We Texan's (native or otherwise, like myself) drink gallons of ice tea,
but I've never thought about the leaves--good idea.
I was once on a fan trip featuring the SP 4449. I took a seat next to a
gentlemen who had come from England, so he must have been a big fan.
Anyway somewhere along the trip, he asked for a favor--I said sure. He
gave me a shoebox size box wrapped in brown paper. He was supposed to
drop off this box of tea to a couple here in Houston, but apparently
they didn't make contact, so I was asked to do so.
I tried to make contact several times without luck, so I said I'll try
this stuff. The box said something like: "East African tea by the
Nairobi Coffee Company"--man that stuff was strong! It didn't taste
much like either tea or coffee
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
--- In [email protected] <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com>, Jim
and Cheryl Martin <farnhamhouse@...> wrote:
> You mentioned tea leaves. Newly-minted S scaler Trevor Marshall
always has a stash of spent tea leaves drying near his scenery
supplies. He uses it to represent freshly tilled earth.
Hi Jim:
I use it for that and more.
I buy my tea loose. My current favorite pusher is David's Tea -
http://www.davidstea.com/ - mentioned here only because they sell lots
of loose tea and ship across North America (although I've never done
that - I have a David's franchise up the street from me so I buy in
person).
After enjoying a cuppa, I dump the leaves out of the tea ball, onto a
cookie sheet that lives in a window sill in my layout room. I scatter
them on the sheet so they're in a thin layer, and let them dry
thoroughly before putting them in a storage tub. In the winter, with
the furnace running, they take about 24 hours to dry completely.
Longer in the summer, what with higher humidity and all (but I drink
less tea in the summer anyway).
When it's time to use them, I might break them up in my fingers before
scattering under trees... run through a blender (I bought a cheap one
for the purpose) to scatter as general dead ground cover... or even
blend then sift through a strainer if I'm looking for a "dirt" effect.
- Trevor
---
Port Rowan in 1:64
Building and blogging an S scale model of a 1950s
Canadian National branch line terminal in Southern Ontario:
http://themodelrailwayshow.com/cn1950s
