What is in your cup?

[kindlekitten]

lapsang souchong

[desertblues]

Cold Arabica-coffee

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by desertblues

I would say French, as Spanish has these verbs associated with ' going to' etc. I found French grammar somewhat easier and more logical, but Spanish is spoken by more people than French. I love French though; was once engaged to a Frenchman...oo..perhaps that's why.

Astra: you're right. One has to have a certain flair for it. But it can give you so much freedom; knowing a few languages.

I find French orthography is harder to grasp, and in paraphrastic tenses (using a participle and a helper verb), French has avoir and etre depending on whether the verb is used transitively or not, Spanish just uses haber. Not that I think Spanish is much easier, only slightly, and it really a personal thing - no language is harder than another per se, it's just our perspective that deems it so. I love both languages (I have a B.A in French, and I went to an extended French high school, but my Spanish is not bad, I can read novels in Spanish, albeit quite slowly).

[Fbone]

Yorkshire Gold ... it's not my favorite, though.

[phenomshel]

Diet Dr Pepper. I'm out of my Country Peach Passion CS. I haven't gotten around to trying anymore of the Adagio teas yet. With a rate of three failures and only one success, I'm being a lot more cautious with those.

I need something that tastes as good as the Country Peach Passion CS, but yet has caffeine... I have yet to find a black tea flavored strongly enough to even come close.

[LaurieGator]

Spiced tea - a concoction of lemon dry tea mix, Tang, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg :-)

I have had one h*ll of a sinus headache for 2 solid days. I am maxed out on decongestant and Naproxin so I am trying hot beverages to try to loosen up the sinuses so the pressure goes down a little bit...

[Latinandgreek]

Cranberry tea, with a teaspoon of honey.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

I find French orthography is harder to grasp, and in paraphrastic tenses (using a participle and a helper verb), French has avoir and etre depending on whether the verb is used transitively or not, Spanish just uses haber. Not that I think Spanish is much easier, only slightly, and it really a personal thing - no language is harder than another per se, it's just our perspective that deems it so. I love both languages (I have a B.A in French, and I went to an extended French high school, but my Spanish is not bad, I can read novels in Spanish, albeit quite slowly).

I think that Slavic tend to have a flair for foreign languages, on my father's side they were partially from Slovenia and one of my uncles had more than 10 languages. Also I have friends from Poland that speak everything. I have English for second (7 years in school + living there + ...) and French for 3rd (wife for 14 years). Can manage Spanish, spoken and read (more difficult than spoken). Can travel in German and Portuguese. For an Italian, French is the easiest to read, Spanish to understand when spoken. Portuguese it takes about a month there (I mean in Brazil) to get the rythm than it goes easy. Tried hard Norwegian (girlfriend for 2 years): no way (ha ha). We managed in English, and that is why it did not click, may be. But she was so pretty that the whole affair was a terrible waste of incredible potential. Great skier also. Great cook. Good dancer. Blonde.

Can see movies in English, French and Spanish.

Can use Windows in Rumanch (Swiss 4th official language). Useless talent except when I go in Engadina and use the hotel PC. I understand Rumanch if they go slowly, which they do traditionally. Not all of them though, expecially on skiis. It is like Western Lombard with triple umlaut. You know, the 2 dots over "u". The ones that French to prounounce that sound shape their mouth like the rear anatomy of the chicken.

Coffee

[desertblues]

Last dregs of cold coffee. Good night all.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by astra

I know this one. Tried it. Not my tea. It has bergamot in it (like in Earl Grey). For some reason I cannot stand even the tiniest little bit of it.
Long time ago I bought Ahmad's English Breakfast and English Afternoon. I didn't know much about teas. I liked Breakfast. I can confidently say it was the first time I liked black loose tea

I can't stand bergamot so when I read what you wrote I couldn't understand why I liked the Ahmed tea so much!!
So I ran into the kitchen and looked at the tin...:
I had picked up the wrong package! . Thinking I was grabbing Ahmad English #1, I actually took Ahmad's English Breakfast tea which was right beside it! I guess this turned out to be a lucky break for me because if there had been even the slightest taste of bergamot I would have thrown it all away immediately. So for the past couple of days, all my praise and raves about Ahmad's was actually for the English Breakfast tea! Who knew?

Remember that I mentioned having tried Ahmad before and not liking it... It must have been the English #1, as if it had any flavoring to it other than pure tea I wouldn't have even finished the cup!

But I'm on my second mug of Ahmads already, and loving it. No flowers... just tea!


Stitchawl

[Stitchawl]

I woke up one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.

Nasty, snow/rain morning, just right for hot tea. Maybe I'll bake some muffins to go along with it. No hurry to go riding this morning...

phenomshel wrote:
I need something that tastes as good as the Country Peach Passion CS, but yet has caffeine... I have yet to find a black tea flavored strongly enough to even come close.

Shel, do what I do when I can't find something I want... Make it yourself. In this case, take a strong black tea (a Ceylon will work but Assam might be better,) and add a few drops of your favorite fruit flavored syrup! A liquor store probably will have the largest selection of syrups. Don't use too much or the sweetness will affect the flavor of the teas.

Beppe wrote: The ones that French to prounounce that sound shape their mouth like the rear anatomy of the chicken.

Oh, the visual mental images one can create with just the written words is simply amazing...

I agree that in today's world it pays to speak/read as many languages as you can. Being a native English speaker, learning French and Spanish came fairly easily. German had to be beaten into me, Hebrew too. Fortunately, learning Japanese was made easier by living in the country, as was Thai and Bhassa Malay. Trying to learn Korean on my own was simply nuts!

But it was all worth it. I can now ask for directions to the toilet in many different languages. And if you don't think that's really important, you haven't traveled enough!

It's also helpful when trying to order a cup of tea and get it served the way you want it served rather than the way the rest of the local folks insist upon drinking. In Malaysia, tea and coffee are ALWAYS served in a glass that has been pre-filled to the half-way mark with sweetened condensed milk!


Stitchawl

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Diet Dr Pepper. I'm out of my Country Peach Passion CS. I haven't gotten around to trying anymore of the Adagio teas yet. With a rate of three failures and only one success, I'm being a lot more cautious with those.

I need something that tastes as good as the Country Peach Passion CS, but yet has caffeine... I have yet to find a black tea flavored strongly enough to even come close.

if you have good access to Celestial Seasonings, try their Mandarin Orange Spice

Originally Posted by LaurieGator

Spiced tea - a concoction of lemon dry tea mix, Tang, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg :-)

I have had one h*ll of a sinus headache for 2 solid days. I am maxed out on decongestant and Naproxin so I am trying hot beverages to try to loosen up the sinuses so the pressure goes down a little bit...

go into the bathroom turn the shower on as HOT as possible, do not get in the shower, just sit on the stool in the steam for as long as possible

[bjones6416]

I apparently really like bergamot, because Earl Grey is one of my favorite teas so far.

As for the language thing, I am truly embarrassed at my lack of language skills among all of you multilingual people. I can't wholly blame the educational system here, but it historically hasn't been high on the priority list of things to teach. Yes, you generally get a language class in elementary and high school (my school taught Spanish -- the only choice), and I took a few quarters in college, but wasn't in-depth at all. I haven't used the little bit I knew until recently when the population here has become more diverse, and I'm now taking evening classes to try and get up to speed. It is very common for the people born in this part of the country to not know ANY other language besides English, and I hate that.

(When my nephew's Thai in-laws were here for a visit, they got very tickled at our difficulty in picking up on the tonal aspect of Thai. Change the tone and you may accidentally say something VERY different I guess! )

[ProfCrash]

I love my Earl Grey. I have narrowed it down from 5 Earl Greys to two.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

It is very common for the people born in this part of the country to not know ANY other language besides English, and I hate that.

The old joke is;
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language? American.

When my nephew's Thai in-laws were here for a visit, they got very tickled at our difficulty in picking up on the tonal aspect of Thai. Change the tone and you may accidentally say something VERY different I guess! )

VERY different, and sometimes embarrassing!
The word for 'water buffalo' is the same sound (with a different tone) than the slang word for 'penis.' You have to be verrrrry careful when you ask someone to hold your water buffalo...
Being deaf, I can't hear them very well, but Thai uses five tones! I had to learn to say them without being able to hear them.
The same word said with each different tone has five different meanings. You can use the Thai word 'ma' repeated five times with each tone and get the sentence 'the Thai silk is burning!' (This includes regional dialects.)
There are also some vocal sounds in Thai that don't occur in any other language, and took us years to be able to 'almost' say them correctly! The Thai "ng" sound is made in the back of the throat, almost with the nose!

There is a lot of tea grown in Thailand by the Hmong hill tribe villages, who sell it as mostly green tea with a little bit of oolong too. I never saw any that was processed into a black tea. The Hmong had to switch to tea growing when the governments cracked down on poppy production.


Stitchawl