Friday!

Here we go...Te Saga of the Road, Part X. They called from Knoxville, TN last night, from the middle of a deluge--Russ said they could not see the road at a point. Estimated Time of Arrival: Saturday afternoon. Truck is full, weather is not-so-good, and they'll be driving Arkansas roads for the second half of today and tomorrow. Ah, the memories...:-)
I am yearning for decent teas today. Madeline made some Lapsang Souchong for us while visiting SF, and here I am, planning on running an errand today to TNL, the wonderful Oriental store just around the corner, to see if I remember right and they stock Lapsang. And I need to check on the condition of my stock of Ti-Kuan-Yin as well. I know I still have Dragonwell, though...I am planning on bringing some to work, to drink instead of the Office Mud they offer here. Ya know: looks like coffee, smells like coffee, but...
In Budapest, there were two great tea stores I stocked up on a regular basis; there was Demmers, with its elegantly British feel and wonderful scented teas, and there was the other one on Vaci street, whose name escapes me, but I know they had a blue dotted teapot above their gate as their sign, and they had a totally Oriental feel to them, and you could sit in the courtyard and sip tea from the delicately tiny plain white porcelain cups, with the refill black teapot in front of you, and they served some good tea snacks too...Best Bai-Mu-Dan and Ti-Kuan-Yin I've ever tasted...and I am still searching for that Georgian tea Russ had there. It is harder to get that stuff here in the US than in a formed Soivet-block country. They also had a blend I think they called the caravan blend, if I remember right, and it was a pretty strong black blend too, dusky, with hints of smoke, conjuring glimpses of roads stretching far into the desert and mountains.