Saturday Morning Tea

Jan5

When I opened the pouch to inhale the dry leaf aroma of this morning’s tea, I felt like I had just opened a bag of semi-sweet chocolate bits. You know the kind you use to make toll house cookies. I have many wonderful memories of mixing up batches of cookie battah (said in my Mom’s Brooklyn accent) on rainy afternoons and then eating the cookies warm and gooey right out of the oven. It isn’t raining today, in fact, we are having a “January thaw” here in New England with temps climbing into the mid 50s by Tuesday. As with all weather experiences here, it won’t last for long so we will savor the moments of mild springlike temps while we can.

Dumbara estate Green Curls, this green tea is from the Kandy district of Sri Lanka, known by its old world name of Ceylon in tea company. The dry leaf is a dark green which lightens up to its true color after the leaves are steeped for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. This would be the perfect green tea for someone wanting to try green tea but unfamiliar with its vegetal notes and light body.

The liquor looks like a Darjeeling with its gorgeous amber color. The flavor is strong with interesting fruity notes. The vegetal quality is very subtle, unlike a Chinese or Japanese green tea. I wish I had known about this tea the other day when I was talking with a customer who gave her candid opinion of green tea as tasting like “dirty dish water”. Well, I’ve never sampled dirty dish water myself but I think she was probably saying that she thinks green tea is too light for her. As I recall, she was an Assam lover.

So, if you are strictly a black tea lover, this would be a good first choice to start your journey into the green tea category.

Art Journals for my Mom

Jan2

I love to create gifts and my Mom loves to tell stories. So, inspired by my kindred mixed media art friends, Amy and Judy, I made 2 art journals for my Mom so she could write down her stories. This was a bit scary for me since I’ve never done anything like this before. Well, not in a very long time anyway.

I didn’t have any type of a plan other than I wanted to embellish the covers, outside and inside, of a blank notebook. I brought out acrylic paints, rubber stamps, scrapbook papers, gel medium, my “O” magazines and family photos. And I played. As I freely glued and painted, I felt joy swell inside of my heart, like something was being set free. I remembered painting as a child and felt like I was coming home to a place I really loved.

I hope my Mom enjoys writing in these journals as much as I enjoyed creating them.

A New Year Resolution in a Word

Dec31

In a recent post in her inspiring blog, Christine Kane talks about an idea that she and her friend came up with a couple of years ago. Instead of writing a list of New Year’s resolutions this year, she suggests choosing one word that is meaningful to you. Let this word guide you throughout the year in your actions. Since so many of the words resonated with me as I read her list, I printed out the words, cut them up into individual pieces of paper and placed them all into a bowl. I closed my eyes and meditated about my intention to choose a word that would speak to me. Then I swirled the words around until I felt it was the right time to stop and then carefully picked out a piece of paper. It said:

Beauty

The word “beauty” derives from the Middle English beaute, bealte, and from the Anglo-French bel, beau, all meaning beautiful, also from the Latin bellus meaning pretty.

Merriam Webster gives 4 definitions of the word:

1: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : loveliness

2: a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman

3: a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality

4: a brilliant, extreme, or egregious example or instance <that mistake was a beauty>

As I thought about what beauty means to me, I kept coming back to the idea that it is more of something felt than of something seen. So, in googling the word, I was particularly drawn to this quote by Helen Keller:

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched … but are felt in the heart.”

A day later, I was browsing at the bookstore and a book fairly jumped off the shelf at me, Way of the Lover: Rumi and the Spiritual Art of Love by Ross Heaven. I have learned from past experience that it’s always good to pay attention when something is placed in your path like this. Bringing it home, I turned to the first chapter and discovered the following quote:

“…those with mirrorlike hearts

do not depend on fragrance and color;

they behold Beauty in the moment.”

Wow, how perfectly this fits with my meditations on my word. For months now, I have been trying to be mindful of living in the present and enjoying the gifts of each moment. This can be very challenging at times but the rewards far outweigh the challenge. If you make it a part of your daily spiritual practice, you enter into a new way of seeing the world.

So, I continue to contemplate my word as the calendar turns from one year to another. I will let Beauty be my guide in this new year.

Happy New Year to all of my friends and family, new and old. Let our “mirrorlike hearts” reflect our love for each other and may we all behold the Beauty in our moments.

Saturday Morning Tea

Dec22

It has been snowing on and off all week. Mostly, delicately falling flakes that don’t stick to the roads but lightly frost the snow already on the ground. It’s perfect for this time of year as we celebrate the season of Light, birth of the Sun/Son. At 1:08am this morning, Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year here in the Northern hemisphere and starts our winter season. As I gaze out my window upon a sea of sugar dusted houses and trees, I am enjoying a cup of Melange Noel in honor of the season.

Black tea blended with spices, dried fruit and nuts, it warms me all the way down to my toes. The liquor is a rich reddish brown color and the flavor is fairly full-bodied with notes of cinnamon and orange. I am drinking from my traditional Christmas cup, purchased years ago at Bronner’s in Frankenmuth, Michigan. So, as I sip, I am filled with wonderful memories of Christmases past spent with family in Michigan.

Joy, love, hugs, comfort

Christmas time in Michigan

going home again

A Day of Silence

Dec5

I am taking a day of silence today. A day with no ringing phones and no talking. This is the time of year at my regular day job when the phones are ringing non-stop and everyone in customer service is continually on the phone, taking orders and answering questions, talking about tea. Multiple voices speaking at the same time in the same room. I am beginning to feel overwhelmed by all of this exterior stimulation so it is time for some balance. That balance will come in the quiet solitude I am creating for myself today.

Taking time to contemplate the pattern in a few tea leaves on a beautiful fan shaped porcelain dish, I am able to just “Be” and find my center once again. I see a mountain scene with a couple of streams or they could be paths. The paths could be coming down from the mountains or they could lead you up into the mountains. The streams are bringing life nourishing waters to the gardens and trees in the valley. Anything is possible in the realms of your imagination. What do you see?