So, here it is, Day 3 of the countdown to Christmas with TEA – and I’m already behind a day! In my defense, I was gone pretty much all day yesterday, Mat HAD to see the new Star Wars movie yesterday and was even kinda/sorta lamenting that we didn’t go to see it just after midnight. Instead, we went to see it at 10:30 am yesterday. Seriously? Who goes to see a movie at 10:30 am? Or, to put it another way, what NIGHT OWL goes to see a movie at 10:30 am?
Anyway, after that, I went to watch my grandson graduate from his Tiny Tigers martial arts course which is something I wouldn’t miss for the world. Then my oldest daughter and I went shopping for Christmas and I didn’t get home until about 8 pm – and I came home to a hungry younger daughter and Mat – so yeah, not a lot of time to do other things.
Moving on to tea – this was yesterday’s tea in the 12 Teas of Christmas countdown. Holiday Marmalade. You may be wondering why I chose this name. The name didn’t inspire the tea – I didn’t start out with the name already given to the tea. To be honest, this tea went through a few names before I found one that I was content to give this tea.
My original vision for this tea was a spiced orange curd – you know, sort of like a lemon curd only with oranges. And spices. So I built the tea around that idea, with oranges and vanilla bean and spices – but I was never really happy with the name “Spiced Orange Curd.” I think it was the “Spiced” part. It seems like every time I add some fall or wintery spices to a tea, I just slap on the word “Spiced” or “Spice” to it and wa-lah … it just kind of lacked any sort of creativity whatsoever. So then I thought, Holiday Curd? No, I didn’t like that either. I don’t know why but it just wasn’t doing it for me.
After a few other name variants that I came up with and was equally as dissatisfied with I thought: what about marmalade? It’s not exactly an orange marmalade – well, it is, but it’s also got those spices and I didn’t want to call it Spiced Orange Marmalade for the same reason I didn’t want to call it Spiced Orange Curd. So – after some thought, I decided that Holiday Marmalade sounded right. I just liked the sound of it. Then I found this musical jam with holiday music lead by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen which is called “Holiday Marmalade” (as opposed to “Holiday Jam”) and I absolutely LOVED it … so Holiday Marmalade became the name of this tea – more so for this melody of music than for the actual tea. :)
