Thursday Tea: April 2

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the will to answer some very simple questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.

I’ve got a lot of old teas I got as either gifts or bought on sale somewhere, and though I know they’re (kinda) expired I can’t bear to throw them out just yet. I decided to try one of them and see if it was still drinkable.

The tea: Nutcracker Sweet Holiday Tea by Celestial Seasonings. I don’t actually like Celestial Seasonings all that much, but their holiday tea is normally pretty good. Here’s how the Nutcracker tea is described:

This irresistible treat is a blend of the finest black teas from the estates of Assam, Kenya and Indonesia. Then we add vanilla and nutty flavors and a dash of cinnamon.

Sounds delicious, right? It was! Two years ago when I first bought it. Now it tastes like it was strained through one of my brother’s old socks. Gross!

The book: Sabriel by Garth Nix. I’ve always heard people talk about Garth Nix and his books, but I’ve never tried them before. Then I saw that the ebooks of his Abhorsen trilogy were on sale at Fictionwise, and I decided to check them out. I really like it so far! There’s some interesting new things in it that I haven’t seen in fantasy books before. Here’s a summary of the first book:

After receiving a cryptic message from her father, Abhorsen, a necromancer trapped in Death, 18-year-old Sabriel sets off into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands. Unlike other necromancers, who raise the dead, Abhorsen lays the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him–and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father’s title and duties–to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible exhaustion, violent confrontations, and terrifying challenges to her supernatural abilities–and her destiny.

Do they go together? Uh, not at all. Wait– actually, the part of Sabriel I’m in now takes place during winter. I suppose that’s the only connection they have!

What are you drinking/reading this Thursday?