Saturday Morning Tea

Our week was blessed with bright sunshine and deep blue skies even though temps have been hovering at the freezing mark during the day, dropping into the teens at night. I’ve warmed myself every night by wrapping in a big granny square blanket with a steaming teapot close by. The tv show LOST returned this week and, yes, I admit it, I am drawn to that show for some reason. Perhaps it’s their determination to survive that I admire.

This past week I replied to an e-mail from a customer disappointed in the tea I chose for my morning tea today. They thought it would be a green tea and, even though it is processed as a green tea first, I explained how it is far from it in flavor.

I introduce you to Ho-ji Cha tea, a roasted green tea.

Ho-ji Cha tea is traditionally grown and produced in Japan. Using what’s called Bancha (meaning common tea) green tea, the green tea leaves are roasted in porcelain pots over a charcoal fire. Roasting the tea leaves turns them a rich russet color and creates a completely different kind of tea from its original green state. This particular tea has been grown in China.

As you can see, the steeped leaves are chocolate brown with some twig mixed in. Straight twig tea is called Ku-ki Cha and is also very popular in Japan.

In my research, I have discovered that this type of tea was first created in Kyoto, Japan in the 1920s by a merchant but I have not been able to find out why. Perhaps he wanted to “spice” up the taste of the common grade of green tea. I have also read that the roasting process lowers the caffeine content of the leaf. I don’t understand that since all tea leaves are heated up to halt the oxidation process. Personally, I think this tea is lower in caffeine because it is common to have twigs from the tea plant mixed in. There isn’t any caffeine in the twigs.

I steeped my Ho-ji Cha tea for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. As it brewed, its warm, toasty aroma filled my senses.

The flavor of the glowing, dark-amber liquor is woodsy, toasty, nutty and smooth with a whisper of sweet caramel in the finish.

The roasted flavor lingers in my mouth for a long time.

The winter sky is shrouded in a thick, gray blanket. Aside from the gentle water sound of my fountain and the classical music playing, my morning world is silent. I sip my tea and savor the quiet moments.

Weekends are for getting back in touch with myself.

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself

and know that everything in this life has a purpose.”

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Saturday Morning Tea

Here in New England, we’re in the midst of an arctic blast with temps in the teens and howling winds making it feel like the air is below zero when you step outside. Brrrr… I’m grateful to be tucked away in my little nook with a steaming mug of green tea to warm my hands and my spirit.

This morning’s tea is called, interestingly enough, Lonely Mountain White Mist. Of course I chose this tea for its poetic name, conjuring images of a faraway land with tea bushes gracing a mountainside.

This tea comes from a fine plucking (top 2 leaves and a bud) of tea bushes grown in Fujian Province located in southeastern China. Traditionally described as “eight parts mountain, one part water, and one part farmland”, its climate is very suitable for tea growing with over 1200 tea plantations scattered throughout the province. So, our image of the mountainside is right on.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree water. As I gently lift the lid of my glass teapot, the pale golden liquor imparts a fresh, clean aroma. Is spring almost here?

The tea is so pale that I can see the texture in my hand crafted teabowl. If I could choose one word for this tea it would be

sweet

A sweetness that swirls and lingers through the asparagus notes and right on into the finish. So smooth…

As I mentioned in my last post, I am itching to play with my beads in a free-form way so today I will journey into the world of bead soups, mixing colorful bowls full of beady goodness.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

~Maya Angelou

What are you creating this weekend?

Color Inspiration

In my continuous quest to find and connect with other artists who drench their lives in color and beads, I have discovered a beady kindred spirit, Beverly Ash Gilbert.

Wandering around the web, I stumbled upon a blurb about the release of Beverly’s new book, Beaded Colorways: Freeform Beadweaving Projects and Palettes.

A rich title full of words I love: color, freeform, beads, palettes.

After excitedly purchasing her book, I went on an internet journey to find out all I could about this artist who loves color and freeform beadwork as much as I.

Inspired by the colors of nature in her northwest home, Beverly creates what she calls “bead soups”, mixes of seed beads, gemstones and pearls in variations of a hue. Mmmmmm, just the combination of those 2 words evokes yummy and juicy to me so I know that I’m on the right path, the path of rich becoming. Beverly goes on to create art jewelry pieces using these “bead soups”, transitioning from one “soup” to another in a beautiful flow of color. Take a look at the gorgeous pieces in her gallery.

In my own freeform approach, I choose a color palette inspired by nature.

a sunrise

an autumn walk in the woods

and then create patches of color (from that palette) that weave over and around each other.

Beverly has inspired me to expand how I look at my color choices and enhance my work with my own “bead soups”. Even though her clear writing and instruction speaks to all levels of beading experience, I find that it is ideal for someone like me who already has a fairly large bead stash for mixing and blending.

A New England winter palette threads its way through the fiber of my being these days, evidenced by my latest knitting creations.

and the beads I chose on my birthday bead store excursion.

Hmmmm, yes, winter….but look….peeks of spring here and there.

I think it’s time for another freeform bracelet.

What inspires you at this cold, muted color time of year?

The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination. ~Ward Elliot Hour

Saturday Morning Tea

This morning holds the promise of a warmer day as the sun streams through my windows and illuminates my space. I reach for my tea things and realize that I haven’t shared an herbal with you in a very long time.

So, without any further ado, meet Rooibos Vanilla, my herbal choice for this morning.

This particular rooibos is flavored with Bourbon vanilla. Vanilla flavoring is derived from the vanilla orchid, a flowering, climbing vine species from the orchid family. The trumpet shaped, creamy flower has a sweet scent, opening in the morning and closing in the late afternoon. In its natural habitat, the flowers are pollinated by a variety of stingless bees called Melipona as well as certain hummingbirds. Most commercially grown vanilla is pollinated by hand.

Here’s an illustration of the Vanilla Planifola, a species of vanilla orchid, from Kohler’s Medicinal plants.

Spooning 2 teaspoons in my glass teapot’s infuser basket, I steeped my rooibos for 8 minutes using boiling point (212 F) water. The deep russet colored leaf infuses to create a rich, deep amber liquor.

Besides being flavored with vanilla, there are pieces of vanilla pod sprinkled in with the leaf.

South African Rooibos is a bush grown in the Cedarberg mountain region of South Africa. The leaves are harvested and processed much like the tea plant, creating both “green” and “red” Rooibos. The Afrikaans word Rooibos means “red bush”. When the leaves are allowed to oxidize (similar to black tea), they turn a beautiful reddish brown.

Some people think of vanilla as a rather bland flavor as in it is the most boring ice cream flavor there is. Not me. I experience it as a sweet, uplifting spice that can take your senses and your imagination to lush, exotic places perfumed with lovely, delicate orchids.

The sweet vanilla combines with the hint of citrus in the Rooibos to create a pleasant melding of aroma and taste. When you’re looking for a late afternoon or evening caffeine-free respite, this is the perfect choice. I drink it plain but it would stand up well to any additions like milk and sweetener. You can ice it, too.

I’ve been in my new place for 3 weeks now and am trying to find and gather all of the threads that I had dropped during the moving process, namely, my Taos free range knitted wrap. I would love to finally finish it and wear it! So, look for some “ta-da” moments coming, hopefully, soon.

“In my life’s chain of events nothing was accidental.  Everything happened according to an inner need.” ~Hannah Senesh

The Process of Becoming

First of all, my heart and prayers go out to the people of Haiti.  If you haven’t yet, you can find out how to help here.

Ever since a couple of Saturdays ago when I wrote about choosing a word for the year to guide and inspire, my mind has been filled with thoughts about what my word could be for 2010. I find it challenging and a bit daunting to choose a word that will define my direction for a WHOLE year.

As I discovered last year, a life can change drastically in a year’s time. A year ago, I was struggling with a debilitating condition, in a great deal of pain, both physically and emotionally, and now here I sit, in a healthier body in a brand new home. My own home.

Inspired by the flavor and color of that second flush Darjeeling tea from that day (mmmm), I’ve meditated at length on the word rich. This word is commonly associated with financial gain, however, there are many other ways to experience richness in one’s life. It can also describe how I feel about my life right at this very moment, fostering a sense of gratitude and abundance for all that I have and experience. In that respect, it brings me directly into the moment instead of focusing on the future. It gets me out of my head and into my heart, a way of being encouraged strongly by a psychic I went to see on a brilliantly sunny day last February. She told me that I should figure out how to live a more yummy, juicy life. Well, rich is yummy and juicy, isn’t it?

So, I thought that I was pretty much decided……that is, until I read my Daily OM horoscope e-mail last Thursday, entitled “The Process of Becoming”. Becoming? Huh? Hmmmm….oh….yes…..becoming. You know when you have a moment when something – a person, an experience, a WORD – resonates so strongly that you feel like it is a key that is perfectly shaped to your heart and soul? Some folks might call that experience an epiphany.

“a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

I read my horoscope every morning. Sometimes it offers inspiration or an insight into a problem or challenge I’m experiencing but most times, to be honest, it’s a quick skimming read over morning cereal. Not this time, however.

Becoming

“any change involving realization of potentialities, as a movement from the lower level of potentiality to the higher level of actuality.”

Of course, I could put those 2 words together. Becoming Rich. Rich Becoming. I think I like the latter phrase better which seems to evoke a yummy, juicy unfolding as opposed to conjuring images of get rich quick schemes.

Have you ever heard someone say that at this very moment you are exactly where you are supposed to be? How every moment of your life up until now has led you exactly to this place? These words have become my constant companions in the past year as I’ve experienced the process of purchasing my new home. This process was incredibly long and drawn out, involving slow moving banks and such, and it also involved the end of a relationship as it was, which would then make 2 endings of that sort in less than 6 years. When something like this happens, you go through all of the “should haves” and “should not haves”, right? I admit, I had my share of “woe is me” days about this but what I kept coming back to was how everything seemed to click into place in the last year to bring me here. Right here. Here is where I need to be. Where I’m supposed to be.

Have you chosen a word for the year? The first year I did this, I followed the advice found on Christine Kane’s blog here.

I copied and pasted all of the words from the list in that post into a blank document, arranged them on the screen so I could cut them out individually once I printed it. The pile of words then went into a colorful bowl. As I swirled the bits of paper around, I closed my eyes and thought about the year ahead and put my intention out into the universe for guidance. Then I grabbed a slip of paper. That was in 2008 and my word for that year was Beauty. That was another year of moving for me. My new home at that time was closer to nature and a garden so I immersed myself into those things and took a lot of photographs. Focusing on the beauty in the world became a very healing year for me.

Becoming

Rich Becoming

It’s only a word or two but what’s truly important is where it brings you.

“As we focus on enjoying each step along our journey to success, we immerse ourselves fully in the process of becoming.” ~from the Daily OM, The Process of Becoming, 1/15/10