Easing Into Breakfast

An ancient fresco of Christ in Bacharach.

Since I am awake for once after arising, I thought I would share with you some Breakfast Blend Black from Samovar Tea. It is organic, which I always appreciate. The dry leaves are small and black. I measured the tea in the sample and indeed it does make about 5-6 cups . This tea smells like a mix of Asssam, Yunnan and Keemun. It has a deep winey aroma with a hint of typical Yunnan. Brewing, there is the added aroma of old wood in the sun. The liquor is a medium amber. What a nice morning cup this is. It is winey, malty, nutty and very, very smooth. It is strong, but not joltingly so, and the smoothness kind of eases you into the day.

99 years ago today cargo was beginning to be loaded onto the ill-fated ship, Titanic. There were 437 casks of tea included. By the way, the movie "Titanic" was so unreal. There is no way there would have been any contact between steerage passengers and first class. Class structure was far more rigid in those days and doors would have been firmly locked, as well as stewards only too ready to throw out a steerage passenger. Most would have been far too cowed to try, anyway.

I just read an interesting article by Tony Gebley about touting tea for health uses. To do so puts it in the category of a drug and the FDA can get very snippy about that. Also, who really wants to drink tea as a drug or cure-all? Shades of snake oil! It can be and there are hundreds of good, bad and awful studies about that. Let us drink tea because it tastes good and provides us with a calm oasis in the day. Let us have tea parties for celebration and friendship and not politics.

We have grackles around the bird feeder. They are such beautiful sleek black birds, with their brilliant irridescent bue heads. Sometimes their body feathers seem to be irridescent as well.