We broke into the Santa’s Secret tea this morning. It’s not worlds apart from Candy Cane Crunch except it’s less sweet and for whatever reason, the candy cane pieces don’t coat everything in residue. As predicted, we enjoyed it as much as always. It was definitely worth the wait.
Now we’re drinking Alpine Punch, another David’s Tea offering that is one of our winter staples. It’s a rooibos with lots of warmth and spice. It tastes of winter days to us, and of cool Scottish autumns too, because that’s when we used to drink most of it.
We first found it trying to replace the then-discontinued Apple Crumble Tea and the two aren’t that alike, except that Alpine Punch has apple somewhere in the ingredients jumble. But it’s also got almonds, which give it a significantly different sweetness to Apple Crumble Tea. And the rooibos base means there’s more spice than crumble tea’s green tea base. It’s also much harder to over-steep.
But it tastes warm, and after an afternoon of last-minute errands out in the cold, it’s perfect.
We’re still playing tea catch-up with the calendar. Yesterday threw us off by a day. So, there’s a lovely black tea/rooibos blend waiting for us at breakfast, and we’ll try and write about that tomorrow. But at least tomorrow’s poem is predetermined.
Oh, go on. Everyone knows what’s behind door 24 at this point. We delude ourselves you’d be dismayed if we changed now. And honestly, we’re far too Anglican to do anything that exotic. But day 23 is flexible. So, here’s more Larkin for you to keep you guessing one more day.
First Sight
Phillip Larkin
Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.
As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth’s immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.
Turns out he can be optimistic. Who knew? No, we’ve always had a soft spot for Larkin, and was one of our staples back when Poetry and Cake met live. They had an odd allergy to the really old stuff, and this was a good compromise.
Chorister at Home 