Saturday Morning Tea

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This past week was my first week back to full-time work. I keep telling myself that this is a good thing, giving me the ability to work towards my dream of owning my own home. Still, there has been some sadness associated with things I’ve had to let go of. Time for my art, especially.

As I prepared for my morning tea today I realized that I haven’t had many reviews about herbal tea. Or infusions, I should say, because herbals are not really tea. I apologize to any caffeine sensitive readers who are interested in exploring herbal options. I will strive to be more balanced in my tea choices and if there’s anything – tea or herbal – that you want to hear more about, please do let me know.

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This morning I am enjoying a cup of Honeybush Vanilla, a delightful herbal with Bourbon vanilla pieces and dried marigold petals. Mountain Honeybush, Cyclopia intermedia, is a bush that grows wild on the slopes of the Kouga mountains in South Africa. The leaves of this bush are harvested and processed much like the tea plant, camellia sinensis. It gets its name from the scent of its flowers.

Can you imagine wandering through a field of blooming honeybush and experiencing that sweet scent filling the air?

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This herbal is very smooth so you can steep the leaves for awhile without worrying about it turning bitter like oversteeped tea. I boiled my water and let it cool a short while before steeping the honeybush for 8-10 minutes.

The aroma is of sweet vanilla without being cloying or overpowering. The beautiful pink amber infusion tastes smooth and sweet with fruit and flower underlying the vanilla taste.

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I have filled this beautiful china cup, a gift from a dear friend who knows how much I love new tea “equipage”.

Every week I usually stop by the library to pick up books that I have put on my online queue. However, this week drew me back to my own bookshelf to a book I had picked up about 3 years ago at the bookstore. I remember reading it at that time and enjoying it but this time I can feel each word penetrating my psyche on a deeper level. Perhaps it is because of all of the changes I’ve experienced this past year and also the ones I am facing in the year to come. Called “The Courage to be Yourself” by Sue Patton Thoele, it is about finding an expanded vision of yourself and getting in touch with any self limiting fears that can get in the way of that expansion. Sue’s writing style is wonderfully down to earth and I feel like we’re sitting down in a cozy place having a cup of tea together while she shares the wisdom of her own personal journey.

She has 2 affirmations that she lives by.

I choose to live my life fully.

I will never give myself away again.

A truly wonderful book. Have a marvelous week.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was

oftentimes filled with your tears

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,

The more joy you can contain.

~Kahil Gibran

Saturday Morning Tea

Feb28

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Wow, we made it through the month of February! Time is marching on and we are poised to enter the month when Spring officially starts. Hoo-ray!

There are already small signs of Spring’s imminent arrival.

It’s light out when I rise at 6am every morning.

Where there was once a hushed silence there is now birdsong here and there.

When I go outside, the air feels softer, milder.

Yesterday I saw the tip of a hyacinth gently nudging its way up through the earth.

People are smiling more…

This morning’s tea is a China green called Sparrow’s Tongue Lung Ching. Grown in Zhejiang province, its name comes from its resemblance to bird beaks.

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This little beak is closed for the moment. The leaf is a fine plucking of the first 2 leaves and a bud at the tip of each tea bush stem, the new tender growth. It is minimally processed so the leaf retains its original appearance. It looks freshly plucked, a beautiful spring green.

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Lung Ching tea is a popular green tea from China. You can read more about it in one of my previous posts here.

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I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. The aroma is very clean, fresh and light. The tea liquor is a pale muted yellow with a smooth vegetal taste. There’s something about this tea that is very calming.

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Can you see the whisper of steam rising from my teabowl? I love its speckled glazing. It reminds me of the speckling on a birds egg.

As I gently sip my tea, I listen to a CD called “Silk and Bamboo”, an ensemble by harpist Patricia Spero and flautist Tim Wheater. Here is the description from the CD cover:

“Silk and Bamboo brings together the meditative sounds of the traditional silk strings of the Chinese Harp or Cheng and the wonderful sounds of bamboo and wooden flutes.”

The achingly beautiful sounds of the harp and flute weaving their magic together is lovely to listen to while sipping this gentle green tea.

A moment of serenity after a busy week…

Saturday Morning Tea

Feb21

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As winter unwinds and we reach out towards spring, I am thinking of spirals once again. How you can come around full circle in your life and you are not exactly at the place where you began but a notch up and further along on your journey. It isn’t a circle but more like a spiral. Time isn’t linear at all because it brings us back around to experiences that keep whispering their messages to us.

So, in all my musings on spirals, I chose this morning’s tea because it has an amazing leaf artfully shaped into spirals. The leaf appearance reminds me of a black tea version of Pi Lo Chun, Green Snail Spring. It is called Yunnan Spiral Buds from Yunnan province in China.

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I steeped the leaves for 5 minutes in boiling temp water. The spirals released into long thinly rolled threads.

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The dry leaf has a pistachio fragrance with a cocoa undertone. The cocoa tone steps to the forefront in the steeped tea’s aroma and lends itself to the taste as well.

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The tea liquor is not as dark as other Yunnan black teas I have tried. Its rich amber glow reminds me of a Darjeeling color but the flavor is very different.

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While the color is lighter, the taste is very full-bodied with that dark cocoa richness. I am enjoying my tea in one of the teabowls from the set I purchased from In Pursuit of Tea. I love everything about these small 4 oz. teabowls – from the rough texture of the glaze to how they cradle perfectly in my hand.

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Today I am attending a Mystical Art Tea Party at my dear friend Laura’s house. A wonderful gathering of kindred art spirits enjoying tea and delicious food, conversation and hugs.

There is no hope of joy except in human relations.
– Antoine de Sainte-Exupery

Saturday Morning Tea

Feb14

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

It is a sweet day, perfect for a tea party. Won’t you join me?

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Today I’m sipping a different kind of tea. Well, actually it is not a tea at all. It is an herbal called South African Rooibos, rooibos meaning “red bush” in Afrikaans and pronounced roy-boss. The rooibos bush is grown in South Africa and harvested and processed similarly to the tea leaf. The leaves are picked and then bruised to release their volatile oils and flavor.

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As you can see, there are small pink candy hearts in my rooibos, a perfect treat for Valentine’s Day. This is called Rooibos Candied Almond because there are also small pieces of almond in the blend.

The liquor is an amber color with a candy sweet fragrance and taste. However, the sweetness has not covered up the natural citrus, vanilla taste of the rooibos. This is a wonderful “tea” for a children’s tea party as it doesn’t contain any caffeine.

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We’ve experienced some warmer temps this past week. Along with a day of rain and high winds, our snow piles have shrunk down to reveal patches of grass here and there.

I can’t wait to see peeks of green emerging from the soil.

Enjoy sweetness this day.

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. ~His Holiness the Dalia Lama

Saturday Morning Tea

Jan31

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This week brought another snow and ice storm to our area. As the piles of snow around our driveway grow and grow, it definitely heightens my focus in on the moment. That moment being one of gingerly walking to the car or to get the mail. Or, backing oh so slowly out of the driveway, more listening for cars in the road than being able to see them. So, when a day dawns clear and bright and the temps promise to reach freezing or a little above, we New Englanders celebrate. Tomorrow is February and spring is getting closer!

This morning’s tea is a real treat with a very interesting name. A China black called Golden Monkey Imperial. Its name comes from ancient legends of monkeys being trained to pick tea leaves from tea trees growing on high cliffs in mountainous areas.

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This tea comes from a very fine plucking of the top leaf and bud of the tea plant. I have read that it is the black tea equivalent of Silver Needles white tea. The leaves are very oxidized and dark with golden threads weaving through the dark needles. It is grown in Fujian province in China.

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When I opened my packet to spoon the tea leaves into my teapot, I was greeted by such a strong aroma of bittersweet cocoa. mmmmmm… For a chocolate lover like myself, I was already in heaven even before my first sip! The tea liquor is very full-bodied with strong cocoa notes and a whisper of sweet dried fruit. There is a little tang in the finish. This tea is definitely strong enough for the addition of milk and sweetener but I recommend drinking it straight for the full effect of its amazing flavor.

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I am headed out the door soon to spend the day with a very dear friend of mine, a kindred art spirit. We’ll start our day with a lunch at Panera. I’m thinking of a steaming bowl of broccoli cheddar soup with fresh, crispy bread on the side. How about a cup of hot chocolate with a dollop of whipped cream? Then it’s off to the local bead store, armed with a gift certificate I received at Christmastime. Then we’ll go to my friend’s home, light a cozy fire in the fireplace and drink lots of tea while we chat and catch up on each others lives. A perfect day…

“It is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm,
A happy and auspicious bird of calm…”
~Shelly