1-900-DialTea

Scams against Old Ladies like me are notorious in this part of the US. One of the most common scams is a letter or phone call telling the Old Lady she has won $10,000, and all she needs to do is remit her bank account number to the address listed. I've always been rather surprised how many old ladies fall for this and give out their bank number which results in a lot of work for their kids to remedy the situation and press charges. Except I just went ahead and gave mine up to white2tea for their new monthly tea subscription.

Now I know that Dear Son is going to read this and start yelling at me. But I couldn't help it. I'm smart to every trick except when I get an email from something labeled white2tea along the lines of: "Wisconsin Boy will send you his Private Stash every month for the small sum of..." well, all I can say is the world's scammers might be more successful if they start using the white2tea logo on their letterheads. An entire nation of Old Ladies will be lifting their financial skirts up high over their head.

Child, I'm gonna get Private Stash tea every month! I asked white2tea to please call Mauston Plumbers for me and Ask for Charlie to explain the situation, and why I won't be paying my plumbing bill every month anymore. Why should I have to pay for new plumbing for a toilet upstairs that I don't even use?? My own personal toilet is just fine. The cats have numerous litter boxes. My Housemate has a potty in his motorhome that he can go to. Dear Son is 24 years old and is surely old enough now to pee in the yard by himself. Seems to me if those guys want a working toilet they can pay for it so Mother can have her tea. And why do I need a plumber when I can have drain cleaner shipped monthly right to my door?

I'm not normally tempted by tea subscriptions. In fact I don't have any others. Most tea subscriptions contain a variety of teas, which usually are things like cacao papaya mint lemongrass hibiscus apple pie rooibos teas. But a tea subscription consisting of puerh, oolong and black tea is a no-miss as far as my tastes are concerned. I'm halfway to a tea subscription anyway. With my regular orders, sometimes I get lucky samples of off-the-shelf stuff. For example, if you checked out a few of the photos on my previous post, you might have seen this 1992 Big Tao Hong Mark.

(I almost typed something else along the lines of a Big Zhong, a byproduct of menopausal vivid dreams. Son probably thinks I'm halfway to senile old ladyhood screaming obscenities behind a locked and barred ward door. Check #2 for "danger to self." Lock me up, okay, just let me have my Xbox like you promised.)

Didn't I just have a 1992 tea recently? Sure enough, my post "Old Lady Tea" (September 2014, can't be bothered to be helpful and link it) featured a 1990s Menghai Red Star from Tea Classico which was labeled 1990s on the sample packaging, but the website says 1992. What's up with 1992, why am I seeing this particular year cropping up twice in a row? I don't remember anything about 1992 because Dear Son was only a baby, and I was probably psychotic that year from a lack of REM sleep. No wait, I do remember finishing my master's thesis that year in a dingy hotel in Milwaukee. On an Apple IIc. Aside from that, I have no clues to add and the 1992 Big Tao Hong Mark isn't up on the site at white2tea at the moment to help me out with where it came from. It's a loosely compressed mix of leaves, huang pian, sticks and a couple of pods like the one I found recently in a 7542.

[Okay. Did I just agree to regular payments to white2tea? I think I might have. Yes, I took Friday a.m. pills, I checked the empty med box.]

Up off my doughnut to boil the kettle which has a hole in the enamel because yes, I forgot it on the stove. Checkmark #3 for danger to self. I'm more than halfway committed at this point, certainly to the tea anyway. Ow, back on the doughnut and triancinolone ointment.

First steep of the Big Honger

Loose compression is good because they will soon take away my puerh pick I've stashed beneath my mattress. Pushing the whole sample gives me a nice dark brew with only a touch of traditional storage, mostly washed away by two rinses. Wow, strong stuff, bitter cuz I pushed it but that means plenty of aging time left in this one. Very cooling on the finish, that camphor effect I guess, gotta watch out for that at my age, because of what people might think. I'm not quaffing the Nyquil again, I stopped doing that last month. (Nyquil is an American liquid cold/cough menthol medicine with copious amounts of alcohol that produces a sound sleep, and children can easily buy it at any store without an ID check).

Mother is drinking the compost again.

Two cups of the Big Honger and I'm feeling rather energized, doesn't seem like qi, more like caffeine sweating. Okay save those leaves for later, a bit of sausage and cheese and I'm ready for my downer cup of shou. Here is another white2tea that I'm assured will be available soon, called "chocolate mini shu," circa 2000.

Bulk "chocolate mini shu" by white2tea

 Not sure what the "chocolate" is supposed to refer to, actual chocolate in the tea, or chocolate "notes" in the flavor? I don't see any chocolate in this, if the little bricks had any, it's probably long gone by now. The bricks range from 4 grams to 8 grams. I got a sample of this shu recently and ordered me a double. Like I said, I don't know when they will take away my pick so when that happens, I'm all set with these little squares.

Lu Yu, is that your shou or are you happy to see me?

I think this is a bitty benchmark of tea history because of the cooling finish and all-over tongue buzz. This mini brick comes from the days when shu was still a bit wild. In any case, this dry-stored shu has a hint of old paper smell, perhaps from previous paper wrappers or box storage, I can easily air that out. The soup is brown and very clean, slight fermentation smell left probably due to the tight compression of these squares. I still don't taste any chocolate but maybe that refers to the color of the soup rather than actual chocolate. Or maybe the sausage ruined my palate for today. Little bricks like this will come in handy for me when I travel to visit my sister.

Cuz I found a real surprise in the bag with these minis. Full-on evidence of the honey trap to lure Old Ladies.

A little love in the chocolate minis.

That's IT!

I'm really looking forward to my new tea subscription :)

The pet food company is after me too.

Requiescat in Pace.