Most loved Teas

Hey hey, out there!

Because I don't like coffee very much (just the really, really sweet ones, that don't taste like coffee anymore) I specialized on another drink that gives me life a much more british flare: Tea.

I love tea in every variants and I would never reject a cup of warm, tasteful tea.
So I decided to make a list of my most loved teas!
Because I live in Germany some tea flavoures might not be available in your country. But I'm sure mother internet will give you some places to order.

10. Cylon Orange Pekoe Tea 

Cylon is a black tea that comes from the eponymic area, today known as Sri Lanka. Orange Pekoe
has nothing to do with the taste of oranges. It labels the size of the leaves when they're harvested. Sometimes it also stands for the unopened tea leaf bud.
The Cylon tea I drink often smells bitter and kind of tart. But the taste is very fruity and rough. It reminds me of dry lemons. You can drink it without sugar and it tastes delicate with a bit of milk. Sometimes I put dash of lemon in it.

Leave to draw 3 minutes at 100 degrees.


9. Tea of Luck by Sonnentor

The blend contains: apple mint, lemon balm, peppermint, common mallow, daisys, marigolds, cornflowers.
A friend of mine gave it to me last christmas. Most of the Sonnentor teas are to herbal for my liking. But the Tea of Luck became one of my favourites.
It smells fruity and kind of pungent. It tastes energetic and herbal. You have to get used to that taste.

Leave to draw 5-10 minutes at 100°C.


8. Earl Grey Tea

Earl Grey is a black tea mixed with the oil of bergamot to give it a special taste. It had been named
after the prime minister Charles Grey.
I love the taste of Earl Grey. It's bitter and fruity-sour together. I always dring this tea with sugar, milk and lemon juice. It's a very special taste, that could be a good replacement for coffee drinkers.

Leave to draw 2-3 minutes at 60-80°C.


7. Rose Tea by Yogi Tea

A very special tea that sounds unusual - and tastes unusual. It contains: Rose, hibiscus, lime, camomille, elder, sunflower, lavender, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, fennel, cardamom, cloves.
It smells a lot like roses. And you have to get over the smell of bath additives. At first a refused to drink this tea but with a lot of sugar it tastes just wonderful. It's very fruity and tastes soothing. I often drink it at night because I can sleep calmer afterwards.

Leave to draw 5-7 minutes at 100°C.



6. Early Morning Tea by Mincing Lane

The Early Morning Tea is a british mixture of Darjeeling and Ceylon tea. It has a splash of lemon in it, so it tastes very fruity even though it's a pure, black tea. It's good to warm up the stomach in the morning and wakes you up from inside. I try to drink it right before my morning routine.

Leave to draw 2-3 minutes at 100°C.


5. Chocolate Chai by Rewe

It's not that powder Chai you might know from David Rio or so (I will post about these kind of Chais sometime in the future). The Chocolate Chai is a real indian Chai with a slight cacoa touch. The mixture includes: cacoa husk, cinnamon, chicory root, cardamom, ginger, cloves and pepper.
It has a hot and oriental smell. You don't smell the chocolate at first. But you taste it a lot. The chai touch is very soft and the cacoa doesn't taste like hot chocolate. Warming for the winter.

Leave to draw 5-8 minutes at 100°C.


4. Green Tea (Sencha or Matcha)

Green Tea cleans my soul. It is one of the main hot drinks in Japan. The tea is rumoured to extend

your life and make you healthy. Sencha means "steamed tea". It tastes kind of grassy and fruity. Matcha is powdered green tea and tastes more herbal. Matcha can be mixed with ice cream or cookies (or foamed in a small bowl).
A lot of people dislike green tea because it would taste bitter. The secret is, it only tastes bitter if it's boiled too hot or/and too long.

Leave to draw 2-3 minutes at 60°C.


3. Jasmine Tea




Top three! I always drink Jasmine tea when I'm out eating Chinese food. I could drink it like water. It it said to have a purging effect. Jasmine Tea is green tea mixed with jasmine flowers. The blossoms are picked at night because that's the time the jasmine blooms.
It has a soft aroma and tastes just beautiful. It has no kind of bitterns.

Leave to draw 2-3 minutes at 60°C.






2. Peppermint Tea

Number two is boring but I love it. It has a cooling and spicy smell and sometimes I drink it on ice in the summer. A few years ago I grew peppermint myself and it was even more intense than the
buyable ones already are. I could never get enough of it no matter what season it is.

Leave to draw 5-10 minutes at 100°C.



1. The 8 Treasures of the Shaolin 

Lucky number one! You've never heard of it? You HAVE to taste it. The base is green tea (again) but eight kinds of it! It is flavoured with pineapple and strawberry and I never tasted a tea like this before and I think I never will. It's like drinking a very oriental heaven.
The ingredients:
Sencha, Gunpowder, Mini Tou Tea, Chun Mee, Pai Mu Tan, Lung Ching, Snow Bud, Pi Lo Chun, pineapple, strawberry, sunflowers
The 8 Treasures of the Shaolin is a trademark and should be available in most countries.
It tastes smoky, spicy and aromatic. You have to try it!

Leave to draw 2 minutes at 60°C.


That was my most loved tea top ten. As always, this list is only representing MY opinion. Tell me what's your favourite tea? I would love to try it!



Have a nice time, wherever you are!
xoxo

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Book Review: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hey hey, out there!

Another book review: "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"


Name: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Genre: Science Fiction/Comedy
Published: 1979
Pages: 202
Have you read a book from this author yet?: No
Have read in: German
Book Challenge No.: 21, a book at the bottom of your to-read list

Short summary:

Arthur Dent is the typical british man: He likes Tea, scuffs along with his slippers and his dressing gown and hates changes. You can imagine how furious he gets when one morning some people want to tear down his house. Anything but that! His best friends Ford Prefect passes strange remarks about the doom of earth? Before he knows it, Arthur gets sucked into a space-age-adventure full of odd circumstances...

Positive sides:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a very diverting book full of funny moments. The humor is often preposterous and black and you will seldom find a part that makes absolutely sense. But that's the thrill of the book. Adams created a very interesting world with its own rules. After reading you find yourself kind of confused but also satisfied.
The paragraphs talking about the Hitchhiker's Guide itself are just hilarious as well as the character's features.

Negative sides:

The story is kind of short. There are several sequels to the book but it seems too puffed. I read it in approx. 4 hours.
This circumstance swallows up the humour of some passages. Some characters are hardly described.

Conclusion:

I liked the book but it didn't knock my socks off. I wanted to read the book for years because I love the movie to this book and everybody I told about it was like "You have to read the book! It's much more funnier!". But, well, my personal opinion is the movie is much better. The characters are much better portrayed and the "Hitchhiker's Guide"-passages are brilliant. Some sceneries just appear not that well in the book (Especially the absolutely nonsense-scenes, like the fall of the whale).

Is this book something for you?:

If you like to laugh and have interest in Science-Fiction, that doesn't take itself too seriously, absolutely! It's easy to read on the road and doesn't demand too much time. I would say, it is appropriate for children from 12 years on.

Assessment:

Suspense          ∆ ∆ • • •
Erotism             • • • • •
Humour            ∆ ∆ ∆ ∆ ∆
Concentration    ∆ • • • •
Genre typical     ∆ ∆ ∆ • •


Have a nice time, wherever you are!
xoxo

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Most loved animated films

Hey hey, out there!

Today I want to introduce to my absolutely most loved animated movies.
I know that a lot of people think animated movies have been made to entertain little children up to twelve years but I think various approach kind of difficult contents that aren't understandable for kids. When I was little I often didn't get all of the jokes or even the partly profound themes of an animated movie. The makers stated these types of content have been put into the films to entertain the parents who are forced to watch it with their descendants. But exactly this is the reason why I love to watch them and I try not to miss any of them.

So here I made a list of my 15 most loved (and probably most watched) animated movies in reverse order:


15. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

This is a film from the animators of "Wallace & Gromit", therefore a british stop-motion movie from 2012. It is overstuffed with funny moments and jokes that are mostly not adapted for children. It is set in the Victorian ages and handles with the themes of endangered species, friendship and the Zeitgeist of that time. The movie doesn't spare itself and contains characters like "the pirate with the scarf", "the albino pirate" and "the surprisingly curvaceous pirate" who hides a little secret.
I couldn't stop laughing during this film. The characters are cute, likeable and the animation is fantastic! I just cannot imagine how much time and nerves this animation must cost. It looks simply indescribable perfect.

14. The Adventures of Tintin

I'm referring to the film from 2011 by Steven Spielberg. There are so many reasons this movie is one of my favourites. To start off with, the producer was Peter Jackson (director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy), the writers were Steven Moffat (one of the heads of the Sherlock series and writer for Doctor Who) and Edgar Wright (Cornetto Trilogy). Even though of these names I first refused to watch it because I was never such a fan of Tintin's adventures, I just knew a few of his stories from my childhood. But I was off base. These movie is just beautiful. It has been one of the best computer animated movies up to now in my opinion. The story is thrilling and gripping. I recommend watching the Behind the Scenes, simply incredible.



13. How to train your Dragon

How to train your dragon is a computer animated film from 2010. It's about a young viking boy who
refuses to kill dragons like his ancestors and befriends with the Night Fury dragon Toothless.
I love this film on the one hand because it has dragons (DRAGONS!) on the other because it has a really nice, untypical storyline. Toothless is one of the best "animal" friends I have seen for a while.
He is cute, intelligent and a mixture of a cat and a dog in a dragon shape. The film is based on the books by Cressida Cowell but the books are really, really different! The movie is more like an alternate universe.

12. Coraline

Made by Henry Selick and based on the horror children's novel from Neil Gaiman, Coraline is one of the creepiest children movies I've seen. It has a thoughtful story about loving your life the way it is, but also a lot of horror elements I wouldn't have stand as a kid. It was made in 2009 as a stop-motion movie. Nevertheless, Coraline has some funny moments and the gloomy atmosphere creates some nice characters. The style reminds of the Tim Burton movies but Coraline gets more in-depth with the story.





11. Ratatouille

Ratatouille is a computer animated film from the Pixar Animation Studios. It
has been released in 2007 and deals with the french gourmet cuisine. The film tells a story from the standpoint of a rat that dreams of being a gourmet cook in Paris. As a fan of the epicure kitchen I like the way the movie shows the inside of a commercial kitchen. It doesn't take itself too seriously, so you will have a lot to laugh. The music in this film is brilliant.
And I have never ever seen so delicious looking, animated food before...

10. Mulan


Welcome to the top ten! Starting with Mulan. This movie from 1998 has been one of my favourites since I was little. Based on the famous Chinese woman warrior Fa Mulan Disney created a film about a girl sneaking herself into the Chinese military and trying to protect China against the Huns.
There are four reasons I love this film: One, it is a story about a very strong woman who ins't dependent on men (even though it is set in an old century). Two, the songs are just beautiful and the main song "True to your Heart" by Stevie Wonder is just a dance-along-groove. Three, it's about the asian culture, that gives a gorgeous setting and is simply a bobby-dazzler. Four, MUSHU. Mushu, the dragon, is one of the funniest characters ever. I love his voice, his jokes and the way he always overestimates himself. Brilliant!

9. Wolf Children (Ōkami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki)


I discovered Wolf Children only a few months ago and I like his slow and calm style very much. It's an Anime from 2012. The film is kind of fantastic but mainly the story handles with a kind of coming-of-age-tale of the two children portrayed in the movie. The film is very emotional, so grab your tissues! 

8. Rise of the Guardians



The reason I like Rise of the Guardians so much is mainly, so embarrassing, because of Pitch, the antagonist of this movie.

The story is imaginative. It's about the four guardians of light and Jack Frost, who must defend the world of children against Pitch Black, master of darkness and nightmares.
The scenes with Pitch give me goosebumps. He is such a well-designed and deep character.
The other characters are nice, too, but Pitch is outrageous.










7. Frankenweenie

Eventually, a Tim Burton movie!
Frankenweenie is from 2012 and a reboot of one of Burton's first
stop-motion animated films ever. The movie is black and white and deals with a boy losing his dog and reviving him with the aid of his self-made lightning-machine. After his resurrection, Sparky, the dog, has to be hidden.
The film is untypical in his style, story and genre. It is clearly a kind of parody of the monster film and book "Frankenstein" and so most of the hints can't be understood by children.
Fun fact: Sparky occurred in every stop-motion film by Tim Burton so far. Look for him closely...

6. Wall•E


Wall•E is everything. It's a science fiction. It's an adventure. It's a love story. It's a comedy. It's a criticism.
This film about two little robots won my heart. I don't think this is really a children's movie, because it deals with deep issues like environmental pollution, materialism, vanity of Men and the restricted affect of society. Besides, Wall•E and his friend EVE are really cute and even though hardly a word is said in this film it get's never boring.




5. The Lion King

What a classic! I guess everybody has seen it. The music is spectacular, the
songs are bombastic, and even though it's the comic version of Macbeth the story carried me along.
I saw it first when I was 3 years old and was scared as hell when Mufasa died. Still, I could never get enough of Lion King. I had a cassette I heard all days long (I fast-forwarded the part where Mufasa dies EVERYTIME...) and three years ago I visited the musical.
Lion King was part of my childhood and I would never start to defend why I love it so much.

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton, the second. I can't believe it's from 1993! It's still so up-to-date and I love the thrilling and creepy atmosphere this film delivers. All stop-motion movies before have been for little children, fluffy and cute, but Nightmare Before Christmas overshadows everything. It is genre-crashing. And I love it for that. Even though it's a musical it never gets embarrassing or even inappropriate. But I will never be able to decide if it's a Halloween or a Christmas film...





3. Brave

Really, Brave on third place? Yes. I think this movie is much too underrated. It is just beautiful. It's like my eyes have been set to heaven.
The movie is about Merida, a Scottish highland princess, released in 2012 by Pixar. It's ABSOLUTELY not the typical princess story. She doesn't find the love of her life at the end. No, you're wrong here.
Merida is brave (as the title anticipates), rebellious and kind of tomboyish.
The movie tells a wonderful story about family and finding your way. The end is not predictable and the whole 93 minutes you will experience a bath of emotions.
Bave was the first animated movie that made me cry like a little bitch.

2. Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi)





Sssecond: Another Anime. From the one and only Hayao Miyasaki which shall be represented in this list by my absolutely most loved film by him. It's so hard to find word for this overwhelming complex story I never fully understood until this day. But I love making theories about this mystical world he created. Again, a dragon is involved but also creatures he invented, which reach from cute and cuddly to scary and disgusting. When I see this film I'm forgetting my own world.
Along with it, the music gives me goosebumps.







1. How to Train your Dragon 2

I know. I'm sorry. Not only we have had this franchise before, as well there is a theme we had in other movies. Dragons. I cannot do anything about that.
But the second movie is much better than the first one. I never had so many emotions in one movie. You will be happy, scared, surprised, cheerful, compassionate, afraid, deeply grieved and relieved.
There's a wonderful song in this movie, that can compete with the Mountain Song from Hobbit I.
This movie made me cry a lot. And there's nothing what I could wish for a animated movie more.
This film is art.

This list ist just my personal opinion! I know there are a LOT more of wonderful movies in this universe, but these are the ones that struck ME most.
What is your first place? I would love to hear!

Have a nice time, wherever you are!
xoxo

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