Snowflake

Today was my first trip to deliver meals on wheels to elderly people. After my work buddies kindly told me told me what to watch out for (naked old men who like to expose their privates and then grope female food bringers, elderly women who yell if you are late, vicious biting dogs, dirty houses, murderous neighbors, and so forth), I was terrified.

Fortunately, it was all untrue. Everyone was nice and it was fun to be out in the air bringing hot food to people who smiled at me. It was also fun to see the beautiful historic houses and the well-manicured lawns and shaped bushes. We even saw a camellia in full bloom. It was all good. Fun for me. A good deed. And I bonded with a work buddy. So, a total win-win-win. After delivering our meals and taking back the coolers to the agency, we went out to eat Thai food (our own private meals on wheels) and visited an antique store. They had this tea prominently displayed and I couldn’t resist.

The tea brews up into a murky reddish brown liquor that smells primarily of marzipan with a light coconut note. The marzipan fragrance carries through to the taste, but a strong black tea is married to it. It tastes like some sort of Ceylon black and the dry leaves are small, broken, and slightly wiry. There is a slight bitterness that tells me that four minutes was plenty of steeping time for this tea.