After a few holiday gifts of chocolate spaced a few weeks apart I have proof that eating chocolate gives me pimples. I'm so pleased.

A few months ago I mentioned that the teahouse near me, Tea Kuan Yin¹, had "monkey picked tea" on the menu. A while after that I was listening to archives of The Splendid Table and thier tea expert Bill Waddington² spoke about tea lore³, including monkey picked tea. According to him tea merchants has tricked English buyers that the best tea was that which was hand picked by monkeys, but it was completely made up. He said that tea merchants still sell tea using this descriptor and "don't deny the rumors". Doing a Google search for monkey picked tea turns up a variety of stories, ranging from

"These well cared for monkeys are famous in their native China and are specially trained by their owners to pick rare, wild tea plants in inaccessible places, such as cliff faces."

to

"Legend has it that monkeys were trained by monks to collect the leaves from the branches of the wild tea trees growing on steep mountainsides. Our monkey-picked tea was picked and processed by masterful human hands using techniques at least two centuries old."

and this description, specifically about Ti Kuan Yin so now we know where my teahouse takes it's name

"When first discovered, this tea was growing wild on the cliffs of the Wuji mountains and very difficult to harvest. Local monks trained monkeys to climb the cliffs and pick the tender leaves. Although today the plants have been replanted for easier harvest..."

Anyone know anything more about monkey picked tea? Does the name actually refer to a flush? Has anyone tried it? 1 They have free wireless, I love them. 2 Here is his recipe for Chai, and you can check out lots of tea information on the show. 3 To listen to the segment go to this page, find the January 19th show "Another Look At Coffee", the segment begins at 23.10.

It's snowing here, snow! This is actually the second time it snowed, big wet fluffy flakes, the ones perfect for building into snowmen, came down a few nights ago. But this snow hit the city just before morning rush hour and I suspect everyone is lingering in the morning hoping the streets will be too dangerous to get to work. I'll have to make more marshmallows. I desperatly missed snow (and weather in general) while I was living in California so right now I'm as happy as can be. Last night I even participated in some Panic Grocery Shopping, of the We Don't Remember That Snow Melts so we're going to buy every can of chicken noodle soup on the shelves variety. I miss that, because it usually signals that there will be snuggling down of some sort the next day. I took some pictures of the snowflake marshmallows, click here to see in a pop up window. I'm finding the key to my photo taking success in California really was my big south facing window. Here in overcast Seattle I cannot seem to take a decent picture at all.