interviwed by devreux

[cellio]

The interview parlor game is back.

1. What's your favorite tea? Favorite coffee?

I don't have a single favorite tea, but there's a short list. I should clarify that my tea experience largely involves tea bags, not loose tea; I know you can get some really great stuff in loose form and I just haven't explored that world yet. (Where do you start? It's overwhelming.)

Stash makes an orange spiced black tea that I'm quite fond of. Most orange tea is decaf and non-black; this isn't. This is strong and bold and tasty and well-blended. I'm also fond of spearmint (not peppermint!) tea and chai.

I don't like the taste of coffee. I've encountered some nice-smelling flavored coffees but didn't like the taste (too coffee-y). I don't know if coffee is a lost cause or if there is some property of the bean or roast or something that is commonly used and that I don't like. (For example, I spent a long time thinking I didn't like beer, when what I really don't like is hops. I don't know if there's something like that going on with coffee.)

2. I don't know if your vision has ever been significantly better than it is now, and I've never seen you in contact lenses, presumably because they can't make 'em strong enough. Do you have any meaningful concept of what your own face looks like without glasses? (I had a post once back here on the subject.) Do you remember people's faces at all well, or do you recognize people more by some other method?

My vision has always been pretty bad. (For which I think, given the current state, I'm grateful; I'd rather have never had than have had and lost.) I have had two contact-lens episodes in my life, once in first grade (wasn't my idea, didn't work) and once in my 20s. The latter time required glasses as well; the advantage (reason to try the experiment) was that they'd be much lighter. This ended up being worst of both worlds, not a happy compromise, so when facing the prospect of contact lenses at Pennsic after nearly a year of wearing them at home, I instead punted and went back to my old glasses.

I don't really have a good concept of what my face looks like without glasses, no. Interesting question, and I enjoyed reading your post about it. My passport photo (for which I was required to remove the glasses) is horrendous, but that's because the guy said something to me and snapped it as I was responding. Bah. So I can't judge from that, other than that my face is rounder than I thought it was.

I am terrible at recognizing faces. The sooner someone speaks the happier I am; I recognize a lot of people by voice. I think there's a strong visual component to this, but I think there's a neural component -- I've heard of a condition that boils down to "face blindness", and it's a parsing or memory thing, not a vision thing. What I've read about it resonates a lot. You know how sometimes people will use Photoshop to put friends' or coworkers' or celebrities' faces on other people in photos for humorous effect? That never works on me. I don't know who those people are if you just take a face (often not even hair). Gah. And sometimes I fail to recognize even people I know well in an unusual context; for example, I once didn't recognize my own rabbi until he spoke, because we were in a grocery store and he was wearing a cap, t-shirt, and jeans. And I never, ever see the resemblance when someone says a baby looks just like its father (or mother, or Aunt Mabel, or whatever).

3. Have you ever seriously considered a vegetarian lifestyle?

Vegetarian, no, though "no meat except fish" would work well, I think. I'm practically there now, though we do eat meat for Shabbat and occasional other meals. I eat fish three or four times a week.

Part of the challenge of any dietary change is that I'm not the only one who's affected, unless I want to cook two different dinners each night. But Dani isn't the only reason I don't go straight veggie; my perception is that it's a lot more work to eat vegetarian and healthily than it is to do what I'm doing, and I don't have the offsetting commitment to some ideal (health, ethical, religious) to motivate me to do that work. Once I get past "vegetarian 101" (rice + beans = complete protein; so does tofu; dairy is good but the doctor says to go easy), I find I don't really know just what I'm supposed to eat day to day. I grok the veggie part; it's the other things (protein, calcium, iron, ...) that bring me up short.

4. What would you be doing with your time if you weren't in the SCA?

Probably more of what I started doing when I began to back off from the SCA -- stuff with my congregation, religious studies, maybe a little more board-gaming, possibly a little more TV-watching (well, Netflix). The barony choir is much more interesting to me than my synagogue's choir, but if the former weren't available to me I might join the latter.

5. If you could eliminate one negative aspect of your personality by sacrificing one positive aspect, would you do it? What characteristics would you give up/lose?

In thinking about this for a while, I think the answer is "no". I don't think traits can be so easily isolated; I think it's all, good and bad, tangled up in one big ball that makes "me". I do try to work on the things I see as negative, but since that's a gradual process there's time for the system to adapt. And as for the positives, well, I want to hang onto the things I'm getting right, even though there are also things I'm getting wrong. So while I can certainly identify negatives I'd like to lose and there are some positives that seem minor enough that I'm tempted to think I'd win that trade, I'd be too chicken to actually make the deal. I'd rather keep the warts I know than find out I have new warts to get acquainted with.

Comments

[alienor.livejournal.com]

I should clarify that my tea experience largely involves tea bags, not loose tea; I know you can get some really great stuff in loose form and I just haven't explored that world yet. (Where do you start? It's overwhelming.)

What kind of tea bags are you using? Paper bags or sachets? Paper bags are typically filled with fannings and dust, and you can get a lot of the benefits of loose tea without some of the overwhelming "what do with do with this plant material??" if you just switch to a premium sachet.

Some places to look for sachets (if you aren't already using them (and I'm guessing that you aren't, since you mention Stash) are Lupicia (http://www.lupiciausa.com/), Harney & Sons (http://www.harney.com/) and Tea Forte (http://www.teaforte.com/).

Personally, I haven't yet had a bad tea from Lupicia (bagged... their Pumpkin Spice loose wasn't Pumpkin-y at ALL), I'm running about 50/50 with Harney, and I haven't tried Tea Forte.

I'd suggest just looking for types that you know you like.

Also, Steepster (http://www.steepster.com) is a great community to read about teas. I'm denisend on there.

If you want to try loose teas, let me know and I'll suggest some brewers and such to help you get started, just let me know what type of environment you're in (do you have access to a sink, electrical outlets, etc).

[cellio]

Thanks for the recommendations.

In the context of tea, what's a sachet? The tea I tend to keep on hand comes in what I think of as typical tea bags, individually wrapped in paper or foil, boxes/packets sealed in plastic. Recommendations for improvements on this definitely welcome.

I know what to do with a teaball; I don't know how to choose good contents for one (especially if I can' smell or sample the tea first). When I make tea at home I have all the usual kitchen accessories. At work I have a microwave and a sink. Either way, I'm often making it just for me, so aim for mugs rather than pots.

[alienor.livejournal.com]

This article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/dining/13tea.html) from the NY times talks about sachets, including some pictures. The benefit of sachets over the bags that you're used to is that (1) they're filled with a higher quality of leaf and (2) there's more room in the bag for the leaves to unfurl as they absorb water (which makes a better tea).

Sachets have all of the convenience of normal bags, but most of the improved taste of loose leaf. This is what I drink at work since dealing with loose leaf is too much of a PitA for me.

---

How to figure out what to buy... it's really the same as figuring anything out. Try anything that sounds interesting (in small quantities) and figure out what you like.

I'm learning that as much as I think I like nut flavors... I really *don't* like them. I need to quit buying them.

But, seriously... my Steepster cupboard has 59 teas in it right now (that's stuff that I have a couple of ounces of at least, not just enough to make a cup or two). I could easily put together a beginning sampler set if you'd like.

And when you get more into it, you start to play with it a bit more. Nathaniel will just open random cans and mix them together. He made the most AWESOME southern sweet tea the other day doing that...

(continued)

[alienor.livejournal.com]

For brewing... I don't personally care much for tea balls. There's not much room in there for the tea to do its thing.

An ideal tea setup has to allow for several things:
1) proper temperature (which varies depending on the type of tea you're brewing - 180-210)
2) proper timing (2-8 minutes or so, depending on the tea)
3) proper surface area (I suppose is a way to say that - that the leaves aren't all squished together)

So, sometimes I get weird results at work because the water from the water cooler is about 190 degrees and black tea should have boiling water. It's non ideal, but it takes a lot longer to properly boil the water (and I feel like I have to sit on the electric kettle in the break room because it whistles).

OTOH, if you use boiling water for green or white tea, you'll kill the flavors, so it's important to either have a kettle with temperature settings (like the Upton Tea Imports Electric Kettle (https://secure.uptontea.com/shopcart/item.asp?from=catalog.asp&itemID=AK16&begin=0&parent=Accessories%3ETeaware%3EElectric+Kettles&category=Upton+Tea+Imports&sortMethod=0&categoryID=0)) or a thermometer (the CDN is well recommended (http://www.amazon.com/Component-Design-TT1-Digital-Thermometer/dp/B0021AEA8U/)).

I made some black tea at Mom's tonight by heating water in the microwave... what a PitA. It can be done, but I much prefer a kettle.

For loose tea, I started off with a Teavana Easy Tea Steeper (http://www.teavana.com/Teavana+Easy+Tea+Steeper/edp_no=4042/shop.axd/ProductDetails). There's a number of similar devices on the market (Adagio (http://www.adagio.com) has one, and they're a real popular loose tea seller, but so far I've only been impressed with their chai, and not terribly impressed with that; I'm still working my way through my sampler order).

The cheapest of the easy brewing options I've seen is this pot (http://www.teagarden.com/steeping-pot-c-45-p-2-pr-517.html) from Tea Garden, but I haven't tried any of their tea.

And if dealing with water temperature and time is too much trouble, we also have the Zarafina (http://www.amazon.com/Zarafina-Maker-Suite-Ceramic-Serving/dp/B000HJNJNO/). It does have a bit of a smaller brewing basket than I'd like, but it makes excellent tea by just telling it what type of tea you have.