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.

We’re doing the unheard of this evening and brewing tea in a mug. We’ve reconciled this with our conscience by deciding that what we’re really doing is christening a gift of a Christmas mug with a cup of English Toffee tea. Also, we’re too tired to observe the complete sacrament of tea. This is a shame, as English Toffee is clearly a tea that deserves sacramaentalisig. It’s a beautiful balance of Pu’erh tea and toffee flavour -enough to give it a shape but not so much as to trigger our lack of a sweet tooth into protest. Chiefly though it’s existing to revitalise us.

Somewhere on the internet there exists a wonderful rewrite of ‘Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones’ to an Easter theme, and it begins, Now Christ is risen from the dead/the Choristers can go to bed… Sadly, no one has yet troubled with a Christmas equivalent, but you can take it on good authority that the sentiment is the same. More so, in fact, since the marathon combination of the Tridium and Easter taps into reserves of energy that Christmas Eve doesn’t begin to plumb. Probably there is an interesting theological nuance to be teased out here, but we don’t feel equal to the task presently.

The Canadian family will vouch for the fact our brains are still somewhere in the choir vestry, probably frozen due to the boiler failure we continue to experience. Forced to explain what a minced pie was (one of the relocated Canadians rather sweetly worried it might not be vegetarian) we managed to garble things about boiled fruit and sugar but didn’t do much better -though we did usefully recollect that Cromwell once banned them.

Here, before we settle into a long day of restorative reading, is one last poem for the last of the Advent teas. There might be more of it, but the version we’re recording comes hand-written from the inside of a Christmas card . We relay it with warm wishes for a Happy Christmastide.

From ‘THe Gude and Goldie Ballats’

(attributed Martin Luther, translated John Wedderburn)

This day to you is born ane child

Of Mary meek and virgin milde,

That blessed bairn being and kind 

Sall you rejoice baith hart and mind.

We’re steeping a pot of what calls itself Cardamom French Toast Tea, and so far all things are promising. We gather from both grandmothers that Canadians -or perhaps its only our family -deem the correct way to eat this delicacy involves tomato sauce. As we’ve never agreed with this particular doctrine, we’re relieved to find the tea (it’s a black tea at its roots) tends towards cinnamon and maple, no tomatoes involved. It tastes of spice, which is more than welcome; we’ve long been partial to spiced black tea but ran through our Wittards stock some time ago. We’ll make do with other things, but there’s nothing like Wittards Imperial Blend, or Kusmi’s Prince Vladimir with its cloves and vanilla, to take the cold out of a winter afternoon. Cardamom French Toast does not fall short.

We’re seriously tempted this evening to give you the series of limericks about the Marschallin-cat. She’s at our elbow and most insistent that we pay her suitable homage. But there are almost certainly superior writers who have treated much the same theme. Our favourite comes from a collection that purports to be written by cats and begins, unforgettably, why are you screaming?

Why Are You Screaming 

(Francesco Marciuliano)

Why are you screaming?

Did I do something wrong?

Why are you crying?

How can I make it right?

Would you like it in a different colour?

Would you like it in a different size?

Would you like it in a different room?

I just wanted to show my love,

I just wanted to express my thanks,

I just wanted to lay a dead  mouse on your sheets.

But now you are screaming,

And I don’t know how to make you stop.

Everything we’ve been saying for weeks about green tea being the perfect compliment to fruit and nuts is realised in tonight’s tea. It’s an almond green tea that would be much too sweet were it herbal. As it is it’s a beautifully balanced cup that tastes a bit like drinking an almond slice. We’re drinking it in leisurely fashion and musing on church and family, because part of them visiting means trying to explain Scottish Episcopalianism to long-term Presbyterians.

There’s no good way of explaining why this is fraught and complicated except to try and describe the service from the ‘other side’ of the pews, as it were.

 No one is thinking very hard about the clockwork and how it fits together because we’re all doing six different things at once. The thurifer’s censing the choir, who are trying not to asphyxiate because they are trying to sing, and while all of that is happening the priest is preparing the altar for communion and the congregation is anticipating the moment the thurifer turns on them so they remember to bow, and so it goes on. And because it’s Christmas there are half a dozen furbelows that have been added to make sure everyone knows it’s Christmas (because the midnight service mightn’t give that away), which means we’re all guessing. The choir are trying not to melt the folders and the organist (who only has half the asperges and that in a completely different setting to the one his choir is canting) is approximating how long to improvise for and watching the communion queue to see whether to deploy the emergency communion hymn, and there’s always going to be a surplus of wafers ‘just in case’ because it’s one of those occasions when you anticipate the 500.

The point is, none of us knows what we’re doing, not really, and it doesn’t really matter. We’ll still try and explain, because that’s part of giving them welcome, and we’d hate for them to feel all adrift somewhere that’s made us so at home. Also, we know the service book isn’t exactly expansive in its communication. We’ll do our best, but  S. J. Forrest still says it best in his critique of services, and we’re seriously tempted to let him have the last word.

What’s The Use?

by S.J. Forrest

(transcribed by Father James Siemens, AF)

‘Oh just the usual thing you know; the BCP all through,
Just pure and unadulterated 1662;
A minimum of wise interpolations from the Missal,
The Kyrie in Greek, the proper Collects and Epistles,
The Secret and the Canon and the Dominus Vobiscum,
(Three aves and a salve at the end would amiss come);
To the “militant” and “trudle” there is little need to cling,
But apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

‘Oh, just the usual thing you know; we’re C of E of course,
But beautify the service from a mediaeval source,
With various processions, and in case you shouldn’t know,
There are tunicled assistants who will tell you where to go;
And should you in bewilderment liturgically falter,
Just make a little circumambulation of the altar.
The blessing, like a bishop, you majestically sing;
But apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

‘Oh, just the usual thing you know; but very up to date,
Our basis is the liturgy of 1928,
With lots of local colouring and topical appeal,
And much high-hearted happiness, to make the service real;
Our thoughts on high to sun and sky, to trees and birds and brooks,
Our altar nearly hidden in a library of books;
The Nunc Dimittis, finally “God Save The Queen” we sing;
But, apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

‘Oh, just the usual thing you know, we trust that you’ll be able
To mingle with the reredos and stand behind the Table;
(For clergymen who celebrate and face the congregation,
Must pass a stringent glamour-test before their ordination!)
Patristic ceremonial; economy of gesture,
Though balanced by a certain superfluity of vesture;
With lots of flanking presbyters all gathered in a ring,
But, apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’