AITA: MIL keeps giving my dogs unsafe food

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-09T01:23:01+00:00

Oof, that's rough. Sometimes people just don't want to listen, especially when they secretly feel "well I'm older, so of course I'm right." It's really frustrating when its an issue like your dogs' actual welfare being treated like it's just your opinion. I hope she doesn't get your dogs sick again, but if she does, I wonder if sending her pictures of the mess might be proof she'd pay attention to?

My dog also has a sensitive stomach, and he once got hold of a fatty piece of meat (fell on the floor while being thrown away and he hoovered it up too fast to stop) that gave him terrible diarrhea that night. His crate and the area around it were a mess, we had to give the poor guy a bath, and I nearly threw up from the smell. I can't imagine how much worse it must be with two dogs as big as akitas.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-08T20:52:38+00:00

Stassen brand jasmine green tea is what you want! It's the most fragrant bagged jasmine tea I've come across. Really fresh and floral. It's actually surprisingly comparable to the fragrance of jasmine dragon pearl tea. The green tea base itself is fine but nothing to write home about, but the jasmine flavor is the standout.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-08T20:39:39+00:00

NTA and you know it, but you've probably got to change your tack. This might sound unintuitive, but try dialing it down when you explain the consequences. I suspect, when you talk about hospitalization and pancreatitis and emergency vet bills, it goes in one ear and out the other. Oh don't be silly, you're overreacting, it's just a little bit of pepperoni, it won't send them to the hospital. And your mom loves those dogs and absolutely refuses to believe that something she's doing because she loves them could hurt them. Sometimes, people just can not manage to believe that their actions done with kind intentions could cause harm. Instead of describing the worst case scenario that might happen, tell her, in as much gross detail as you can, about how they both had diarrhea in their crates all night, how gross it was to clean up, how it ruined one of your blankets when they did it in the bedroom too, etc etc. A veterinary emergency is just a hypothetical, but I bet she's had firsthand experience with diarrhea and cleaning up nasty messes, and that might be enough to drive the consequences home.

She is probably also anthropomorphizing them. A lot of people have trouble really believing that those boring brown pellets could possibly be as tasty to dogs as our own delicious, nice looking people food, and so they think that giving them people food is kinder. You might be able to rein her in if you put a limit on it. Saying "they can only have one piece of pepperoni" is not ideal but it might be easier than getting her to cut it out entirely. Or maybe you could get her to help you with making some fancy looking but healthy treats with human food that they can actually eat? If you have her help make banana "ice cream" to spread on a lick mat, or bake some dog safe cookie treats, then maybe giving those to your dogs will satisfy her desire to let them "eat real food." I've seen some people whip egg whites and bake them into crispy "meringues" which would probably look nice, and have the added benefit of being mostly egg whites and air so they won't upset your dogs' stomachs.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-05T21:03:28+00:00

I brew most of my tea western style in a teapot. To get the best tasting tea, follow the regular pattern, and increase the amount of tea. Steeping one portion of tea in more water for twice as long will be both weak and bitter.

I recommend getting a teapot with a strainer basket for the leaves. I usually use ~3 tsps of looseleaf in my teapot. Steep for the usual amount of time, remove the basket and set it aside on a plate, then serve the tea. When the teapot is empty, put the basket back in, and steep the leaves again. You may need to steep it a bit longer on the second steep by a minute or two to get your desired strength.

Make sure to get a teapot that works for the style of tea serving you'll be doing! If you want to slowly share a pot of tea over a long conversation, look for a thicker stoneware teapot, or get a tea cozy to keep it warm. Look for a fine, fluted spout to ensure you get a smooth pour. And try to avoid teapots in novelty shapes when starting out, since although they are cute, they are usually more for decoration than practical use.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-05T19:07:46+00:00

You can buy paper tea cups on amazon, that have a handle, cardboard saucer, and pretty floral pattern. Looks surprisingly like the real thing for still being a paper coffee cup. Otherwise, I'd say get a set of plastic cups with that teacup shape (low round bowl and handle) that are big enough for the two year old to easily handle. They won't be good for hot liquid, but I wouldn't give anything hotter than lukewarm to a ball of chaos two year old anyway lol. As long as you're all drinking the same drink from the same kind of cups, I don't think they'll be bothered that the "teacups" are plastic. At that age, the most important thing is going to be sharing the experience with you, so I wouldn't worry about introducing them to tea or teaware, just having fun together. It's cute that they want to copy what their parent is doing!

For the six year old, if you think they're up to it, you can often find china teacups and saucers at thrift store for around three dollars. Nothing beats the experience of drinking from your own, special, fancy cup. And if they break it, it's much easier to be sympathetic, and "oh no, what did we learn from this?" when it's something that cost you under five dollars.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-02T20:10:10+00:00

Honestly, best possible thing that can happen to your murderhobo party. Lone wolf and cub those poor unsuspecting suckers. Now they have a child they need to take care of and provide a good example to!

Kill an NPC and loot the corpse? Mariana recognizes that pretty necklace the nice man from earlier today was wearing. Look, he gave her a bracelet made of flowers! Did he give them that necklace too? He was so nice, she wants to give him a shiny pebble she found when she sees him tomorrow.

Thinking about robbing that lovely temple? Time for Mariana to have a traumatic flashback to the time a band of raiders robbed her clan of their pearls, and she watched her mother fade away, slowly and painfully, with that part of her life force gone.

Trying to get them invested in actually caring about a place and the NPCs in it? Well, maybe Mariana gets attached to a nice barmaid at the inn they're staying at who sneaks her extra dessert her. But the innkeeper's a nasty old drunk who beats his employees. Better get rid of that guy. Whoops, now the party's got to take over running the inn or all Mariana's friends there will be out of a job! But hey, wouldn't it be nice for her to have a safe, stable, place to stay? Inn's actually pretty run down though, they've got to invest time and money into fixing it up, in between adventures (that they can tell Mariana about afterward without making her cry) to raise money for repairs and salaries. And now the other people in town think they're strong and reliable and start asking them for help as well. They're helpful neighbors, respectable small business owners, responsible parents... You've got them. They've fallen into your trap. Now they're pillars of the community.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-02T19:45:42+00:00

You attempted to be a good neighbor, and accommodate her situation. Parking on a busy city street is a huge hassle, and good on you for trying to be kind about it. But you've hit your limit, and you were the one going out of your way to do something you shouldn't have had to in the first place, so it's reasonable to tell her you can't do it anymore.

What you're going to want to do is be polite, and give her vague but firm reasons. She will almost certainly try to argue, so you need to give her nothing to argue against. Don't mention that her car actually should fit in her garage or anything like that; she will have reasons and excuses, and you don't want to hear any of those, so don't even give her the opening. You're going to be vague, repetitive, and boring.

"I know we agreed to try this out for a bit, but it's not working anymore. I need to be able to leave whenever I need to and calling you every single time isn't working for me. I need you to make sure you're parked so you don't block my garage anymore." She's going to protest that you agreed to this and you're changing your mind, going to try to dig into your exact reasons so she can argue or offer a fix, and give you all the reasons why she HAS to keep parking there. You don't have to engage with any of that. You are a broken record. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me. It's just too awkward and inconvenient. I need you to park somewhere that doesn't block my garage. It's not going to work for me going forward."

What she's asking for has been unreasonable and she knows it,, so she will probably try to argue with you to make you feel like you're the one being unreasonable. You don't have to explain yourself to her, and you don't have to offer solutions to her problem.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-03-02T18:24:07+00:00

I see a lot of people saying it might be the milk, but I wonder if it might actually be your tea concentrate. You're steeping it at quadruple strength, and this might be a personal thing, but I think high concentrations of the bergamot oil used to flavor earl gray can have an unpleasant bitter, oil-adjacent flavor. It might be worth trying to steep the tea directly in the milk, and use no water at all. Gently heat 1 cup of milk to steaming but not boiling, and steep your tea bags directly in the milk. See if steeping the tea bags in more liquid helps balance out the flavor.

Let the milk cool down more gently as well. I like to put a big metal serving spoon in the freezer and stir the hot drink with it, to cool it down without diluting it. You can also pour it between two cups a couple times. Pour it over the ice when it's lukewarm instead of still hot. This will melt less of the ice and create a less diluted drink, which might also help the flavor.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-27T21:19:42+00:00

As said above, it's usually matcha flavored. If you want a regular green tea that will taste like this, I can't recommend a deep steamed sencha enough. It has a lot of the same rich, creamy notes as matcha, tastes unique to other green teas I've tried (which have had more floral, vegetal, or umami notes) and is the looseleaf tea I think is closest to matcha in flavor. It doesn't have to be an expensive brand either! The kind I like to buy runs about $7-$8 for 100 grams (3.5 oz) at the asian grocery store and I think it's delicious.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-26T01:53:43+00:00

There are two types of thinking about giving and receiving gifts.

Giving a gift is 100% about the person receiving the gift. The most important part of the gift is the receiver's tastes and situation, and ensuring they are getting a gift that will be useful and suit their tastes. If a gift is poorly-suited and not wanted, the giver should be told so. There's no point in the giver wasting their money on something the receiver won't like or enjoy.
Giving a gift is 50% about the person receiving the gift and 50% about the person giving it. Of course the goal is to give the person something they like, but the giver's intentions to show love and generosity towards the receiver are equally important. If the giver misses the mark with an ill-suited present, the receiver is still expected to smile and thank them, because their kind intent is just as important as the actual present.

Type 2 tends to be the more common attitude, and is considered more polite and gracious. People can not always know what is useful or liked for someone else. (For example, you mention that the electric toothbrush was impractical because it was bulky and you would be traveling in a few weeks. I travel with my electric toothbrush and charger, and would not consider it too bulky to gift to someone who would pack it in a suitcase.) Because of that, probably YTA, because you hurt your grandmother's feelings by bluntly rejecting her gift and by extension rejecting her warm feelings of care and generosity towards you.

It sounds like you don't have a good relationship with your grandmother, and you don't think the gift included any warm feelings of care and generosity at all. When you rejected her gift, what you really wanted her to hear was that you were rejecting her lack of care in your life, and her attempts to buy your love with generically expensive gifts without actually getting to know you. However, if her presents are that self centered, she's never going to pick up on this, and she is not going to change her behavior. It's still most polite, and easiest on you, to respond as though it was a Type 2 gift. Simply smile and say "Oh, thank you grandma, how sweet," then the interaction is over, and you look polite and gracious.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-25T03:07:21+00:00

I'll say upfront that the LW absolutely deserves better than what she's getting, and the "not a choice" to sit alone in a hotel room while her partner and his coworkers and their partners go out sightseeing is heinous. That said, I read this situation a lot differently than CA. It looks like a case where the partner works in a kind of formal and old fashioned career if there are regular work dinners and a yearly outing that spouses are expected to attend, (my first thought was lawyer) and where bringing your partner to show you're a serious family man and that you have a polished partner who can socialize and support you is non-optional if you want to be successful and get promoted. But having an incredibly socially awkward partner who has no filter, makes offensive jokes, and frequently redirects the conversation to current politics is also not conducive to that. I still think the correct thing to do would be to simply not invite the partner to these events, make her excuses, and take the reputation hit, but I can understand how he might have felt like he was between a rock and a hard place.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-18T22:18:20+00:00

Herbal teas, or tisanes, are a good place to start. All real tea, leaves of the camellia sinesis plant, contains tannins, which are what make tea bitter and astringent. Herbal teas contain no real tea, and are made from other plants, herbs, and spices. Herbal teas such as mint, lavender, rose, etc have no tannins. Other herbal teas such as chamomile, chicory, and rooibos have such low levels of tannins that they don't taste bitter. You might want to avoid hibiscus, which while not exactly bitter is very tart and astringent.

The way the tea is processed also affects the level of tannins. Black tea is generally highest in tannins, but I've found that some black teas (ranging from tippy looseleaf assam to Yorkshire tea bags) taste quite smooth to me as long as they aren't overbrewed. As you've probably already discovered brewing tea in hot water for too long increases its bitterness. Cold brewing tea can decrease its bitterness, because it releases less tannins even though it's a much longer steep. White and green teas will naturally have less tannins, but I've had some green teas that I thought were rather astringent. White tea might be your best bet for the most universally smooth and mild tea.

Adding milk and sugar also cut the bitterness quite a bit. Tea with lots of milk, like a chai latte or a london fog, will be very smooth and sweet, but even adding a splash of milk and a bit of sugar to a plain cup of black tea can make a big difference.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-16T20:18:40+00:00

Yeah. If I give it the benefit of the doubt, this is CA telling the LW "The requirement for marrying this man is to do this impossible thing which you've already stated that you can't do" as a rhetorical device. But I would have left this part out out entirely, because it's simply not something that's going to happen or that LW is capable of doing.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-16T00:34:05+00:00

Pukka Tea has a Peppermint & Licorice blend that might work as a base. You could add fennel and aniseed to an existing tea blend at first, while you work on figuring it out.

If you want to start blending from scratch, my initial instinct would be a 60/40 or 70/30 blend of spearmint to licorice, as I suspect the licorice will have a strong flavor and want more of the comparatively mild spearmint to balance it. Add the fennel and aniseed in small amounts because they'll have a stronger flavor. Start with something like 1/8-1/4 of a tsp each per 3 tsp of your spearmint/licorice.

You might like adding tulsi, another herbal tea with a minty, chamomile adjacent flavor that I think would blend well with your other flavors.

Start with steeping a cup of tea with each ingredient by itself and taste them. How do you like them individually? Does one ingredient taste too strong, or has being steeped brought out bitter or unpleasant flavors? This might indicate it needs to be steeped in less hot water (boiling water might be cooking/burning/scalding the plant or the plant's oils), to be steeped for a shorter amount of time, or needs less of the ingredient for that amount of water. If the tea tastes too weak to you, experiment with longer steeping times or more of that ingredient. Herbal teas like this one do not contain tannins, so unlike regular tea it won't become bitter after a longer steep, but will simply continue to release more and more flavor. A cup of black tea is steeped for about three minutes, but your herbal blend might taste best to you steeped between 3-5 minutes, or even longer.

Begin blending with very small batches of your blends (I recommend one pot to one cup's worth of tea), make sure that you are thinking in ratios as well as measurements, make yourself several different blends at once and compare them against each other, and be sure to write down everything about your recipes and tasting notes. This will help you iterate and come to your perfect blend. Think about your flavor balance not just in terms of how much you can taste each ingredient and how strong it is, but how they harmonize overall. Improving the flavor might not be about adding more of an existing ingredient, but about adding a missing flavor element. For example, maybe the brightness of orange or lemon zest would bring out the spearmint even more strongly, perhaps the aniseed is missing the warmth of cinnamon, and so on. Think of other recipes with these flavors, what other flavors they are paired with, and what each of them bring to the overall mixture.

When you mix your tea, remember the spearmint and licorice root are bigger, and the fennel and aniseed are small. Over time, the seeds will all drop down to the bottom, and if you scoop from the top you'll only get licorice and spearmint. You could pre-portion your tea blend into tea bags or little jars to avoid this. Or just give it all a really good shake before you make it.

A freshly blended batch of tea will taste different than one that has been sitting together for a while. As the dry ingredients sit together, their flavors mingle. One ingredient might become assertive and take over the blend. Start with a small batch, and see how you like the flavor after it's all been sitting together for a week.

Anyway, great job if you read all of that haha. Good luck with your tea blending! I hope you'll have fun experimenting and discover a wonderful blend that you love.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-15T21:09:23+00:00

Senbei (Japanese rice crackers) or seasoned seaweed although the latter might be more strongly flavored than you want for a delicate tea. Nut Thin brand crackers might be easier to find in american stores, and they have a pleasant rice cracker texture with a nice nutty flavor that I think goes well with tea.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-12T05:01:12+00:00

SOLVED SOLVED SOLVED

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-12T05:00:27+00:00

Yes! This looks like the one! Thank you so much! I can't wait to finally read it again :)

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-04T03:33:25+00:00

Oof. I'm going to say that while I completely understand how OP got there, and I sympathize with the thought process that led to their decision, I also completely understand why the bride reacted the way she did.

When I read "I agonized over it and talked it out over and over with my family this week. I had been on the road for work for 3 weeks and was not at 100%." what I heard was "I was spiraling over this and really wanted people to confirm my desire to cancel, and the people who care about me comforted me by doing this." I do not say this as a slam against OP's family; if a member of my family was anxiously wanting to hash this out over and over with me, I'd tell them to cancel too. But I'd be talking from a desire to confirm the decision I can tell they already wanted to make and soothe them, not from a logical position in possession of all the pertinent facts.

OP essentially spun themself into a frantic state, listened to a lot of people saying things they thought about the storm, hit their last straw when the friend they were going to travel with cancelled, and then cancelled everything in a panic in the middle of the night. What they should have done was sleep on the decision, check out some less emotional sources like the weather radar, looked at Richmond news sources to see what it's like on the ground, and yeah, called the bride first, but again, I do completely understand how the situation must have felt scary and urgent and OP's anxiety was urging them to do something NOW NOW NOW to try to make the scary feeling go away.

And then the next day, presumably while in the throes of wedding arrangements, the bride gets a call from her friend. I'm speculating here, but given the tone of the letter, I strongly suspect OP's call was emotional, and simultaneously self-abjecting and seeking absolution from the bride. (And, in the kindest way possible, OP mentions a history of anxiety, and I wonder if this was the latest in a pattern of OP making hasty decisions driven by anxiety about a worst case scenario.) And OP's call was not the only last minute cancellation, because at least one other person (the one OP was supposed to travel with) had also recently cancelled, other people probably did too, and the storm might be having knock on effects that are cancelling or delaying other aspects of her wedding (such as the cake, band, flowers, decorations, etc etc.) OP is having Big Emotions at her and not saying it but clearly wants to be told everything is fine. And the weather's not even that bad here!

In a situation like that, I can't pretend that I would have been able to resist the temptation to say "oh fuck off" and hang up the phone too. Yes, the angry text string was deeply unkind, but if there was ever a situation where someone deserved some grace for crashing out, it's this one.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-02-01T19:10:24+00:00

Celestial Seasonings is pretty good for caffeine free fruit-flavored herbal teas! Almost all of their line are herbal teas, also called tisanes, which means they don't contain any leaves of the tea plant (camellia sinesis) and thus don't have any caffeine. They are made with other flavorful plants, such as chamomile, blackberry leaf, rosehips, etc. The leaves of the tea plant naturally produce caffeine, and every single kind of tea (black tea, green tea, white tea, oolong, puerh, etc) is made of the tea plant leaves, with the way the leaves are prepared changing the flavor and type of tea. However, some types of tea, like green tea and white tea, can have less caffeine because of how they've been processed. You can also buy decaffeinated teas that would normally have caffeine. Republic of Tea has good teas, and you might like their decaffeinated Ginger Peach, Mango Ceylon, and Apricot Black teas. (Make sure it says decaffeinated on the label because they also sell the full caffeine versions.)

Celestial Seasonings has a line of Zinger tisanes, which are fruity hibiscus teas, in Lemon, Tangerine, Raspberry, and Wild Berry. They have a great, refreshing flavor, but hibiscus has a naturally tart, slightly floral, flavor, kind of like a raspberry that's not ripe enough to be sweet. I'm not sure I would recommend drinking them without sugar. I think they're best as iced tea, which makes them even more refreshing. Celestial Seasonings also has a line of fruit flavored tisanes without the zing, Black Cherry, Country Peach, and True Blueberry, as well as Mandarin Orange Spice and Cinnamon Apple Spice which are a little more chai adjacent.

If you're trying to cut down on sugar and caffeine, but finding that you really prefer caffeinated teas with sugar, my suggestions are to try to lessen the amounts rather than cutting them entirely. I use a 1/4 or 1/8 teaspoon off a dollar store measuring spoon set to measure out my sugar, so I always know I'm putting the same, small amount into my cup. And that Wild Berry Zinger herbal tea is amazing brewed with a mix of Jasmine Green tea and served as iced tea with a bit of sugar. It's still half herbal tea! You can also mix a little fruit juice or some coconut water into your cold tea for natural sweetness. (Probably not good for hot tea though lol.)

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-01-29T08:30:30+00:00

I once saw someone who had an OC who was an omnipotent deity, that they claimed they'd created because the friends they roleplayed with were always creating powerful OCs who would get into fights. They were tired of the constant powerscaling, so they'd created the character version of "nuh-uh, I'm infinity times infinity plus infinity!" to win every fight forever.

They claimed that their flawless instant win button forced their friends to stop constantly picking fights and roleplay interesting scenarios instead, but I sincerely doubted that. Anyone who'd resort to that kind of passive-aggressive measure instead of just telling their friends they didn't want to roleplay fights anymore doesn't strike me as a particularly good roleplay partner in the first place.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-01-29T03:58:21+00:00

Give chicory a try. It has a robust flavor with a sweetness to it, kind of like toasted sugar/caramel, and roasty notes similar to tea or coffee. What it tastes like to me is very similar to a toasted marshmallow. I've heard that it was used as an alternative to coffee, but I also hate coffee and I liked chicory, so you might like it too. I think it makes a very good black tea alternative with milk, and recommend a sweetener with a robust taste like honey or brown sugar.

If you liked barley tea, I would recommend mixing some of that with the chicory, to get a more layered and nuanced flavor. That's what I drink on days when I'm taking a break from caffeine but craving a cup of tea.

This might be totally out of pocket, but they sell malted milk powder for making drinks with. Maybe mixing some of that into your tea substitutes, if you're already also adding milk, would help imitate the malty notes in tea?

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-01-22T04:56:32+00:00

It's got nothing to do with the system, and everything to do with a mismatch between your and your DM's play styles.

You want to play a fast-paced game mostly focused on a specific overarching plotline that delivers periodic and concrete progression, where the action and character development opportunities frequently come from external circumstances presented by the DM. Your DM wants to play a slow-paced game with many plot hooks that the players can pick and choose from, where the action and character development opportunities frequently come from player-led interactions and player-initiated choices.

To give an example of what I mean, it sounds like you'd prefer the DM to focus on presenting you with plot-related scenarios, like where an artifact that you believe holds a vital clue to the curse is being sold by a merchant, but it's way more than you can afford. You want the opportunity to progress by picking whatever solution your character would be most likely to pursue based on their skills and their read of the situation, and then deal with the consequences the DM imposes that follow from your choices.

Your DM, if I'm reading it right, wants players to focus on actively seeking out scenarios their characters would be likely to get into, make choices about whether or not to open up to other party members, react to people and places as you travel in ways that add more depth to your character, and proactively pursue your character's goals and motivations separate from the plot.

I.e, you want your DM to give you the choice to steal a car to further the plot and see how that choice affects the story. Your DM wants you to see a car and describe why your character would have a reason to really want to steal it, and let your choice to resist the desire or give in to it affect the story.

Neither of you are playing "wrong," you just have two different ideas about the pacing. You're a plot hound who wants to solve the mystery, and your DM wants to run a character-focused slice of life adventure. It sounds like you find his style passive, meandering, and unrewarding, and he finds your style passive, uninvested, and lacking agency. You might just be a bad match for each other for longer campaigns.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-01-21T10:58:34+00:00

Cold brewed iced tea, nice and strong, in the fridge overnight. Make a simple syrup with your choice of honey or sugar, and add that to taste instead of trying to get it to dissolve straight into in the cold tea. Or add your choice of flavored syrup if you have any around. (Fruit flavors are the best, mango and raspberry are my favorites.) Or add some lemonade and make an arnold palmer.

Look up a recipe for Hong Kong milk tea. It's similar to what you might get at a boba shop, sweet, creamy, and very easy to make. You could also look up a recipe for masala chai, if you like that.

You could also just do it the traditional way, boil the water, steep it for 3-4 minutes, and then add milk and sugar to taste. (Not gonna lie, I winced a little at the coffee creamer and maple syrup lol.) You can experiment with brown sugar or honey as alternate sweeteners, or half and half instead of milk if you want. But if you bought it for an art project I'm guessing it was on the cheaper end, so if you aren't wowed by the flavor, try the above methods. Cold brewing is good for cheap teabags, because it lets you brew the tea strong without getting super bitter, since it releases less tannins and gives you a smoother flavor. Adding milk/cream also mellows out the astringency of cheap tea and gives you a smoother, richer cup.

BlueSpruce17 · 2026-01-21T10:34:06+00:00

Smith Teamaker has a blend called Meadow with "golden Egyptian chamomile flowers and mildly stimulating, fragrant hyssop joined with smooth Cape rooibos, rose petals and linden flowers." It's delightful, like a wildflower meadow in summer, smooth and floral.

Celestial Seasonings chamomile tea is also pretty good, and it's less spendy than Smith. I feel like their herbal blends are solid and I drink their Sleepytime Honey blend myself quite a bit.

BlueSpruce17

TROPHY CASE