Spill the Tea: Alley Cat Cafe

Last year my sister needed some help with my nieces as it was spring break, her husband was out of town due to family illness, and she was working. I had promised my niece I would visit them in Georgia before they moved and found this to be the best time as my work had finally lifted their COVID19 ban on vacations.

While there that week we planned to go to a mall in Florida, but plans changed and we ended up visiting Columbus, GA. I had wanted to visit a tea place in Florida, but as we changed where we were going so did I. I quickly googled and discover a Cat Cafe. And you all know how I feel about cats.

Thats me

My sister didn’t want to go to the Cat Cafe as she felt it was too expensive, but after I told her I would pay for it we headed over there.

I’m not sure how long the business had been opened before we went and unfortunately I cannot find a lot of information as I just discovered (when I was going to link their website to my post), a few months after I visited, it permanently closed.

That’s not good.

As I already wrote the post before my Horrorfest ones, I decided to still post it. While I was there the Cat Café served a variety of coffee, some tea, and had 10 cats that would by cycled out by Pat’s Rescue Cats. It cost $10 an hour for an adult to visit with the cats and $7 an hour for kids under 12. One drink is included with the hourly rate.

When we arrived at the cafè I paid for our time and we chose our drinks. The only tea included with the hour was my choice of a tea bag; my sister ordered a Dolly’s Doughnut (cinnamon bun + vanilla coffee, my niece ordered a Whiskered Mocha (white chocolate), and my littlest niece had a hot chocolate. They told us they would let us know when our drinks were ready and we could go in to see the cats. Because of COVID-19 we had the whole room to ourselves as they could only let so many people in at a time.

The cats were cute and most of them very friendly, allowing you to cuddle and play.

They came into the room and gave us our drinks, giving me a to-go cup of hot water. I was just given the water and then had to leave the room to go to the front counter and make my tea. I thought that was an odd choice as they ask you at the counter what tea you want and you “order it”. It wouldn’t have bothered me if we all had to go and get our drinks, but I felt that if they are preparing the drinks and bringing them to you, then they should do it for all the drinks. And if they were just going to give me hot water, then why not do that before I went into the cat room, as I could have gotten my tea before going in.

After I got my tea and went back to the room, I asked everyone what they thought of their drinks. My tea wasn’t that good, very weak tea bag and no sugar or milk available. My sister and niece did not like their coffees as they both felt the coffee was bitter. My younger niece also didn’t care for her hot chocolate as she said it “tasted weird”. I decided to try it and found myself agreeing with her. It did have an odd aftertaste.

My biggest critique of this place would be to work on their drinks, although I suppose it doesn’t really matter as they are no longer open. The rest of the cafe was cute and fun. I loved the decor, cat items available for purchase, and of course the kitty cats themselves. I hope that they decide to reopen.

For more tea cafe reviews, go to Spill the Tea: eleven tlc

For more tea posts, go to Spill the Tea: There & Back Again Cafe

My Go-To Juice

Some people run on coffee

Some people run on chocolate

I run on books!

They help through everything:

Whether sad or stressed:

Bored:

Yep:

For more book-filled posts, go to BYOB: Bring You Own Book

 

How to Make a London Fog

As you can tell, this post isn’t about this:

But this:

So during the week I go to a coffee shop in the morning to kill an hour before work and while there buy a cup of Earl Grey tea.

I drank so many that I had enough to get any drink free! I asked the barista what she recommended and they said a London Fog- Earl Grey tea with Vanilla and heated, foamy milk. I tried it and LOVED it!

I had to have more of it. So I decided to make it myself.

Ingredients:

• Tea Kettle/Teapot
• Earl Grey Tea (I use loose leaf but you can do bagged)
• Milk
• Vanilla Creamer
• Milk Frothier
• Sugar (optional)
• Tall Glass
• Tea Mug or Teacup

Directions:

1. Put your kettle or teapot on and heat the water.
2. Prepare your loose leaf tea (one teaspoon per cup of water). [I typically drink out of a two cup tea mug.]
3. When water is ready pour in mug over tea infuser or tea bag. (Tea should steep no more than three minutes.)
4. When tea is steeping prepare the milk. This is something that might take a few trials until you find your perfect taste. I typically take 1/4 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of Vanilla creamer and pour both into the tall glass.
5. Using the frothier, whisk the milk mixture until it is nice and airy. If you don’t have a frothier you can use a tall glass jar and shake it up.
6. Heat the milk mixture in the microwave for a minute.
7. When the tea has steeped, remove it from the mug and add sugar (if needed) and foamy milk mixture.
8. Drink & enjoy!

It was delicious, and cheaper than forking over four dollars every time you wished to have it. Delicious!

For more recipes, go to Harlem Tea Room Cheddar-Thyme Scones

For more Tea posts, go to I Made My Own Teabags

For more on Pride and Prejudice, go to Whether Presentable or Not, I Love Spending Time With You: Episode Four, Pride and Prejudice (1995)

The Dark, Dark, Dark Side

So you all know how much I love tea.

But you might not know what my favorites are. I used to be a fan of fruit or mint, but now my loves are Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Chai Noir, or any variation of black chai. You know the dark teas. As I always say, the darker the better.

So the other day I was shopping for more tea, when I spotted some on sale for $1.65.

Most tea ranges from 2.99 to 3.99. It is never that low.

It was a new tea by Bigelow. They had made an American Breakfast tea, saying that we needed our own to add to the English and Irish Breakfast teas. I decided to buy it and then later threw away my receipt as I didn’t need it anymore.

Majorly

It was only afterwards that I saw it has 50% more caffeine in it.

Now I don’t do well with caffeine. If I have a little of it, I am up all night and bouncing off the walls. The next day I feel sick, have a gigantic headache, and just want to sleep. It like having a hangover.

But I thought maybe this time it won’t be so bad. I decided to try it out.

And it was…

It was darker than dark. It was so dark and strong I had to throw in a bunch of cream and sugar.

It was as if the makers of Bigelow thought Americans don’t like tea, only coffee; so let’s make the most coffee-est tea we can. For me it was good was far too strong.

Definitely not my cup of tea. I’m sticking with Earl Grey from now on.

For more on tea, go to Going on a Treasure Hunt

For more on Star Wars, go to This Day in History

Viva La Révolution

So I decided to do this post in honor of Bastille Day! Yay! You know I find the French Revolution so fascinating on how things got so ugly, so quickly. Also the complete irony on how they tried to change everything about France and erase all shreds they were ever ruled by a monarchy, but yet at the same time, find themselves being ruled by a king in about 10 years. By the way this is Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix (1830) about the July Revolution of 1830 (the 26-29), which ousted King Charles X of France. For those of you wondering, this took place two years before the June Uprising depicted in Les Miserables. So in this image we have liberty, represented as a woman (as usual) leading the people onward. This painting helped end the Enlightenment period and made way for Romanticism, the style that revolved around political events and current issues to try and evoke emotion out of the viewer. The people in the image following liberty and the French flag, are a wide range of people from different classes. To the far left is a poor peasant, and next to him a member of the bourgeois in a top hat, and to the right of liberty a member of the military.

Anyways, this post is also a response to Girl on Fire, my post on The Hunger Games quiz result I got. I mentioned how I would start a revolution as I have tried before at an Oxfam  banquet.

So at my school we do an Oxfam banquet every year that raised awareness of hunger and homelessness in the world, U.S. and city that we live in. Each person who visits picks a name/occupation out of a bowl and it determines where you will be placed, and what your economic status is. Those who are lower class are the majority, sit on the floor, are treated rudely, have to drink water with coffee grounds in it, share a thing of rice, and eat last. Those who are middle class are seated at tables and get clean water, beans, and rice. Those who are upper class get bread rolls, salad, clean water in glasses, eat off glass plates instead of paper, cookies, and some kind of meat dish. They get the most attention and there are only like five of them, but yet they have more tables set out with food that remain empty. Throughout the night they have speakers and do a discussion of how we felt about the activity.

Now the first year I worked the bowl, holding it and making sure no one cheated, and all went to their right place. At the end of the shift, I pulled out a name and ended up getting upper class. Unfortunately, the waitstaff forgot to serve us the main dish so we only had salad and bread.

The next year they didn’t need volunteers so I just went with my friends. This year I got middle class (pooh) and in order to eat we had to do “chores”. They gave us a bag with holes in it and we had to clean up the newspaper pieces they had ripped and thrown about. The poorer class had it worse as they didn’t have a bag and the people get throwing more and more paper at them.

So I came up with the idea to tie the holes up as otherwise, we were going nowhere. After we finished we got our nasty food (it was horribly done as our caf sucks). Then we sat there. Now we had plenty of food left over, and I tried to give it to the other group but they just wouldn’t take it. They felt that it was their role so they were going to accept that. Well I wasn’t. I saw all those tables with empty people and I was hungry. So I told my friends, let’s start a revolution! Look at all the uneaten food that is going to be thrown away afterwards. Let’s go get it. Come on, there is plenty for us. We won’t have to take anybody’s stuff, we won’t force them to do anything. We’ll just rise up and take the stuff we need. I was very much Maria from Metropolis.

Maria, leader of the Rebellion

 

Come on everyone! Let’s do this!

But sadly, none of my friends wanted to as they “thought they would get in trouble”.

But I was like 

And went and took the food.

Yum!

A few people followed my lead, but mostly everyone was too complacent to stand up for their rights or scared they would get kicked out. So what if we do? Then we do. That’s the problem with revolutions or fighting for a cause. You need others to fight with you, but sometimes you just can’t convince them to take that chance. 😦

According to Buzzfeed I’m a real revolutionary and belong during this time period

Go here to see what time period you belong in

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For more of my favorite art, go to You’re Just So Pretty to Look At

For more on the French Revolution, go to Sucky Sequels

For more on The Hunger Games, go to The Hunger Games: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

For more on rebels, go to A True Princess

For more on Revolutions, go to Being Friends is Good Enough