Blue-skies happy with iced mate

Mr. Malleable (AKA Wednesday) popped out in glorious blue-skies-everywhere sunshine! No ifs, ands, or buts, and decidedly not malleable. Sunshine! If you live elsewhere, you may not be able to relate to how intensely happy we get around these parts when a day begins with undiluted sunshine, with no descriptive weather modifiers needed. A friend said, just last week, that this was now officially the longest November on record. That about sums up our spring so far this year. So color me blue-skies happy.

As a result, the drive in featured the sunlit Cascade mountains in my rear-view mirror and the sunlit Olympics in my forward view. It really doesn't get a whole lot better than that for a commuting view. Top down, crisp air whirling around the top of my head, bird song louder than the music, and a tall iced cup of Yerba mate in the center console cup-holder getting in my way and forcing me to use the paddle shifters.

If you've ever stumbled over this blog before, you probably know I am a big fan of Guayaki Yerba Mate. Hot, iced, or room temperature, by the glass, the gourd, the mug, or can, it's good stuff. I like the cans of prepared mate, slightly sweetened, and with added flavors, especially the Enlighten Mint. I also like to brew my own mate concentrate and use that for my morning bring-it-with-me, day-starting iced mate. And I've come up with my own recipe for making a delicious sort-of-similar-to-Enlighten-Mint mate concentrate:

For a 10-cup coffee maker, add four tablespoons of loose leaf mate (I like Guayaki's Barbaqua blend) and dump the contents of one teabag of Celestial Seasoning's Tension Tamer herbal tea plus the contents of one tea bag of Stash Tea's Licorice Spice. Pour the brewed concentrate into a refrigeratable container after dissolving two tablespoons of raw sugar into it. I use about three parts of this concentrate with one part water, plus ice, for a delicious iced mate.

As for the music that accompanied me on the drive in today, it was quite varied and quite ok, but not stellar. Michael Occhipinit's interpretations of Bruce Cockburn's music makes for a very very good album, but the quiet intensity of the tunes make them less suited for top-down listening. The set closed with an early (and presciently titled?) John Mayer song, just starting as I pulled onto campus.

The full playlist:

- Michael Occhipinti: Lovers In A Dangerous Time
- Electric Owls: Halloween Mask
- Kenny Werner: Press Enter
- John Mayer: My stupid mouth


- Posted via Hermes.