Monday's Musings - Literary Libations - Tea Shop Mysteries - The English Breakfast Murder

Whew! That was a long title to type.

This week's Tea Shop Mystery by Laura Childs was entitled The English Breakfast Murder and was about a surprise finding of the dead body of a member of a friendly group who called themselves the English Breakfast Club. Sadly, the deceased was a friend of Drayton, one of the main characters who is the tea expert and blender at the Indigo Tea Shop. It soon became evident that the drowned man was murdered, but who could have killed the kindly older man and why? Again, Theodosia Browning is drawn into trying to figure that out, especially since it had been she who found the body.

What I liked:
Another cozy visit to Theodosia's Indigo Tea Shop was relished. Getting to learn a little about sea turtles was interesting as well as more of the Charleston history and culture. Instructions on tea dyeing were enticing and I gave it a try. I had a small embroidery that I'd done several years ago and decided to use that. You might not be able to tell it from this photo, but the fabric is nearly blindingly white.

Using a cheap black tea bag, I made a strong tea in a bowl and then immersed the embroidery for an hour.

So, the picture doesn't show much color change, but it is an antique-looking cream now. I might should have made the tea a little stronger, but it was a fun experiment anyhow.

What I could have lived without:

Though I'm kind of getting used to it and so it often slides by, every now and then I again notice how frequently Laura Childs calls her characters by both their first and last names though they've already been introduced as such and there's no need for both names. Annoying, but not earth-shattering. The playing out of the big reveal was a little far-fetched, but, hey, this is escapist fiction, right?! Also, some characters are getting to be annoying, but they're supposed to be, so that's just all part of it.

The tea:

Superb again! Simpson and Vail comes through again with a mellow and delightfully simple English Breakfast tea. 

 I chose a smaller sample of it since I already buy this tea in bulk from Frontier for making kombucha and I just wanted a little taste of another brand. 

(Full disclosure - I made a little pot of the Frontier tea, too, and decided I like Simpson and Vail better.)

Thankfully our weather finally cooled off from being in the 90s to being in the low 70s so I could thoroughly enjoy a hot cuppa or two, or three.

The recipes:

Again, I had trouble getting to the recipes, partly because I'm trying to cut calories (need to take off the quarantine five plus the original extra pounds that I should lose), and partly because it's been too hot to think of baking or much cooking. 

Onward, forward to The Jasmine Moon Murder...