This poor tea. I got it in the mail today from my friend C, who is a very lovely and brilliant man, but with a fairly limited understanding of the reign of sheer violence and horror that is inter-European shipping. So like the nice, innocent Canadian he is, he put two DavidsTea tins in a padded envelope and dropped it in the mail for me when he was in London.
And thus the journey of terror started for the two unsuspecting Canadian tea tins.
As most of you know, DT tins aren’t the most robust in the world, and if you pack them together, in a somewhat floppy, soft envelope and don’t tape the lids or put them into individual plastic bags, all bets are off. Upon arrival, the padded envelope (when gently rustled) sounded much like an oversized tea bag and smelled very strongly of buttered rum.
So I crossed my fingers so very tightly that the tiny swoosh-swoosh coming from the envelope was not, in fact, an oolong swoosh.
If true disaster had struck, I would have separated the little oolong pearls from the black blend, but I never would have known for sure how much they’d affected each other.
But when I cut the envelope open, the oolong tin was just sitting there, lid in place; pristine, sort of glowy.
Seriously, my whole day today has been one of blessings and dodged near-disasters. I went out to buy lettuce. At the store, I realize I switched jackets, so I left my card behind. But the cashier is super nice and stashes my stuff for me until I get back. I come outside, and it’s pouring down. But I get to share an umbrella with a nice lady while I wait for the tram (mine even arrives before hers) and she teaches me all about a couple of really good bus lines in the meantime. Back at the store, no less than SIX PEOPLE let me jump the line, even though I explain the cashier is holding stuff for me. As I get back out again, it’s pouring down even worse, but this time around I brought my umbrella, so I can offer to share it with a girl who’s getting soaked. Turns out she’s taking the same course I took at the university here a few years back, so I get the latest gossip on the irresistible and illustrious Professore P. Then, in the street, I meet a guy I’ve been meaning to e-mail forever and I can finally invite him to do that thing (no, not that thing – a serious, researchy thing) and he’s excited and then I get home and I have TWO packages waiting for me, both containing awesome teas and lots of love. Oh, and my fax to the Vatican went through.
This day could have been so much worse if it hadn’t been for the kindness of friends, complete strangers, and the resilience of one small, brave DT tin.
So, again – this poor tea – now lost in a very lengthy post about completely different things. Consider this a preliminary tasting note – a tasting prologue.
More will follow.
[Gifted by C, October 2013.]
MY FIRST PURCHASE WAS BIRTHDAY CAKE TOOO!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!! Actually, I bought others at the same time but the reason I want to Davids was to try their Birthday Cake tea.
I realize now my excitement might have been slightly excessive.
Technically my first purchase was Birthday Cake and Quangzhou Milk Oolong, both for my friend Skylar as a birthday present. She’s probably the biggest tea drinking friend I have (rivaled only by Robyn, whom lives here in S’toon with me) – and a HUGE part of why I even got into tea. It makes me sad because she’s a city away and I don’t get to talk tea/have tea with her plus I moved here before I really got into tea, so I’ve never really gotten to flip out about it with her. But I kept buying the Birthday Cake for tea drinking friends as a gimmicky kind of gift. It was a combination of my Mom coming back from China with some loose leaf that was yummy (I have no idea what it was, thinking back on it: it was heavily fruity and totally has hibiscus and other berries but there’s a darker kind of tea leaf in it, maybe an oolong) and getting really curious about the Birthday Cake I kept buying people that finally got me to try it. And look where I am now…
Also, that was an unnecessarily long reply.
Haha I liked it.
I got into tea because I got sick and then decided I liked tea enough while I was sick, I would try other teas. And when I looked up DAVIDs online (having always walked by but never gone in) and saw they had a Birthday Cake tea I was sold. Then I started drinking teas and now here we are.
Plus, once I got into teas, it became more of a thing among my friends. Now when we hang out, we have “tea parties” which basically means we do what we usually did and I bring tea :P.
I grew up with bagged mint teas, and when I worked at the movie theatre my favourite thing ever was Bigelow’s Mint Medley drowned in cream when I had early morning/opening shifts. It kept me awake and alert. But other than that and the very occasional other teabag (usually a cinnamon/apple herbal) I jumped straight from bagged mint to loose leaf. I don’t think I’d ever tried a bagged tea with actual tea (just herbals) prior to drinking loose leaf…
Oh, yes I had! RiverBlend Plantation’s Saskatoon Berry – which is black. I didn’t like it, at first. I didn’t know about tea getting bitter, though. So I was heavily oversteeping.