I first tasted chai at a mobile teahouse the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. A group of community-minded folks outfitted an old truck with extendable wings, a big stash of pillows and a small kitchen. Each week they would travel around to a different park around Portland and set up for an evening in the grass (I believe they did this with permission but I don't know for sure).

They would extend the wings to provide shade, scatter the pillows around and serve drinks and snacks. The food was all donation based, people made it at home and brought it to share (this did mean that the menu was always changing). You weren't charged when you received it, you were just asked to make a donation that then went to a local charity. Musicians would set up around the truck and take turns playing all evening long.

A lot of you gave me some tips for trying to find great-tasting teas that would help me cut down on my daily sugar intake. Thanks again. I took everyone's advice and went on a little tea shopping spree this weekend, and here's what I bought and how they taste.

I went with reader advice and bought two different kinds of Good Earth: Original and Vanilla Chai. Both are nice. The original has a strong cinnamon taste, and while the chai has a strong vanilla flavor and aroma to it, it also has a lot of cinnamon and other spices. But they both taste good. I've had some cinnamon-flavored teas that, well, just tasted like someone took 30 or 40 sticks of Big Red gum and boiled them. These taste really great. I also bought a variety pack of Celestial Seasonings. I've had some flavors of this brand in that past I wasn't too thrilled with, but it's a good tea to keep on hand. I'm going to buy some other brands too and see how they are.

And the best news? With these teas I've cut down from 4-5 packets of sugar to only 1 or 2! Most excellent.

Oregon Chai has two seasonal holiday Chai products, Chai Cider and Chai Nog. Both are made with natural and organic ingredients, spices, etc. You just pour the concentrate into a pot or mug, add an equal part of water or milk, and serve hot or cold.

The Chai Cider is a crisp and tasty blend of apple cider, black tea, honey, vanilla, ginger, and other Chai spices. The company recommends you try it plain or with whipped cream and caramel syrup for a super tasting treat.

The Chai Nog is dairy and egg free for those of you who have less than an omnivore nature, and are looking for holiday drink alternatives. It also contains black tea, honey, vanilla, ginger, and Chai spices. Since it was introduced six years ago it has become the #1 bestselling Chai during the holiday season. here's a great review from The Road blog, who is an obvious Chai Head.

If you can't find the products in a store near you they sell them online for your convenience. The one quart containers retail for $5.49, but I have seen them for much less in stores.

Snickerdoodles are supposed to be one of the great standards of American cookies, although they look relatively nondescript when compared to an ultra-rich chocolate chip cookie loaded with bittersweet chocolate and nuts. Once you get past their plain appearance, you'll discover that the chewy vanilla cookie with the crunchy cinnamon sugar coating is indeed one of the cookie greats. But bringing up the comparison with the very varied chocolate chip cookies introduces the one drawback of the snickerdoodle: it almost never undergoes any variations because everyone likes the original so much. Karen at FamilyStyle made up a batch of Chocolate Chai Snickerdoodles that bucks this trend, though. These cookies have the classic texture that we know and love from the original cookies, but with lot of added spices and a base cookie that has a healthy amount of cocoa added for chocolate flavor. The recipe is after the jump:

I am addicted to tea, but I don't drink it during the summer. I know, I know, there are many that will tell you - particularly in England, I bet - that drinking tea year round is not only the right way to do it, but really the only civilzed thing to do. I hear that, but it's just too hot and humid for me here in Massachusetts during the months of June, July, and August to drink anything hot. I also think it's a bit of defiance: I truly hate summer (no joke), and when fall rolls around I truly get a lot happier, so I think that I stop drinking tea not just because it's too hot to drink it in the summer, but also because I want to have something that, for me, marks the beginning of cooler temps.

And now that week has come! Starting September 1, I'm going to start drinking tea again. Sure, summer is not "officially" over yet, but Labor Day always marks the end of the summer for me. Besides, while it's not cold yet, there's been a definite shift in the temperature here. Not nearly as humid. You can feel it in the air. So, tea is back for me.

I know, this isn't exactly the type of news you'd see on the news crawl on CNN, but I thought I'd share.

Over at Jim Romenesko's great Starbucks Gossip Blog, he points to an atricle in the Detroit Press that discloses that Detroit, MI only has five Starbucks shops. That's low for a big city I guess, and the article and many reader comments talk about how it might be because of crime in the city.

But the big news for me isn't that Detroit has only 5, it's that the city of San Jose, CA, has 46 Starbucks. 46! Wow, they really are everywhere, aren't they. I think David Letterman had a joke once where he said that a Starbucks had just opened in his pants. That was a while ago, so I should call CBS and see if it's opened yet.

I'm not sure if there should be 46 of anything in one city, except maybe schools.