Today’s tea, Pommegrateful, is one of David’s many Pink Teas. These are teas that pour out pink and taste alarmingly pink.
Usually when this happens there’s hibiscus in the tea somewhere. There’s definitely hibiscus in this tea. But there’s also the eponymous pomegranate.
The result is an incredibly sweet tea that probably makes a much better iced tea than it does a hot one. Every year we get this one out of the calendar we observe that we’d like to try it that way. Just not in -8 weather conditions.
We got distracted with other writing tonight, so that gave this a time not only to steep but to cool. And while it’s not cold, we can confirm it’s a much better tepid tea than a hot one. Some fruit teas shouldn’t be hot, and this is one of those.
It’s also an interesting exercise in how to make a sweet tea that isn’t hideous. We know, we know, we’re still going on about jam-tea from two days ago. But it was appalling. Pomegrateful isn’t.
It walks the tightrope between overly-sweet and cloying, and pleasantly tart. Just as you think it’s tiptoed over the line, the hibiscus under the surface cuts through the pomegranate and sugar of it all.
And no, maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to run with these dreadful puns for names. But you know, it doesn’t taste like jam. And we’re going to keep coming back to that until kingdom come, because truly that was dire.
Tonight’s poem is a gift from another writer-friend. Remember we said we got distracted with other writing? Some of that was for her.
There’s some greyness to the poem, but then, that’s Advent too. And you’ve got to remember, we are chronically allergic to anything too sweet.
Desolation is a Delicate Thing
Elinor Wylie
Sorrow lay upon my breast more heavily than winter clay
Lying ponderable upon the unmoving bosom of the dead;
Yet it was dissolved like a thin snowfall; it was softly withered away;
Presently like a single drop of dew it had trembled and fled.
This sorrow, which seemed heavier than a shovelful of loam,
Was gone like water, like a web of delicate frost;
It was silent and vanishing like smoke; it was scattered like foam;
Though my mind should desire to preserve it, nevertheless it is lost.
This sorrow was not like sorrow; it was shining and brief;
Even as I waked and was aware of its going, it was past and gone;
It was not earth; it was no more than a light leaf,
Or a snowflake in spring, which perishes upon stone.
This sorrow was small and vulnerable and short-lived;
It was neither earth nor stone; it was silver snow
Fallen from heaven, perhaps; it has not survived
An hour of the sun; it is sad it should be so.
This sorrow, which I believed a gravestone over my heart,
Is gone like a cloud; it eluded me as I woke;
Its crystal dust is suddenly broken and blown apart;
It was not my heart; it was this poor sorrow alone which broke.
Chorister at Home 