It’s not-quite-Advent, but we’re back anyway, with another tea calendar and more poetry for this December. This one was a gift from the Dachshunds of Dawlish, presumably for removing Her Imperiousness the Marschallin Cat to quarters elsewhere. (She’ll be back in March, we both will, but don’t let on. We’re enjoying the tea!)
Today it’s a blend called Let it Snow, which it most definitely isn’t, and as long as we’re walking to the subway, we’re not complaining. It’s quite cold enough without adding to it. Anyway, it’s a creamy green tea with white chocolate in it, and anyone who forgets our sentiments on tea and chocolate, we like them separate, is the succinct version. But there’s cloves too, and other spices, also custard, which has no business being in tea. Actually, we’re doubtful about custard in anything, we can’t pin that one on the tea. Still, the prices suit it, and all those oddities, chocolate, custard, theybdo add a creaminess to it. The jury’s still out on whether green tea should be creamy though. We’ll get back to you.
Until then, here’s a poem by Carol Ann Duffy. It’s one of those Tea poems we think probably everyone knows, and if we’re honest, we weren’t converted to it’s cause until we heard it read st a wedding reception. He, you understand was a coffee devotee, whereas, she, like us, preached the Gospel of Tea. Do we’ve come to love it for the memory it evokes. Without further ado, here it is.
Tea
Carol Ann Duffy
I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.
Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.
I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.
Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,
as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.
Chorister at Home 