Autumn Has Arrived

It is indeed well and truly and officially Fall.  The wind can no longer sneak through the trees, blowing and stirring the leaves silently.  Now they rustle and rattle or susurate as the tidal waves on the shore.  The sound announces that summer is scurrying off.  Receiving my box of fall bulbs to plant was another pretty clear indication.  That gay deceiver of a garden catalog has done it again!

I must say that tea catalogs have the same effect and here I am with too much tea and too many bulbs to plant.  However, to quote Edna St. Vincent Millay "But ah my foes and Oh my friends, they give a lovely light".  I am broadly interpreting light as something that illuminates and both tea and flowers can do so, especially in the early spring, when our eyes long for color or if we find ourselves in a doldrum and tea is there to lift (illumine)our spirits.

My tea today comes from Tea Vivre.  It is Fengping Dragon Pearl Black Tea.  It smells of forest floor, oaken wine barrels and leather.  The 1/2 inch balls are woven together out of long leaves of brown and tan and black.  I personally am delighted when tea appears in these different forms and marvel at their tiny perfection.  The suggested brew is for 1-2 minutes with boiling water.  The packet doesn't say, but about 1 ball or perhaps two is what I use per cup.  The brewing tea has that delightful fresh air aroma, coupled with  woodsy/leathery hints.  This carries forward into the cup, which is a very gentle brew that carries autumn with it; acorns and oak trees, dry leaves on the forest floor.  It is all quite subtle.  One of the nice things about this tea is you can do a second wash, which I did.  I used about half the water and twice the time and it tasted pretty much like the first cup, a gentle reminder of the year's drawing in on itself.


I have received my press pass to World Tea East and I am so excited!  Really, I can hardly wait.  I was going to go last year, but we had the flood and couldn't get off our hill for about 4 days just when I was to leave.


My, I have a rare treat this morning - 2 small herds of deer, a buck and three does and a buck and 2 does.  The bucks have only small racks, so I would guess they are only a year or two old.  Our backyards are a safe passage from the big meadow to the big woods.  Sounds a bit like Winnie the Pooh, doesn't it?

See what awaits us - snow, beautiful snow.