Tea for Me - a review of Adagio Teas

My working week is pretty difficult.

I only work part-time and I have been lucky enough to score hours that fit directly around my boys' school life, but as a result I pretty much never stop.  I'm forever rushing between work and picking up children, food shopping and making sure the dog has been walked.

Between blogging, work, children, dog, degus, baby and all the other bits and pieces, there are some nights where I manage to go to bed without even doing the basics, like feeding myself!

I am knackered!

It's becoming increasingly important to me that I take whatever time I can to look after myself a little bit more  after all, if there's no fuel the fire cannot keep burning.

I was delighted when Adagio Teas asked me to review their artisan tea collection: finally, a reason to give myself 10 minutes and enjoy a little 'me time'.

Usually a cup of tea is a last desperate attempt by myself to gain back some spent energy.

The kettle gets boiled.

The teabag is chucked in the cup unceremoniously.

The cup is filled.

The cup sits.

The filled cup waits.

And waits.

And waits...

The cup gets cold.

M husband comes home and finds several manky old cups of black tea sitting around the house (sometimes I manage to take the teabag out, sometimes I don't).

*Sigh*

I love a cup of tea.  When I can get one.

Here's a clever thing though:

Look!  You put gorgeous loose tea into the tea maker.

You wait a bit and watch as the water changes colour and smells amazing.

Then...THEN...!

Look!

How cool is that!?

I have to say it is very satisfying.  I certainly won't be forgetting about my tea any time soon.

It's also very easy to clean and completely see-through, so you get to watch as the tea infuses.

Adagio have an amazing collection of gorgeous artisan teas from around the world.

My favourite from the samples I tasted has to be the Earl Grey Moonlight; an odd choice for someone who 'doesn't like Earl Grey'!

The tea itself is so fresh and full of flavour; as soon as you open the re-sealable bag you are hit with the most amazing fragrance.

It definitely forces me to make my tea-time more of an occasion.

If you love tea, give them a little visit at www.adagiotea.co.uk

You wont be disappointed!

Disclaimer: I was sent a sample of Adagio teas to try, along with an IngenuiTEA pot to brew them in.  I was not expected to write anything positive and I have not been paid for this post. All words and thoughts are completely my own and I bloody loved the tea - it was so good!

We started with Mean Green: The Juice Diary

Well, the juicer is here, we bought enough veg for a 5 day juice-fest, so...here we go!

I scoured Dundee, and let me tell you, getting something like a juicer in a middle-sized city in Scotland without having to resort to going online is impossible!

I spent a whole afternoon last week going around five large-chain shops to no avail.

In the end, I came home and did what i should have done in the first place and bought a Vivo juicer from Amazon.  At £38.99 it's at the cheaper end of the scale and has been getting some very good reviews, and I have to say i'm chuffed with it.  It's easy to clean, easy to use and very powerful.  I just hope it stands the test of time.

Dave and I have both decided to aim for a 5 day reboot, using the Joe Cross Reboot Your Life book.  See our previous post Rebooting my life - or trying to for more info on the reasons behind this!

Alternatively check out www.rebootwithjoe.com to find out more about juicing.

We were in Asda today for Frozen (it's finally out!  Yay!), and stupidly decided this would be a good time to go shopping with the kids for our fruit and veg.

It's the Easter holidays here, the schools are off, and the shop was packed.

I always seem to turn into some kind of 'no' demon in the supermarket with the kids - they seem to become possessed by the naughty fairy and everything gets real ugly, real quick.

We did manage, however, to get the majority of our shop, as well as remember dog food for Sparky and popcorn for the film, so we did very well indeed. And, our weekly shop, despite shopping in Asda rather than our usual Aldi, was very cheap indeed.  This excited me more than anything else!

So now the kids are frozen by Frozen and Dave and I cracked on with the juicing.

First up, it was Joe's Mean Green.

Now, you are supposed to start at the beginning of a plan, but Dave and I are nothing if not unconventional.

We decided to start by having some juice for dinner instead of what we were thinking about (pizza).  We decided to ditch the unhealthy choice and dive right in.

Joe's Mean Green contains:

8 sticks of celery
2 whole cucumbers
16 handfuls of spinach
5cm fresh root ginger
4 apples
1 lemon

Looking Mean and Green!

First impressions

Dave thought it would be a good idea for us to include videos of our first juice tastings.  I'm wishing I'd ran a comb through my hair!

 The juice tasted fresh and clean - and was surprisingly filling. We had Ginger Pear-snip for dessert, which was quite nice (or so I thought - Dave was a bit miffed at the fact that it was trying to pass as pudding, which made me laugh.  That man loves his pudding!)

Ginger Pear-snip is simply:

3 parsnips
3 pears
4cm of root ginger

Juice-catching 'tache!

  Now the rest of the night will be spent avoiding food and not answering our cravings.

I've stocked up with Peppermint tea and shall be going through that as my cravings for sugar and caffeine arise.

Tomorrow will be the real test - a full day of nothing but juice.  I'm kind of excited as the recipes look tasty.

Maybe it's because I've been a life-long vegetarian, but a lot of these drinks really appeal to me, and I'm chuffed to be getting my 5 a day so easily.

Or should I say, 10 a day now, according to the news reports!
I genuinely thought that was an April Fool - imagine printing something like that on the 1st of April!