In my experience a skein is a specific type of wound wool. It’s looped and then twisted and folded over. You can’t knit from a skein, you have to reball it first.

A heads up if you start making it yourself that you don’t want boiling water with white tea, it will burn it/make it bitter. It is delicious though!

I thought it would be awful but I briefly had to cut caffeine to check if it was a trigger for something and I got a bag of loose-leaf decaf earl grey and it was absolutely fine which was encouraging (and good that i could tell my Dad now that he has had to cut it for the forseeable future).

I don’t really drink, but my family loves a little bit of a drink. When my partner and I go for dinner at my parents now my Mum always has some non-alcoholic wine/champagne/cooler for me and it’s nice for when I want a flavoured drink that’s cold and isn’t soda water or really sweet. She also had been liking it for nights with friends where she still wants the taste of another glass of wine, but not more alcohol.

But also, a total tea snob who agrees with you on tea bags being terrible.

I chuckled, because I am 100% a tea snob with strong opinions on how my tea should be made even though I also believe you like what you like. Exaggerating my opinions for laughs brings me joy IRL. It didn’t come off as serious to me.

I don’t like milk in my tea (my go to black tea is earl grey) because it takes away from the flavour. But I love chai. So the trick for me is just that the tea just needs a good brew in the milk, not just the water (also I guess, adding more spices to it is also necessary).

But my earl grey? I had to stop using sugar because it sets off my acid reflux, so now I use maple syrup :D

I have gone down the chai rabbithole in the last year. First my partner taught me how to make a chai base from their days in a cafe, but then we got this metal milk frother you can use on the stove as well. Now I’m making one or two chais a day individually. It’s a bit meditative as well (I sit on a stool next to it so it doesn’t burn/boil over).

Chocolate chai’s are also amazing, and I’ve been making them some nights as a dessert after dinner.