I don't quite remember when I fell in love with tea but I do remember the most special moments of me drinking tea. I was eighteen years old and I went to live with my biological mother for four months. I had just met her months earlier and it was awkward for both of us. She and her ex-husband lived a very quiet life in Boulder, Colorado. He was a professor at one of the universities and she was a housewife. After years of drug addiction and being in and out of jail, she deserved the break. I was homeless so she and her husband agreed to let me come live with them. Each evening my mother and I would find a spot in the living room with a cup of tea and a book.

Now, years later, I'm a self proclaimed tea expert. I start each day with a wonderful English Breakfast tea to get me going. As the day progresses, who knows what wonderful tea I will crown queen. But for sure, I have at least three cups of tea a day. And yes, when I can, I have tea everyday at about 3:00 P. M. I love to invite my friends over for tea and cupcakes and so far everyone thinks it’s a delightful experience. I am always in search of the best blend of tea. Yes, I’m a tea snob, I prefer loose tea but I do like some bags also. I have learned not to judge a book by it’s cover. Some bags can be quite nice. And yes again, any Diva knows, what you drink your tea out of is very important.

Tea for me is a way of life. It's wellness for the mind body and spirit. Here, I will explore every expect of tea possible, with a high concentration on wellness. I will review the best teas, the best places to have tea, the best ways to brew tea, the best tea accessories, what tea goes best with what foods, and the list goes on and on. I plan to share my passion for tea with you. And I've been told, nothing I do is ever boring so be prepared to go on this tea journey with me.





RLT Collection Tea Ball Frosted Clear Beads!

Mint Medley by The Persimmon Tree Tea Company

About This Tea:

Until recently I had never drank Peppermint Tea made with loose leaves. And Honestly, I will probably never go back. The freshness of loose Peppermint Tea cannot be denied. When I open the can of Mint Medley, From The Persimmon Tree Tea Company, I feel as if I stepped into a garden of peppermint leaves. It is a perfect blend of organic peppermint and spearmint leaves grown in the US.

Mint Medley has become a favorite and I find myself reaching for this tea tin almost everyday. It is great for on-going nausea. The health benefits and endless. It relieves muscle aches, headaches, migraines, stress. And now that it feels like someone is sitting on my chest and I have a mean cough, I'm sure it will help to relieve some of this congestion in my chest. Mint Medley has been in my tea cup more than any tea as of late. It has really helped with my winter cough, congestion related to this bout of pneumonia. You can read my full review on The Persimmon Tree Tea Company Mint Teas.


RLT Collection AIDS Awareness Tea Ball!




Welcome to my world of books! As an pre-teen books changed my world. I fell in love with the writers of the Harlem Renaissance period and the more I read the more I wanted to read. The fiction of this period was powerful and empowering all at the same time. It spoke to my own degradation and gave me hope for a better tomorrow. It gave me purpose for my own life and the courage to fight the good fight and never surrender.

I love to read! Inside a book I escape into someone else's life. There is something wonderful about turning to the next page of a wonderful story. Something intoxicating about the smell of the book and the story it brings to life. Reading brings me joy, and these days with my health in the balance, I find solace in my books.

I spent hours in my bedroom sequestered with the door closed reading the classics from the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes, Larsen, Hurston, Wright and Baldwin. Books became my escape and my salvation. The fiction of this period was powerful and empowering all at the same time. It gave me purpose for my own life and the courage to fight the good fight and never surrender.

Reading is the one thing that the pain of my life could never take away from me. It was the thing that helped to make it better. And even today, living with AIDS, books continue to be the safest place for me. It’s the one thing that belongs to me that AIDS cannot take away from me.The RLTReads book club will be books that I choose. It’s me sharing a part of me with you that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s actually in spite of AIDS.

The RLTReads book club will be books that I choose. It’s me sharing a part of me with you that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s actually in spite of AIDS. I have read hundreds of books from many different genres and I will pick the best of my reads over the years. I warn you, it will not be exclusively white or black, male or female, fiction or non fiction, it will be all of them.

I’m so excited and I’m grateful to everyone who wants to be a part of this venture. We already have 110 Book Club Members. You can email me @ RLTReads@raelewisthornton.com. The Twitter hashtag is #RLTReads. We can make this book club as wonderful as we want to make it. Who says that Oprah has to have the only ownership to a wonderful book club?

This Month We are Reading In My Fathers House by E Lynn Harris


Read along and join our discussion July 19th at 7 pm CST







For more Tea with Rae "Vlogs" Click here to visit her youtube channel

Monday, August 18, 2014

The Case of Mike Brown #Ferguson #MikeBrown


I have to admit, when I first saw the picture of Michael Brown laying in the middle of a Ferguson street, my first reaction was, 'Here we go again." Then my impulse was to say, "But what about black on black crime?" and I said as much in a Facebook post that I have since deleted. I'm the first to admit when I am wrong no matter the context. For sure my frustration with Chicago's violence is not an excuse for insensitivity of anyone's death, no matter the circumstance.

Then I turned to Twitter and everything changed. The tweets on Michael Brown's death and the police standoff was all consuming. I got sucked into the hashtags #Ferguson and #MikeBrown. Black Twitter had taken up the case of Mike Brown and was demanding  justice. The  images coming out of Ferguson from tweets were powerful. The "RT" re-tweets were massive and have been non-stop since Mike's death. Mainstream media are now admitting that Twitter broke the real story and brought worldwide attention to the murder of this young man. Can you image Palestinians tweeting residents of Ferguson on how to handle tear gas? Twitter has that power.

To catch you up to date based on the information that I have today. An 18 year old, unarmed young man by the name of Michael Brown was shot by police officer Darren Wilson, who has been a member of the mostly white (50 of 53) police department of Ferguson for 4 years.

Michael and his friend Dorian Johnson where walking down the middle of the street when Officer Wilson asked the boys to get out of the middle of the street. According to Dorian, they had a few words, Officer Wilson pulled off, then backed up. After trying unsuccessfully to pull Mike Brown into the car through the window, Officer Wilson then got out of the car and started shooting. They started running after the first shot.  Two additional eye witness confirms the story of Dorain that Mike Brown, eventually stopped put his hands in the air and Officer Wilson continued to shoot. A preliminary autopsy was released today, indicating that there were at least 6 shots to the front of the body with 2 being to the head.



Tensions rose to an all time high after the police let Mike Brown's body lay in the streets for 4 hours and a good portion of that Mike seemed to have been uncovered. His mother, father and family looked on in horror. This video says it all. (warning, the language is graphic)



Tensions rose and eventually led to a stand off with black members of the community and the Ferguson police draped in military gear before any outside intervention. There was a standoff for four days that erupted into a riot, tear gas, rubber bullets and arrest. The press had given Michael Brown's death almost no coverage until two reporters were arrested. Most of the news was coming from Twitter. In fact, through Twitter news outlets learned of the journalist arrest.

Ferguson is in turmoil and adding to the fuel was the police departments handling of the case. In addition to the blatant disregard for the protesters, it took nearly a week to disclose the name of the officer  and then from a Freedom of Information request.

Officer Wilson Picture was released by Yahoo News
Wilson's name but not his picture was released on Friday in the back drop of information about Mike Brown that had no bearing on his murder. This created even more tension on the ground in #Ferguson and Twitter exploded dissecting Chief's Thomas Jackson statement and calling out the hypocrisy, forcing him to have another press conference that afternoon clarifying the press conference that morning.

All eyes are on Ferguson as the protest and clashes with law enforcement continues. As I write this blog post, the National Guard is rolling into Ferguson to restore order, peace on the other hand, can only be restored when the murderer of Michael Brown is brought to justice.


Me, well I have lots more to say about my life  and HIV/AIDS for sure, but right now I have lots  to say about the micro topics surrounding the death of Mike Brown and the situation in Ferguson. More blog posts are forthcoming. On Friday I wanted to tweet my usual #FuckinFriday hashtag focusing on HIV prevention, but was virtually paralyzed. What could I say to young people about safe sex in a society where their life is not valued and right wing, racist trolls are seeking out the hashtag #Ferguson and tweeting that Mike was just another koon?

Related Ferguson Post!
Michael Brown and The Politics of Respectability
Ferguson in Photos
at 1:03 PM
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