i didn't realize that when you post files from imeem in other places they shorten the files. So, if you actually wanna listen to any songs that i posted from that site just click on the link that should be somewhere on the player. That kinda sucked earlier today when i wanted to pretend i was at that mewithoutYou concert again; i ended up just listening to the music on the videos.
Well... you all have a blessed week, i probably won't post again until friday-ish.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Black, Green and White
Summer is gonna be nice for blogging, cuz i'll have way more time to post stuff. So be glad friends, my insanity cometh with the force of ten thousand angry buffalos.
As i mentioned yesterday, i've concocted a new tea. Well, it's new for me. i'm sure plenty of people have tried it before. Anyway, the inspiration: Josh and Jared's trip to New York. While they were there they purchased me some tea (bless them both). Jared brought me this rather fantastic vanilla coconut rooibos, which was nothing short of the possible greatest tea ever. Josh brought me this stuff called Alice's Tea, which was named after the shop (which you can all check out by following one of the new links under my little link section dealio).
A few weeks ago Josh and i went on a work retreat with our church, and we both brought our tea with us. For most of my cargo i just put several tea spoons in ziplock bags, but for the two special NYC teas i brought the whole bag. Josh did the same, and of course after leaving guess what we left at the camp? Yeah, the tea. And i really liked that Alice's tea, which was a pleasant mixture of black and green tea with some other stuff in there as well.
So, last week i was feelin a craving for some of that alice's tea, but obviously did not have any. However, i did have some English Breakfast (which is a blend of several regional black teas), soleil vert (some crazy Chinese gunpowder green with some special oils and crap) and Snow Buds White (tediously picked young leaves from a high elevation, good subtle flavor). So, i figure, "why settle for just green and black when i have white as well?" Thusly i put them all together, and after some experiments with ratios, water temperature and brewing time i've come to a place where i can make a pretty excellent cup of tea without having to order Alice's tea offline (though i think i may do that anyway).
If you wanna try this tea i'll give you a step-by-step to getting the sweet flavor i've obtained, where you can really pick out the different flavors. Here's the instructions:
-Get black, green and white loose tea and mix them in this ratio (respectively) 1:1:2*
-Heat the water to the temperature appropriate for green tea (since that's kinda difficult with a whistling kettle, try and wait until you hear the water really moving in there, about a minute before the whistle goes off. This can take some practice, but it's worth it).
-Poor over tea, and let sit for 3-4 minutes. Now those of you who like white tea may wonder why this is, since it takes about seven minutes to brew white tea well. However, if you let this mixture brew for over 4 minutes the black tea releases too much flavor, thus making the tea more bitter; overpowering the white tea. The green tea would do that as well and that the reason you put double white tea in anyway. Brewing it for a max of 4 minutes keeps it sweet (without adding sweetener) and allows for every tea to tasted.
-Let it cool for a while before drinking, at least 5 minutes. If it's too hot you won't be able to taste anything. Surprisingly enough, this tea tastes fantastic at room temp., so you may even wanna leave some extra to sit there for a few hours and have it later in the day as well.
*put a little less than a teaspoon af green, like .8 green compared to the 1 black.
So there you go. Obviously dependning on the type of teas you have the flavor will differ according to: where it was grown, at what elevation, when it was picked, how it was oxidized, etc. But the main flavors of each type should come through so long as you didn't get some special flavored teas like Bangkok or vanilla. Just plain black, green and white work super well, and, for me, have offered a very relaxing everyday tea that i've not yet encountered. Hope you've enjoyed this post, and if you try it out i hope you enjoy the tea. Feel free to comment if you try it and tell me whether you like it, what brand and types of tea you used, how you brewed it differently and whatever else comes to mind.
God bless, and have a good day.
As i mentioned yesterday, i've concocted a new tea. Well, it's new for me. i'm sure plenty of people have tried it before. Anyway, the inspiration: Josh and Jared's trip to New York. While they were there they purchased me some tea (bless them both). Jared brought me this rather fantastic vanilla coconut rooibos, which was nothing short of the possible greatest tea ever. Josh brought me this stuff called Alice's Tea, which was named after the shop (which you can all check out by following one of the new links under my little link section dealio).
A few weeks ago Josh and i went on a work retreat with our church, and we both brought our tea with us. For most of my cargo i just put several tea spoons in ziplock bags, but for the two special NYC teas i brought the whole bag. Josh did the same, and of course after leaving guess what we left at the camp? Yeah, the tea. And i really liked that Alice's tea, which was a pleasant mixture of black and green tea with some other stuff in there as well.
So, last week i was feelin a craving for some of that alice's tea, but obviously did not have any. However, i did have some English Breakfast (which is a blend of several regional black teas), soleil vert (some crazy Chinese gunpowder green with some special oils and crap) and Snow Buds White (tediously picked young leaves from a high elevation, good subtle flavor). So, i figure, "why settle for just green and black when i have white as well?" Thusly i put them all together, and after some experiments with ratios, water temperature and brewing time i've come to a place where i can make a pretty excellent cup of tea without having to order Alice's tea offline (though i think i may do that anyway).
If you wanna try this tea i'll give you a step-by-step to getting the sweet flavor i've obtained, where you can really pick out the different flavors. Here's the instructions:
-Get black, green and white loose tea and mix them in this ratio (respectively) 1:1:2*
-Heat the water to the temperature appropriate for green tea (since that's kinda difficult with a whistling kettle, try and wait until you hear the water really moving in there, about a minute before the whistle goes off. This can take some practice, but it's worth it).
-Poor over tea, and let sit for 3-4 minutes. Now those of you who like white tea may wonder why this is, since it takes about seven minutes to brew white tea well. However, if you let this mixture brew for over 4 minutes the black tea releases too much flavor, thus making the tea more bitter; overpowering the white tea. The green tea would do that as well and that the reason you put double white tea in anyway. Brewing it for a max of 4 minutes keeps it sweet (without adding sweetener) and allows for every tea to tasted.
-Let it cool for a while before drinking, at least 5 minutes. If it's too hot you won't be able to taste anything. Surprisingly enough, this tea tastes fantastic at room temp., so you may even wanna leave some extra to sit there for a few hours and have it later in the day as well.
*put a little less than a teaspoon af green, like .8 green compared to the 1 black.
So there you go. Obviously dependning on the type of teas you have the flavor will differ according to: where it was grown, at what elevation, when it was picked, how it was oxidized, etc. But the main flavors of each type should come through so long as you didn't get some special flavored teas like Bangkok or vanilla. Just plain black, green and white work super well, and, for me, have offered a very relaxing everyday tea that i've not yet encountered. Hope you've enjoyed this post, and if you try it out i hope you enjoy the tea. Feel free to comment if you try it and tell me whether you like it, what brand and types of tea you used, how you brewed it differently and whatever else comes to mind.
God bless, and have a good day.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
great show
i am currently in the process of consuming a banana. i just finished doing laundry, drinking a cup of tea (which will further be explained later) and listening to my new Brother Sister vinyl. Last night a bunch of us went to see mewithoutYou, and the show was downright awesome. The first opener was kinda nifty, i would describe them as an emo version of Foo Fighters. So they weren't really my flavor, but because of an apparent grunge/ alternative influence (and a Pearl Jam sticker on the vocalist's guitar) i had to give 'em some props. The second band was a rather righteous technical-indie band, who had dominant metalcore druming underneath the chilled out Kaki Kingish tapping guitar and bass lines. i enjoyed the technicality, however, despite their very mellow riffs, it would be pretty difficult to chill out and just listen to them as background music. Basically if you're listening to Maps and Atlases (that's the band's name) you have to pay attention.
After probably a little over an hour mewithoutYou came up. Really they were in plain view all night, or at least Aaron was. He was out in the crowd the entire time singin' along with the other bands, dancing and enjoying himself, and his company. That was really cool. It kinda proved his lack of concern toward his "rockstar" status or whatever you'd like to call it. He knows that he's not some giant star, and he could care a less that all the people there last night were there to see him. After the first or second song he admitted that he was a little bummed in the beginning of the night when not many people showed up, but he also admitted that that's a sinful mindset, and that it doesn't matter how many people show up, so long as they're all having a good time spreading joy to one another. So, that was encouraging.
Anyway... So the show was great. All the band members sang along even if they didn't have backup parts at points. It was easy to see how the band enjoys playing with one another, and enjoys the presence of a happy crowd. Aaron was constantly changing lyrics, at one point changing, "As the red clay took the form of a lizard,
Who rushed like a moth to the flame of my open hand" to "as i pulled the pin from the grenade and threw it at the harley davidson and broke the speed of sound" or something very close to that.They played some new tunes to and fro, which was refreshing. The new songs have great stylistic differences, but are still very enjoyable. One main point is that the lyrics and vocal melodies have very repetetive folky overtones to them. The one tune was about the angel of death meeting King David. The last tune (the second encore) was pretty sweet, I don't remember the lyrics too much, maybe Jared does and he can post 'em. On the second of the three new tracks played Aaron rocked out this rather delicious organ synth patch, witch was pretty happy and funky. All in all it was nice to hear some new stuff, but it was also awesome to rock out to the stuff that we're all familiar with.
So, the show was great, and now I'm gonna atempt to collect the entire setlist (minus the new tunes) in video/ streamed audio for you all to enjoy. But, before you listen, make yourself a cup of tea, haha. It's not an actual prerequisite, but if you'd like go right ahead. The tea I had today was a mixture of three loose teas (1 tsp white, 1/2 tsp green, 1/2 tsp black). Maybe I'll blog on that concoction later.
This is probably not the exact order, but it's very close
january 1979
Yellow Spider
Messes of Men
Dryness and the Rain
tie me up untie me
A glass can only spill what it contains
son of a widow
torches together
paper hanger
C-minor
brownish spider/ in a sweater poorly knit
O porcupine
Hope you enjoyed this... and really being there is even better. If you have a myspace befriend these guys, and check for shows around wherever you live, because the improvisation and overall joyful atmosphere is something not usually attained through 10 bucks at a small bar/ club setting.
After probably a little over an hour mewithoutYou came up. Really they were in plain view all night, or at least Aaron was. He was out in the crowd the entire time singin' along with the other bands, dancing and enjoying himself, and his company. That was really cool. It kinda proved his lack of concern toward his "rockstar" status or whatever you'd like to call it. He knows that he's not some giant star, and he could care a less that all the people there last night were there to see him. After the first or second song he admitted that he was a little bummed in the beginning of the night when not many people showed up, but he also admitted that that's a sinful mindset, and that it doesn't matter how many people show up, so long as they're all having a good time spreading joy to one another. So, that was encouraging.
Anyway... So the show was great. All the band members sang along even if they didn't have backup parts at points. It was easy to see how the band enjoys playing with one another, and enjoys the presence of a happy crowd. Aaron was constantly changing lyrics, at one point changing, "As the red clay took the form of a lizard,
Who rushed like a moth to the flame of my open hand" to "as i pulled the pin from the grenade and threw it at the harley davidson and broke the speed of sound" or something very close to that.They played some new tunes to and fro, which was refreshing. The new songs have great stylistic differences, but are still very enjoyable. One main point is that the lyrics and vocal melodies have very repetetive folky overtones to them. The one tune was about the angel of death meeting King David. The last tune (the second encore) was pretty sweet, I don't remember the lyrics too much, maybe Jared does and he can post 'em. On the second of the three new tracks played Aaron rocked out this rather delicious organ synth patch, witch was pretty happy and funky. All in all it was nice to hear some new stuff, but it was also awesome to rock out to the stuff that we're all familiar with.
So, the show was great, and now I'm gonna atempt to collect the entire setlist (minus the new tunes) in video/ streamed audio for you all to enjoy. But, before you listen, make yourself a cup of tea, haha. It's not an actual prerequisite, but if you'd like go right ahead. The tea I had today was a mixture of three loose teas (1 tsp white, 1/2 tsp green, 1/2 tsp black). Maybe I'll blog on that concoction later.
This is probably not the exact order, but it's very close
january 1979
Yellow Spider
Messes of Men
Dryness and the Rain
tie me up untie me
A glass can only spill what it contains
son of a widow
torches together
paper hanger
C-minor
brownish spider/ in a sweater poorly knit
O porcupine
Hope you enjoyed this... and really being there is even better. If you have a myspace befriend these guys, and check for shows around wherever you live, because the improvisation and overall joyful atmosphere is something not usually attained through 10 bucks at a small bar/ club setting.
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