Jim Washkau Jr.

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Just a random project I decided to do yesterday out of boredom after getting back from Philly; Wardriving through Bridgewater NJ. I guess I should of had some way of mounting the camera to the dashboard as it would fall after most turns.

Well I ordered some new tea from a shop directly in China. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about an aged tea called Pu-Erh. This tea that I ordered was a small sample pack of Pu-Erh tea aged since 2000. Of course there are much older pu-erhs that probably taste even better but I don’t want to spend a lot on my first purchase. The pu-erh I bought came in small bricks that when hot water is poured over it crumbles into a bunch of leaves. The pu-erh leaves are actually a bit harder to brew than other teas I have because with this you have to rinse the leaves first, then steep it for a different amount of time depending on how many times you have steeped it already. The good thing about it is that you can re-steep the same leaves for up to about 5 cups and it has a really nice light red color to it. The taste is not as strong as i expected it to be but after a few sips it really grows on you.

I have been drinking a lot of loose leaf tea lately so I thought I would post about it. Loose leaf tea has many more benefits over bagged tea mostly due to the quality of loose leaf. Most people don’t know that tea bags don’t actually contain tea leaves and actually is just tea “dust”. Tea leaves contain chemicals and essential oils, which are the basis for the delightful flavor of tea. I started loose leaf with a Green Tea sampler pack from Adagio teas which came with the IngenuiTEA strainer thing.

Since I’m in the blogging mood here is a review of my latest home theater addition, the Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote. Since I have a bunch of Amazon.com gift cards I grabbed the the Harmony 550 refurb for $50. It was a pretty good deal as they retail for almost double that. I got it about 3 days after I ordered it and it came in a huge amazon box for this small remote (tsk tsk Amazon, that’s not green at all! – still a great company though). Anyway I connected the remote to my computer via USB, typed in all the equipment I had and loaded on the files in about 10 minutes. Very easy to install and use. I really like the LCD screen as you can completely customize what buttons you want easy access to. Also the blue backlight its really nice for at night. The range on it is great, I can actually change the volume of my Z-5500 speakers without having to go into crazy positions just for the receiver to read the standard remote. The only downside I see about the remote is that it uses 4 AAA batteries and the LCD screen is always on. I have a feeling I should invest in some rechargeable batteries as I may be replacing them often.

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