Tuesday 23 April 2013

teapigs Matcha Tea Review!

Hello!

I was fortunate enough to be sent some Matcha Green Tea from teapigs earlier this week. Because I have been busy with presentations and tonsillitis, I have only just got round to writing my review on this tea! As you may know, I do record tea reviews on YouTube and I will attach it at the end of this blog entry! I also have a discount code for all my readers to get 15% off when buying from http://www.teapigs.co.uk! So exciting!

(c) from teapigs website

Matcha tea, according to the lovely little leaflet that was included in my package of tea, is 100% ground green tea leaves that has many health benefits. One cup of matcha is the equivalent to 15 cups of regular green tea in terms of nutritional benefits and vitamins. teapigs claims that matcha tea can boost metabolism and reports is to be the winner of the best slimming and fitness product of 2011 (voted by "Your Healthy Living" readers), so it's perfect for those of you who are desperate to get your beach body!

The leaflet also boasts of Matcha's "antioxidant power", stating that this tea contains more antioxidants than some of nature's healthiest superfoods, including spinach, blueberries and gojiberries! Matcha tea is also claimed to give you more energy throughout the day and to also relieve you of stress, which would be perfect for me at the moment, while I'm revising for exams!

I could tell you what other people reported when teapigs asked them to sample Matcha everyday for two weeks, but teapigs does it a lot better.




All images taken from teapigs website

So when I tried the tea, I made a cup of it and followed the instructions that were sent to me. I put half a teaspoon of the fluorescent green powder into my awesome cup. I then added a little hot water to it and whisked it until it was smooth and proceeded to top up with more hot water at 80 degrees.

The initial smell of the tea put me off a little bit and I was apprehensive to try it. It smelt like a mixture between seaweed and boiled spinach, but I had no reason to be worried as the tea itself didn't taste like this at all! I have a sweet tooth so I think I would prefer the tea if I added it to a smoothie or to juice, like teapigs also suggests, but the taste of the tea itself isn't too bad at all. It's not sweet enough for my taste, but because it has so many claimed health benefits, I could cope with the lack of sweetness! On the teapigs website, it is also suggested to make the matcha into a shot and to knock it back in one every morning for the health benefits. I would much rather do this too and had I known to do that before doing my video, I would have probably tried it like that in the first place!!



Matcha tea by teapigs gets a thumbs up from me! I'd like to try it in smoothies and juice too and when I do, I will make another blog post about that experience and how it differs from drinking it as a normal tea.

If you would like any more information on matcha tea, teapigs has a wonderful section dedicated to it on its website: http://www.teapigs.co.uk/tea/matcha_shop#matchatab-intro

To claim your 15% off at http://www.teapigs.co.uk, all you need to do is use the code BLOGGERS12 at the checkout when you make your purchase! Unfortunately this discount doesn't apply to gifts or to special deals due to the fact they're already discounted!

You can follow teapigs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/teapigs
You can also "like" them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrinkRealTea
Another thing you can do is go on the teapigs homepage and sign up to their newsletter which will keep you up to date on all things in the land of teapigs!!

Go and show them some love! Thank you for reading this extensive blog post! I hope you didn't find it too boring and that I've inspired you to get some matcha tea!



Friday 19 April 2013

New hair?

I guess I've not really done much this week to post about! If you're subscribed to me on YouTube (and why aren't you if you're not?? Just kidding :D ), you will see that I have been on a role with posting videos on there at the moment! For those of you who know me, I hate doing university work, so any chance I can, I will find an excuse to procrastinate big time!!

But yeah... This week at uni I have had two assessed presentations. One was for German about low-skilled immigrant workers and the other, which was today, was about whether xenophobia (fear of people from another country) was becoming the norm in France or not. Yeah... compelling, I assure you. Anyway! I've had to do these two bloomin' presentations with tonsillitis! I went to the doctors on Wednesday for some antibiotics or something and the doctor (who was very attractive!) said that because it was viral tonsillitis (yeah my tonsils weren't attractive at all...), he couldn't give me any antibiotics for it! I struggled on through... I wasn't really that ill to be fair but seeing Christine recoil from me after seeing my tonsils made me realise that they can't have looked healthy!

I have recorded two new tea reviews, if you're interested. Both for Twinings tea and I put a sneak-peak at what is to come in the tea review world with my teapigs matcha May post in my last tea review so go and check them out if you'd like!

So at the end of my last entry, I said that I was going to go and colour my hair! And here is my new hair :D




It's a lot of blue, a bit of purple and even less pink. It's just quite fun and very different to what I did with my hair before. I like it!


Then I wanted to do a makeup look to match my hair! This is when I went to the doctors so he probably thought I looked seriously overdressed for someone going to the doctors! Click here for the makeup tutorial!

But that is how uninteresting my life has been this week! I know... So sad isn't it? Hopefully next week will be more exciting. I'll try to remember to take more photos anyway so you have something more to look at apart from my (beautiful :P ) face.

I hope you're all well!



Saturday 13 April 2013

Tea and Granny Squares - Not just for old ladies!!

The boyfriend wants a blanket so I decided to oblige, whip out my crochet hook and get going on making granny squares! They're all different styles, colours and sizes so it's going to be interesting to put together but hey... It'll be like a blanket made up of sample squares!!





Just a sample of the squares I've made so far. I've got some more that I've not taken photos of that I've made since being back at university.

I've been back at uni, as I said, and it's the final push before I'm fully graduated and can finally focus fully on my dream of owning a tea room! I keep finding teapots and buying them, ready to decorate my tea room with! I just recently got a new one through and it's gorgeous! I won it off of eBay :) £8 bargain, including P+P!

Here it is added to my teapot shelf! I have 5 teapots now, which may not seem like many but hey, the collection's been going on for less than a year!! I also decided to treat myself to a T-Shirt from the Tea Appreciation Society (http://www.lovetea.co.uk/) I love it! I got a men's T Shirt and it's so comfy and baggy! I never want to take it off :D


Speaking of tea (and let's be honest, when do I not??) I've filmed another tea review for you to see! It's not the longest tea review and I recorded it just before I went to bed.


I also contacted teapigs as they asked for UK-based blogs to email them to ask about Matcha May. So, I will be getting a sample of Matcha tea (details to come in the related post) to review etc. How exciting is that??

Right, I'm off to colour my hair :D