White or Green?

I am feeling a little proud of myself. I was reading Alex Zorach’s article on uses for tea on http://www.ratetea.net/  and went out and did one. We have an awful lawn and whenever the weather is right, I sow some clover on it, hoping it will someday look halfway decent. He suggested using tea as mulch for new seeding and so, I cleaned out all the tea that is too old or that we hate and sprinkled it on top of the clover seed. Since it is slowly drizzling today and tomorrow is also calling for rain, I am hoping this will be productive.




I have also decided to relearn knitting and crocheting. And to that end got a couple of very simple books and so far, I have knitted a piece about 4x5”. Slow going. I had such a hard time figuring out how to cast on. I think this book's method is a particularly odd one for that task. We’ll see.



Let’s move on to tea, at least I can boil water. Or, this case, bring it to 180 degrees. I am having White Monkey Green, from the puriTea. It originally hails from the Taimu Mountains of Fujian Province, China.
I used 1 tsp. in 180 degrees water for 2 minutes. I used a small glass teapot, so I could watch the leaves do their up and down dance as they unfurled. The dry leaves smelled like alfalfa. They were kind of chunky green leaves, obviously not processed too much. The brewing tea smelled very springy green, but also of nice, ripe pears. The liquor was a very light gold. The tea in my cup was sweet and mild, with a bit of spice and fruit and a tinge of grassiness, but pleasantly so. The finish had a bit of astringency, which I thought just added a very pleasant nuance to this delightful cup.

More signs of the ending of summer - Purple Loosestrife is blooming; a few maples are beginning to shift from green to yellow; the evening insects are  now very noisy and their noise is that of the close of the season.  Purple Loosestrife is a tall, spiky plant with soft purple pink flowers.  It is very pretty, but very invasive, choking out other native plants in small waterways.  I am sad to see some summer things go, but I always welcome fall.  Cooler temperatures will be very welcome for many people this year.