Saturday Morning Tea on Sunday

Feb21

The weather couldn’t have been better at this time of the year – sunny and near 50 degrees! – for the move yesterday. They’re all moved in and now the unpacking and settling into a new home begins. There’s a lot of moving energy around me these days, including a company move coming up this summer.

I am sipping a cup of green Ceylon tea this morning, from the Idalgashinna estate, located in the Uva province in southeastern Sri Lanka.

Tea growing on the island of Sri Lanka was started in the late 1800s by a Scottish gentleman named James Taylor. Up until that time, coffee was the number one crop on the island until a rust fungus killed the majority of coffee plants. Starting with a basic tea cultivation knowledge learned in Northern India and 19 acres of land, he soon turned a small business into a very successful one, selling his tea for the first time at the London auction by 1873.

As you can see, this particular green tea has quite a large leaf. After steeping for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water, some of the twisted full leaf releases that shape and some stay tight. As I poured my first cup, a distinct vegetal aroma rose from my glass teapot.

A teapot full of sunshine.

The liquor is light and more delicate than other green teas, with a floral note reminiscent of a “green” Oolong. Its brightness, characteristic of Ceylon high grown teas, is revealed as the tea cools.

With deep blue skies and fast moving fluffy clouds, today is the perfect day for a hike into the late winter woods. I like to go every Sunday afternoon for my weekly dose of nature.

As I started down the woodsy path last week, I sensed a gradual awakening that tells me that we are almost at spring’s glorious door.

The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky–
So many white clouds–and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears….
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.

~Very Early Spring by Katherine Mansfield

Saturday Morning Tea

Feb13

This is a weekend to celebrate love and the beginning of a new year. The Year of the Tiger. When I think of tigers, I think of power, strength and wildness. Also, beauty and ferocity, a melding of light and dark. Tiger has much to teach us about these attributes.

This morning’s tea, a Chinese Jasmine, is a melding of 2 different types of plants, the camellia sinensis (tea) and a fragrant flower that opens only at night.

Jasmine flowers are plucked in the dew of the morning and gathered together for scenting green tea. As tea leaves are highly susceptible to absorbing scents, the marriage of these components in carefully controlled conditions produces a wonderfully fragrant tea.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. The soft floral aroma greeted me as I lifted the lid of my glass teapot.

Glowing like a warm sunset, the tea liquor imparts a delicate, sweet flavor with an overlay of floral notes on the green tea’s vegetal character. A bright finish lingers on my tongue.

As I sip my tea, I catch images of sitting in a summer garden, drinking tea from fragile cups shaped like tiny eggs, the fragrance of blooming flowers all around.

As you can probably tell, I am so ready for spring’s arrival and its gentle fuzz of color as inner growth manifests once again in the outer world.

I have been thinking a lot lately about opening my heart and what that means to me. It conjures words like breathe, awareness, connection, listening, forgiveness, acceptance.

How do you open your heart?

Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

~William Shakespeare

Saturday Morning Tea

Feb6

Our week was blessed with bright sunshine and deep blue skies even though temps have been hovering at the freezing mark during the day, dropping into the teens at night. I’ve warmed myself every night by wrapping in a big granny square blanket with a steaming teapot close by. The tv show LOST returned this week and, yes, I admit it, I am drawn to that show for some reason. Perhaps it’s their determination to survive that I admire.

This past week I replied to an e-mail from a customer disappointed in the tea I chose for my morning tea today. They thought it would be a green tea and, even though it is processed as a green tea first, I explained how it is far from it in flavor.

I introduce you to Ho-ji Cha tea, a roasted green tea.

Ho-ji Cha tea is traditionally grown and produced in Japan. Using what’s called Bancha (meaning common tea) green tea, the green tea leaves are roasted in porcelain pots over a charcoal fire. Roasting the tea leaves turns them a rich russet color and creates a completely different kind of tea from its original green state. This particular tea has been grown in China.

As you can see, the steeped leaves are chocolate brown with some twig mixed in. Straight twig tea is called Ku-ki Cha and is also very popular in Japan.

In my research, I have discovered that this type of tea was first created in Kyoto, Japan in the 1920s by a merchant but I have not been able to find out why. Perhaps he wanted to “spice” up the taste of the common grade of green tea. I have also read that the roasting process lowers the caffeine content of the leaf. I don’t understand that since all tea leaves are heated up to halt the oxidation process. Personally, I think this tea is lower in caffeine because it is common to have twigs from the tea plant mixed in. There isn’t any caffeine in the twigs.

I steeped my Ho-ji Cha tea for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. As it brewed, its warm, toasty aroma filled my senses.

The flavor of the glowing, dark-amber liquor is woodsy, toasty, nutty and smooth with a whisper of sweet caramel in the finish.

The roasted flavor lingers in my mouth for a long time.

The winter sky is shrouded in a thick, gray blanket. Aside from the gentle water sound of my fountain and the classical music playing, my morning world is silent. I sip my tea and savor the quiet moments.

Weekends are for getting back in touch with myself.

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself

and know that everything in this life has a purpose.”

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Saturday Morning Tea

Jan30

Here in New England, we’re in the midst of an arctic blast with temps in the teens and howling winds making it feel like the air is below zero when you step outside. Brrrr… I’m grateful to be tucked away in my little nook with a steaming mug of green tea to warm my hands and my spirit.

This morning’s tea is called, interestingly enough, Lonely Mountain White Mist. Of course I chose this tea for its poetic name, conjuring images of a faraway land with tea bushes gracing a mountainside.

This tea comes from a fine plucking (top 2 leaves and a bud) of tea bushes grown in Fujian Province located in southeastern China. Traditionally described as “eight parts mountain, one part water, and one part farmland”, its climate is very suitable for tea growing with over 1200 tea plantations scattered throughout the province. So, our image of the mountainside is right on.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree water. As I gently lift the lid of my glass teapot, the pale golden liquor imparts a fresh, clean aroma. Is spring almost here?

The tea is so pale that I can see the texture in my hand crafted teabowl. If I could choose one word for this tea it would be

sweet

A sweetness that swirls and lingers through the asparagus notes and right on into the finish. So smooth…

As I mentioned in my last post, I am itching to play with my beads in a free-form way so today I will journey into the world of bead soups, mixing colorful bowls full of beady goodness.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

~Maya Angelou

What are you creating this weekend?

Color Inspiration

Jan27

In my continuous quest to find and connect with other artists who drench their lives in color and beads, I have discovered a beady kindred spirit, Beverly Ash Gilbert.

Wandering around the web, I stumbled upon a blurb about the release of Beverly’s new book, Beaded Colorways: Freeform Beadweaving Projects and Palettes.

A rich title full of words I love: color, freeform, beads, palettes.

After excitedly purchasing her book, I went on an internet journey to find out all I could about this artist who loves color and freeform beadwork as much as I.

Inspired by the colors of nature in her northwest home, Beverly creates what she calls “bead soups”, mixes of seed beads, gemstones and pearls in variations of a hue. Mmmmmm, just the combination of those 2 words evokes yummy and juicy to me so I know that I’m on the right path, the path of rich becoming. Beverly goes on to create art jewelry pieces using these “bead soups”, transitioning from one “soup” to another in a beautiful flow of color. Take a look at the gorgeous pieces in her gallery.

In my own freeform approach, I choose a color palette inspired by nature.

a sunrise

an autumn walk in the woods

and then create patches of color (from that palette) that weave over and around each other.

Beverly has inspired me to expand how I look at my color choices and enhance my work with my own “bead soups”. Even though her clear writing and instruction speaks to all levels of beading experience, I find that it is ideal for someone like me who already has a fairly large bead stash for mixing and blending.

A New England winter palette threads its way through the fiber of my being these days, evidenced by my latest knitting creations.