Sunday, January 01, 2006

Honey be good

One small pleasure I've discovered over the last couple of years is honeybush tea. I've not had much truck with herbal teas on the whole, finding that they flatter to deceive with their aromas, but this is something different; it lacks the caffeine and much of the tannin so I can drink it late in the evening, but still resembles conventional tea closely enough for a refusenik like me - in fact we even served it to some removal men once and they didn't spit on the carpet (sorry guys if you're reading this). Best of all, it doesn't smell of anything that it doesn't also taste of.

Recently I haven't been seeing any on the shelves though. I've done a little research online which suggests that it may simply be out of season, but what's been more interesting has been the story of its
use to help the poor in the new South Africa.

The tea's apparently
official site is not very detailed, but you can learn all you want to know (if not more) here. There are also some recipes (although the first one is just the recipe for tea, which seems too much like cheating) and even some South African Government regulations if you're truly curious. I think I'm supposed to end this post by saying something like "Cheers!".

Happy new year

I almost downloaded 'New Year's Day' by U2 this morning. Instead, I've sort of resolved to celebrate 2006 by blogging more, and to this end I've started a whole side-blog, The Hit Parade, a sort of shadow Top 40 that hopes to highlight some overlooked hit singles. I've started at Number 40 with David McAlmont and will gradually work up (or down?) to a Number One single of my choice. All the tracks are drawn from my own collection, which also makes this a substitute for the currently-in-stasis Random Single Project.

I'll be posting on here more too, so there really is no escape. I hope everyone's enjoying the year so far.