Shmiracles Send Message

i went to WPA bakery (Well-made Pastry Alliance) and had a piece of chocolate banana rum walnut pie and a cup of tea. they also sell pots of tea!
i was there alone and i read my book (Shade it Black) and slowly savored my pie and tea.
i can’t wait to go back.

2012-12-21
i don’t taste too much ginseng in this tea.
it’s a nice balance of anise and peppermint and licorice.
both refreshing and warming in the morning.
clears the gunk out of my eyes while i eat my favorite vegan burrito.

2012-12-19
drank at Harrison Street Cafe in Richmond Virginia.
i love this vegan cafe!! i just wish they had slightly better tea is all.

the tea is fine enough. but all the other really good places here in RVA sell the local blow your mind awesome Carytown Teas. so obviously they should too. tea is so often treated as an after thought isn’t it.

i used the http://www.jaydeee.net/pickatea.php tool to help choose this tea last night.
it was great!

and then i put my roller skates on and did spins in the living room (before we refinish the floor and move the furniture back in).
did i mention i used to competitively roller skate? like what they do on ice skates on tv.
i had some pretty rad costumes.

a local punk dive bar has this on the menu. it’s tonic and kinda bold. great for the long sip on a late evening out with friends. (i also hear it’s nice with some whiskey in it).

i just remembered that i made tea in my dream last night
i remember scooping out a teaspoon worth, inspecting it, and then putting it back in the canister repeatedly trying to get the right balance of tea elements on the spoon.
i know you know what i mean.

a local delicious lunch/dinner spot for cheap fried food and huge fresh salads and wonderful vegan burritos is a place i go to WAY TO OFTEN. they have a dozen amazing craft beers always on tap, but only bigelow tea.
yet every time i have this tea, i end up thinking ‘this is refreshing!’
‘i should drink more mint!’
so it’s nothing special, but i always like it.
it went great with the slice vegan mexican chocolate cake.

2 min steep
maybe i should have gone even less.
in fact i’m sure i should have gone less.
even before tasting it i can smell bitter before i smell pumpkin :(
try again next time.

maybe i’m just not in a white tea ‘place’ these days. i should probably put all of mine in the back of a drawer until i’m ready to enjoy their subtlety.
i’m a beginner, and i’m sure my appreciation of tea still has a lot of growing to do.

i steeped this one for a little tad under 2 minutes. and it’s lovely. but i’m not in love with it either.
eh.

i have nothing to say about this tea exactly. i don’t taste the chocolate covered strawberries but i WANT TO! i WISH i did.

what i wanna say is that I FUCKING LOVE STEEPSTER! i wanna spend all day here and just try all 88 of my teas in a cyclical pattern and think about art and books and movies and tell you all about them and listen to your stories and loves.
mad fact.

i’ve tasted a lot of teas today. all for the first time. and they have all been lovely in their own way.
i’m just not feeling very talkative is all.
here have a tiny poem.

Kafka’s Hat
by Richard Brautigan

With the rain falling
surgically against the roof,
I ate a dish of ice cream
that looked like Kafka’s hat.

It was a dish of ice cream
tasting like an operating table
with the patient staring
up at the ceiling.