I'm into tea these days. I used to make my cuppa (or anybody else's) with bog-standard teabags and drink it at breakfast time and sometime in the afternoon. Same tea and same taste. It has all changed now.
When I went to Tokyo a few months ago I bought a few teacups, plates (a picture in this post), a little vase, and a small cast iron teapot from Nanbu. This little teapot has entirely changed my approach towards tea. Making tea has since become some sort of daily ritual, and it's great fun.
First step was to finish off all the rubbish teabags. I then went to supermarket to find some interesting tea leaves. It was a very disappointing shopping trip. There was just one type of loose tea leaves - ubiquitous English Breakfast Tea. I realised that the general public in England don't use loose tea leaves any more and I was greatly saddened.
My (ex) mother-in-law makes her tea by mixing Lapsang Souchong (smoked tea), Early Grey, and a bog-standard teabag, so I thought I would do the same and went around to a local tea shop. No Lapsang... I've given up and bought one bag of Early Grey and another of inescapable English Breakfast Tea. I mixed them and put into a glass jar for now.
Yesterday, coincidentally, someone very kindly gave me a luxurious box of three tins with different tea - Kyoto sencha (green tea), Kuromame cha (Japanese roasted soya bean tea), and Garam Assam Chai. How's that?! (Actually, it was my birthday yesterday :D) This tea is from this company/shop in London. Name? It's a secret! I now have four tea tins on my kitchen shelf, and my afternoon tea today was Chai - no more English builder's tea.
Nothing to do with tea, but this is what I had this evening.
Ingredients (for 1 person):
half a pack of mixed salad leaves
6 stalks asparagus
1 cougette, sliced thickly and diagonally
some cherry tomatoes on the vine
half a pack of halloumi cheese
Set a thick-based grill pan on a high heat and get it really really hot. You can dribble some olive oil on the pan if you are prepared to have a lot of greasy smoke in your kitchen. I'm not, so I lay all the vegetables straight on the pan. You have to be patient and not fiddle the veg, otherwise you won't get these nice charred marks.
Put all the grilled veg in a bowl and sprinkle some olive oil, salt, and black pepper. Slice the cheese and grill them very quickly.
Spread the mixed leaves on a plate and arrange the veg and cheese nicely. Sprinkle some more olive oil and some lemon juice.