Good morning, dear tea friends! And a Happy 4th of July weekend to my US friends. It’s a clear, bright day after a soggy 4th of July yesterday. Hurricane Arthur reached his outer fingers towards New England as he moved northwards and we got soaked. Firework celebrations got rescheduled, and it turned out to be a good day for the ducks and the gardens.

This morning’s tea is a black tea from Sri Lanka, specifically from the St. James Estate in the Uva district of Ceylon. The “Pekoe” style leaf has been rolled into loose pellets, giving an interesting shape to the dry leaf.

I have read that the southeastern Uva province is the second least populated of Sri Lanka’s provinces, with only 1.1 million people. They have two main agricultural crops there: tea, grown in the hills, and sugar, grown on the plains. The St. James tea garden is located in the Malwatta Valley in that province.

I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes in boiling point (212F) water. This tea has that comforting “tea” aroma, what most folks associate as a tea smell. It’s what you can smell if you ever came to visit my company. People walk through the front door and always remark, “It smells SO good in here!”

While the dry leaf has a grayish cast, after steeping, the wet leaf unfurled slightly to reveal large, chocolate-colored pieces of broken leaf.

The rich amber tea liquor has a sweet fragrance and a smooth, rich flavor with whispers of rose and toast. When I brew this tea again, I’m going to push the brew time to 5 minutes and see if I can coax more briskness into the flavor. No need for milk and sweetener, this tea is wonderful straight up.

There’s nothing like a delicious cup of tea to start a beautiful day.

Until next time, dear friends, enjoy your tea!

“Liberty is the breath of life to nations.”  ~George Bernard Shaw