National Novel Writing Month starts today!!! For those who haven’t heard of it, every November NaNoWriMo provides an online community for aspiring authors. The goal is for each writer to finish a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. When I did it last year, it was a lot of hard work but super rewarding!
I decided not to do NaNo this year, but it was a REALLY tough decision. I’m already itching to take part, and it’s only day one! Still, I promise I have a good reason for tapping out. I’m actually working on a HUGE blog project right now (which I hope to be able to tell you more about soon!), and I knew I wouldn’t have the extra time to devote to NaNo.
Since I can’t participate this year, I thought I’d show support for the other participants by doing a NaNo-themed post series. Lots of NaNoers use tea and coffee as a reward for reaching their daily word counts, so I thought it would be fun to share a special book-themed tea each week of NaNo. Thus the 5 Teas of NaNo were born!
When it came time to design a tea for my Edgar Allan Poe menu, Adagio’s Earl Grey Moonlight immediately came to mind. It’s a twist on the traditional Earl Grey blend, adding creme flavor to the original. But how to make it my own? Blackberry tea is an old favorite of mine, which I thought would complement the creme well and add some dark, sweet notes that would tie in with the Poe theme. All that was left to do was add cornflowers for color, and my Edgar Allan Poe tribute tea was complete!
Time to premiere our Sherlock Holmes tea! I had a lot of fun developing this blend. As I’ve stated in the past, Adagio Teas already has a TON of unique Earl Grey blends, so I decided not to make an Earl Grey, even though it was the first flavor to occur to me.
Plus, Sherlock actually isn’t the biggest fan of tea in the books—he prefers coffee! So I decided to make a coffee-inspired tea blend. It’s been a long time since I played with Adagio’s mocha-flavored teas (the last time was when I made a Hercule Poirot tea), so I got to step outside my comfort zone a little bit. I knew I wanted something smoky and intense to evoke the feeling of a wood-paneled Victorian study, a roaring fireplace, and pipe smoke. Adagio’s Mocha Nut Mate with a little Gunpowder Green tea did just that! 🙂
Considering I couldn’t choose just one Studio Ghibli movie for my menu this month, it’s not that surprising that I couldn’t make just one tea either. I mean, I felt I HAD to make a Totoro tea since Totoro is so awesome, but I also couldn’t stop thinking of how fun it would be to make a tropical Ponyo tea…or a tea based on the cake from Kiki’s Delivery Service! But which one to choose?
All of them. I chose all of them. And I’m not even a little bit sorry. 😉
I actually designed this tea almost a year before I read the book A Little Princess. I’ve loved the movie for ages, so I thought it would be fun to make a tea inspired by it!
Masala chai originated in India, so I knew it would be the perfect starting point for my tea. But how to make it unique? I decided to blend it with chocolate chai to add some sweetness to the spice. Then I added a touch of vanilla to even out the flavors, and voilà:a chai reminiscent of spicy hot chocolate, perfect for a little girl like Sara Crewe! 🙂
Today we’re continuing our Star Trek menu with a trio of Trek-themed teas. Anyone familiar with the show might be expecting Captain Picard’s signature “tea, Earl Grey, hot,” but Adagio Teas (the site were I blend my teas) has ten versions of Earl Grey that are all super delicious. I honestly didn’t think I could improve them, so instead I decided to make three teas, each dedicated to one of the three service divisions in Star Fleet! The flavor profile of each tea is themed on its division’s signature color: Command Red, Sciences Blue, and Operations Gold.
Ready to boldly go where no tea drinker has gone before? 😉
Arrietty’s cherry tree has always stood out to me as one of the most iconic objects from The Borrowers. It’s in full bloom when she goes outside for the very first time, and it’s where she meets her first friend, the Boy! Of course, I knew as soon as I started planning a Borrower tea that it would be cherry tree themed. I think Arrietty would approve! 🙂
It’s time to premiere our Series of Unfortunate Events tea! When brainstorming ideas for this tea, my first thought went to Esmé Squalor, the Baudelaires’ guardian in the 6th Unfortunate Events book. Esmé is obsessed with all things “in,” and this obsession leads her to drink crazy concoctions like parsley soda and aqueous martinis—all in the name of fashion. Of course, there was NO WAY I was making a parsley tea, so I set my sights on the martini. In truth, the aqueous martini isn’t really a martini, since alcohol was “out” when it was created Instead, it’s simply ice cold water in a martini glass with an olive. I liked the idea of something crisp, simple, and classy, so I used that as my inspiration. Channeling the cucumber and mint infused waters I’ve been seeing at parties lately, I went with a white cucumber base and added spearmint to make it extra refreshing. The results make a perfect iced tea!
Normally I feel like March drags on FOREVER (perpetually gray skies are NOT my thing), but this year I had loads of exciting blog stuff to keep me busy!
Our Three Musketeers menu went off without a hitch. Five shiny new recipes are now tucked safely away in the archives. This month, I made my very first copycat recipes, and I did them back-to-back: 3 Musketeers candy bars and Cafe Angelina’s French hot chocolate! I made mini versions of the candy bars for my family’s Easter party, and they were a big hit. And my oh my, the French sure know their hot chocolate! For a chocoholic like me, it was like drinking liquid happiness. Milady de Winter’s Soup
I also premiered a delicious new tea. While we’re on the topic of 3 Musketeers bars, I should probably mention All for One and One for All Tea: my new chocolate caramel tea from Adagio. I designed it to taste like a 3 Musketeers bar, and I daresay I succeeded. It’s super chocolaty and sweet enough to make a perfect dessert tea with a some milk and sugar. You can order it here.
On a more embarrassing note, I had my very first blogging snafu this month. For some reason I cannot fathom, I thought it would be a good idea to schedule my Drunken Ham post before it was finished…and I accidentally scheduled it to publish a day early! The post was up for an ENTIRE HOUR before I realized the mistake, and although all the text was ok, the pictures were all placeholders from old posts (I hadn’t uploaded the edited pics yet). YIKES! Lesson learned.
The Mister and I went to C2E2, a Chicago comic con, where we had a blast. There were babies dressed up as BB-8, steampunk cosplayers selling tea, and SO MUCH FAN ART. It was perfectly awesome…though I may have dropped the ball and forgotten to get us tickets for some key YA fiction panels, which would have been perfect for the blog. * sigh * C’est la vie, I guess? Anyway, I promise to plan better next time! 🙂
We also threw a Daredevil party to marathon Season 1 before Season 2 came out on Netflix. I didn’t have time to make a post about it, but I shared the food in some tweets. We made Kingpin Omelets (which were basically the Aramis Omelets I made earlier this month), Anatoly Applesauce (this recipe from Taste of Home), Avocados at Law (aka Epic Meal Time Guac Grenades), and World on Fire Cupcakes (which are the same as my Girl on Fire cupcakes from The Hunger Games). All the food was well-received, but I think I had the most fun with the Avocados at Law! 🙂
But now it’s time to bid March adieu and turn our gaze towards April. Ready for your photo hint? Take a guess at what our next Book of the Month will be:
HINT: It’s a series.
The new menu premieres this Thursday!
Any guesses at what our next Book of the Month will be? 🙂
You may recall I had trouble deciding what flavors to use in my X-Files tea last month, but with this tea I had no such problem. A tea based off The Three Musketeers book HAS to taste like a 3 Musketeers candy bar, right? I’m sure there’s a law about it somewhere. So I combined Adagio’s Tiger’s Eye, Chocolate, and Caramel teas with cocoa nib and cinnamon inclusions to make the ultimate chocolate caramel tea. You’re welcome. 😉
All for One and One for All Tea
A delicious mix of chocolate and caramel with just a touch of cinnamon. Inspired by the candy bar of musketeer fame!
Seriously, guys, this is the tea equivalent of a 3 Musketeers bar, and it’s AWESOME. Tiger’s Eye tea is a chocolate-caramel blend from Adagio, and I used that as my base, adding extra chocolate and caramel flavored teas until I reached the desired balance of the two. Then I kicked it up a notch with cocoa nibs to intensify the chocolate flavor and cinnamon…because cinnamon makes everything better! The final result is rich and sweet, which I think is fitting. With some milk and sugar, it makes a perfect dessert tea!
