Summer Desiderata

Teas, for most of us, are very much like looking in the mirror – You either dislike what you see or you find exactly what you’re looking for. It’s neither right nor wrong either way, as there are no guidelines for looking in the mirror, but the wisdom comes from realizing not the futility in trying to objectify the composition of your gestalt self – a whole that is more than the sum of parts, but the limited ability of emotions to process that. Wisdom comes from knowing that something gestalt, something larger needs to be factored in to invoke appreciation, every time emotions seem to not be working.

The tea offers that ‘Desiderata’ wisdom, carrying you from one flavorful mile marker to the next without zigzagging the emotional pathways – the mile markers all assimilating to make the experience gestalt.

Truth is, we were expecting this early summer, large plucking of Yabukita cultivar leaves to have more of a ‘Baudelaireian’ expression – prose out of ‘Paris spleen’, like the Yabukita Muscatel, instead we found its flavors to contain the eloquent wisdom of Ehrmann’s Desiderata. But maybe that’s just another visited mile marker in the coming together of need and desire. Maybe somewhere in the notes of Desiderata lie the hints of the emotional zigzag one must make to arrive at the Yabukita muscatel. The only question is, if experiencing the Desiderata will in fact change the experience of Yabukita?

The Desiderata begins placidly with a charitable, warm aroma, of caramels rising up from brewed red liquor with an orange sheen. Eloquent flavors of coconut and caramels settle comfortably onto the pallet with the first few sips. Just when you have made up your mind about coconut and caramels, it cautions you to the arrival of Chocolate with hints of toffee. The tea, when sufficiently cool, turns floral with muscatel notes. Leaving you with a full earthy, woody, sweet and milky aftertaste, but far from over the second steep is full of kind reminders of the aroma of guavas and deep floral notes. Caramel is consistently present from the dry leaves into the brewed liquor and eventually, the steeped leaves.