it. Yum
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Having to give up coffee is not all bad: At least you don’t have to measure out your life in coffee spoons any more like T. S. Eliot mentions. Tea and cider are warm drinks too, warming the soul, which is the important thing after all. Now, I’m hopping over to your blog post, Janet.
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I enjoy a nice cup of tea, preferably herbal as I too have had to cut back on caffeine. A green tea first thing in the morning though helps me get a good start on the day. For a treat, I will have a hot chocolate occasionally. My British husband introduced me to having a nice cup of tea when I met him 40 years ago.
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Tea always suggests refinement to me, but it might also suggest seduction to you having your boyfriend introduce you to the British tea ritual.
Now I wonder whether you are have sampled any Spanish teas. Thanks for commenting, Darlene.
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I’ll likely never give up the hot coffee and the cold diet Cokes. My favorite hot tea is one my Jamaican friends turned me onto, Red Sorrel. It is a deep red hibiscus tea. It’s the calyx of the plant the tea is made from, not the petals or leaves. The calyx is very fleshy and tart to taste. When brewed, the rich red tea has the flavor of West Indian spices even though none have been added. I grew my own for several years until my lawn man accidentally chopped it down. It made great shrubs and was harvested just before Christmas, so it made a beautiful holiday tea. We drank it iced also. There is a store brand called Red Zinger, which is close but has a bunch of other ingredients, not purely sorrel.
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I have never heard of red sorrel, but since I like spiciness, it would probably appeal to me. Also, you mentioned red zinger, used in a punch recipe chef Ina Garten raved about on her show. And so I made it – once!
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It ‘s tea first thing , tea at three with a toasted teacake or a custard cream and coffee at eleven, for any other season, but while the snow is on the ground, and frost in the air, it has to be hot chocolate with a scattering of marshmallows.
When I used to visit my parents, at our family home, if got there at 2.30 pm I would say ‘Ok when’s the kettle going on then ‘ and Dad would look at the clock and say’It’s not three o clock yet’ aggggghhhh! I used to go potty at him and I’m doing it myself now lol …He said I would .
Cherryx
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You serve many of your comments with a dash of humor, and I see that in your conversation with your dad. Yay, for English tea time!
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Marian — I love any and all loose leaf tea from “Tea Forte.” As we speak I’m enjoy a hot cuppa Citrus Mint. Delicious!
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Laurie, you have wonderful suggestions for tea flavors, just like the intriguing candle scents you suggested for the Christmas season. Thank you, always!
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Count me in as one of your avid fans that loves coffee. To me I love a fresh cup of coffee without all the do-dads. For me Starbucks coffees are often too strong for my taste since I usually try not to bleach it with creamers or some unknown syrups with exotic names from some foreign country that doesn’t exist.
In the northern part of Florida where I live Chick-Fil-A is offering a free cup of coffee during February to introduce it to their customers. You would think that the only thing you could find at Chick-Fil-A is chicken, waffle fries and soft drinks (or freshly squeezed lemonade). Wrong. They’ve recently added a great cup of coffee from a special coffee grower. It’s great and even my tea-loving wife loves it. Now that’s an advertisement.
And so…I’ll soon have my wish. What would make it better is if I brought in my own ceramic mug from Scotland…and continue creating as an artist with a hot steaming cup of coffee.
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Tea or coffee: It has to be HOT, the only way to connect to the creative juices as you certainly do!
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I’m coffee in the mornings, tea in the afternoons, and sometimes hot chocolate at night.
Love a good “high tea” as a treat when visiting England or another UK country.
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I stick with tea and hot chocolate unless I’m with friends or sisters. Then it’s coffee in the morning. By the way, once again we are writing about similar themes this week, and I will be sharing your most excellent post on “naming” with my readers.
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Coffee in the mornings and tea in the afternoon…
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A nice balance of tastes and moods – one to get you going in the mornings and the other, perhaps, for relaxation. Thanks, Lady Fi!
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Although I’m English and tea is supposed to be our national drink I hate it. I can’t even stand the smell of it. Coffee on the other hand is something I drink way too much of. Maybe it’s because my name is French 🙂
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An English tea hater – I love it. You are one of a kind, Marie! Well, maybe not. . . .
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