Awesome Green Tea, Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've been under the weather since Friday. :( That means a lot of bland food and liquids. BUT, I thought this would be a great time for me to talk about my favorite tea, Fuji Green Tea.

Quite simply, this stuff is awesome. I had been reading a lot about the benefits of green tea, and tried many different brands in hopes of getting "into" it, but they all tasted nasty... until I tried Fuji Green Tea. Now, you could call me a tea snob because I won't drink any other green tea except this stuff.

My favorites are the premium sencha and genmai matcha. The toasted brown rice in the latter gives it a more robust flavor... a kind of more manly green tea? (Hey, my fiance is a fan of it!)

I believe you can only order this tea online from the Web site. But don't worry if you're not a fan of online shopping; this company's customer service is top notch. Once, when they ran out of a tea I ordered, they sent me a note saying they were sending it directly from Japan! And sure enough, I got a priority package from them containing my tea. They've also thrown in freebies of different flavors for me to try. And if that's not enough, once a year they notify their customers of a buy-one-get-one sale that cannot be beat.

If you've been wanting to be a fan of green tea, try Fuji Green Tea. This stuff is the bomb, I swear! I've given friends tea bags to try and every one of them has loved it.

Now on to muffins...

I saw this recipe for chocolate chip muffins on My Life as a Vegan. Even though I've been sick, I had a craving for chocolate, especially after reading Kumudha's fabulous post about vegan chocolate on her blog. I had all the ingredients in my cupboard for the muffins, so I mustered up my strength to whip 'em up. The recipe was easy--I only had half a package of chocolate chips though, which were left over from my attempt at the Vegan Magic Cookie Bars, so I substituted some chopped hazelnuts for the difference. They came out looking fabulous, as you can see from the photo in this post. However, I thought they kinda lacked flavor. I felt all the taste came from the chocolate chips. I wish the muffin batter itself had been a little more flavorful.

I also should mention that I ran out to get some over-the-counter meds yesterday and popped into the bookstore next door to see if they had the new issue of Paste magazine; my favorite artist--Ryan Adams--is supposed to be the new cover boy. The store still had last months issue, but while I was there, I couldn't resist drooling over some of the newer cookbooks, namely Veganomicon and Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I've heard so many wonderful things about them... it was tempting to splurge on one, whisk it home as fast as I could and start cooking like a mad woman. But the fact that I was warm and light-headed while looking at the books reminded me that I just needed to get back home and rest so that I could fight this cold. *sigh* I've been a good girl this year, so hopefully Santa will find it in his heart to gift me with one (or both!) book, LOL.

Have a good rest of the weekend!