Thursday, August 18, 2011

Cord Covers - not left over packing material

I know, I know. You are sick and tired of seeing the cords dangle from your computer or the back of your television set. Well, there are solutions! Of course there are the plastic covers that you can purchase at any big box electronics store, seen here.

Or, you can find the cord covers that are, front time to time, mistaken as packing material, by the unknowing. (grin) Renters, or anyone who has a cord sticking out from an appliance, can cover them with elegant materials. Imagine....silk...velvet...cotton.....in the colors and patterns that you could only dream of..


Cord covers are actually a part of electronic history. They were used originally to hide unsightly chains the allowed heavy chandeliers to be suspended from the beams in ceilings. And they worked nicely as well.



Then came the electrical cord. Piping for that nasty gas that was used to light homes was replaced by electric cords that usually were unsightly. Rahter than showing the gingam pattern or red and black checkers that were used in old cloth cords, cord covers were made out of velvet.

Even a chandelier hanging from a suspended ceiling can boast elegance when a cord cover us used. A simple Google search for cord covers will reveal the many different choices that you have. So enjoy your search for cord covers, and use them often and everywhere in your home. A helpful hint: find the cord covers with elastic on the ends. Otherwise your cord cover will fall and reveal the cord...u-g-l-y! And if you have a chandelier that you simply do not want to lower to install a cord cover, there are companies now who make the cord covers with Velcro(R) along the length so you can open the cord cover like okra, and then close it back up once it is around the chain.


Thanks for stopping by! Let us know how your search for cord covers is progressing!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Flavoured or Unflavoured Teas - Part III - Getting the Flavour IN

Over the last several posts we have been talking about flavoured tea, how tea is graded, and how tea is "scented" as with the Lapsang Souchong. In today's post, I will be providing a great link as a primer on how tea is flavoured. The link will place you in Adagio Teas' Lesson Section of their web site. It is a great way to cover the "inclusion" (pieces of flowers or fruit added), "extracts" (agents derived from essential oils), "nature-identical" (agents that are natural but derived from chemical processes) and "artifical flavours" in tea flavouring.

Click here to start the learning process about Tea. The one main thing to remember is the tea leaf, so delicate and wonderful, accepts many flavours or scents if treated at just the right time. So while different ways are used to make the tea you drink "your tea", it all comes down to the Camellia Sinensis leaf (shown above) and how it is treated.

Enjoy your tea! And thanks for stopping by!


Sunday, August 7, 2011

Flavoured or Unflavoured Teas - Grading and Orange Pekoe II

Greetings!

We have had a few questions about the grading of teas since yesterday's post. Rather than fill these pages with the whole leaf grades, broken leaf grades, fanning grades, dust grades or other terms, we thought it better to provide a link here for those of you wanting to be "more in the know."

All of the grades listed on the link, and terminology with definitions to terms like "choppy", "fanning", "flowery", "golden flowery" or "tippy" can be located about half way down on this page.

Enjoy! We may build a trivia game app based on tea grades...wouldn't that be fun to play on your iPhone? :) Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Flavoured or Unflavoured Teas - Grading and Orange Pekoe

As a child, I used to think that Orange Pekoe was a tea that had orange in it...flavoured with orange essence. I remember thinking that when I was old enough to drink tea, I would try the Orange Pekoe first. I did, and it is not. Surprisingly, Orange Pekoe is a classification, or grading of the tea. Of course there are many stories about how it originally got the name, one story that is most widly accepted is:

The mispronounciation of the Chinese AMOY (pinyin or Xiamen) known as white down hairs (pehoeji or pehho). In an 1819 Chinese Dictionary by Rev. Robert Morrison lists this Chinese tea as one known by many Europeans and had white down-like hairs (pehoeji) on the leaf showing the finest, most tender leaves of the tea plant.

However, Sir Thomas Lipton , 19th Century Tea Importer, is credited with popularizing tea terms for Western markets. The Orange is from the copper color of the not-yet-dried leaves, but mainly because of the fininshed color once the leaves had been dried. The orange color is a result of the oxidation of the dried leaves.

Misunderstood in the modern times is, the grading of teas using the diagram above is mainly from Indian Tea or Sri Lankan Teas and not Chinese teas.

So in reality, Orange Pekoe is a grading system, and descriptive color of the tea leaves and not a flavour at all!

Next post will be on "how" tea is flavoured into the scrumptious flavours like "Sunny Passion", "Orange Cookie" and others! Thanks for stopping by!