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It's October 31st, one of the best days of the year for kids. But, what's so great about Halloween for adults and what does tea have to do with it anyway? Well, if you're a woman like me, Halloween's gifts always included dress-up fantasies and chocolate.
But what if you just got a last minute command performance invitation to a costume party or you've decided you need to wear a costume to encourage a dearly beloved child who's nervous about dressing up to go trick or treating and you're all out of ideas? How about wearing a tea related costume? You could choose the classic Alice, Mad Hatter, or Queen of Hearts characters or as a teapot,teabag, or tea towel. How about becoming a Chinese Dragon or a tea leaves reading Fortune Teller for the night?
If you're just sending out your kids and staying home giving out all your goodies to the neighborhood kids, you know you're going to have another problem. What do you do after your little darlings have come home, told you about their adventures, deposited their UNICEF money and overflowing trick or treat containers, and gone to bed? The chocolate bars they left on top are calling, "eat me; eat me now." Couldn't you filch just one? No, the kids have memorized the contents of their stashes, an you have to set a good example. You go to another room and try to keep busy, but the chocolate just shouts louder. Your resistance is slipping. What can you do? How about a cup of chocolate, vanilla , or almond tea to satisfy your cravings and make you feel good in the morning too?
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If you're like me, you drink tea at all hours of the day... right up until (and sometimes past) bedtime. This post is about one of those nights... I love to sit outside, while drinking my favorite cup (or pot in this case) of decaf or herbal, in the summer when the night bloomers are active and take in the aroma of night blooming jasmine... Some orchids, too, only emit their lovely fragrances at night. One of my favorite night time specticals is the opening of my night blooming Epiphylum cactus flowers.
It starts out like this...
Then begins to open...
As the bloom grows larger...
 You can literally watch it move and open...
When it is fully open, it resembles an angel with glowing white skirts...
 There are diiferent varieties... Some that grow upright, like thick trees with many blooms at once. There are several of these blooming now in my neighborhood. Mine is a vine with flat segments...
When I was a child, we had one that had segments shaped like a triangle that grew into the top of a pine tree in our back yard. We would use a strong flashlight to watch it bloom... There was so much of it up there, we had nearly a hundred blooms in one night... I have friends that have a viewing party when theirs is about to bloom. Maybe next time, I'll have a Blooming Tea Party and serve a blooming tea in honor of it!
Is there something you love to do while enjoying your night time tea?
 I read this joke today: What is the tea leaf's favorite form of literature? Poetea.
I was quiet, unchanged, laughless. It is a terrible joke, after all, and i was inspired to form this gem (and source of undue pride): Who is the tea leaf's favorite poet? Tea S. Eliot.
My first addition to the tiny world of tea humor spurred a hunt for classic T.S. Eliot verse concerning tea or tea leaves or cups, any semblance of tea culture in the influential work one of the most important English-language poets. I came to a few lines near the end of "Hysteria." The image Eliot presents is an elderly server spreading a cloth over a rusting green table. The server says to the narrator and his laughing female companion, "If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden," and repeats once, "if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden," an echo. This server's trembling hands and advanced age date the tea service. The insinuation of an echoing sounds gives the narrator a distance from what Eliot may have felt was only dusty ritualism. Published in 1915, Eliot (27 years of age at the time) presented a young, progressive voice that was distracted by things more visceral than the tired convention of high-brow tea drinking: the raucous laughter of a woman, her movements, and her shining teeth.
I imagine this is commonly felt by young people growing in a society that values tea the way the English did during Eliot's youth. Appreciation of tea both in and out of social constructs takes time and attention. I value my coffee house years (in which I am still shoulders deep) and the tea experiences they have given me.
So who really is the tea leaf's favorite poet? Probably not T. S. Eliot. Allen Ginsbergamot? I'll have to read into it.
Long before globalization was a popular term and conference calls connected continents, arduous trade routes were responsible for spreading product and cultural traditions from one people to the next. Fragrant teas and spices traveled across oceans and lands spawning new customs in new worlds. Along with aromas, flavors and health impacts of teas also came rituals such as the reading of tea leaves, or tasseomancy. Tasse comes from the French word for tea and the Greek suffix, mancy, indicates the Greek word for divination.
A fun parlor activity between close friends and family, or a more serious event hosted by a seer of sorts, reading tea leaves is a way to enjoy your tea even after you've enjoyed it. Before you begin, you will need a teacup, a saucer and plenty of loose-leaf tea...simply choose a flavor you love! The tea is prepared as usual except this time you will not use a strainer when pouring into your teacup. The person having their fortune read will need to hold the teacup in their palms and focus their thoughts while drinking until about a fourth of a tea spoon of liquid is left in the bottom with the tea leaves. The cup is then swirled around a few times by the reader and tipped upside down on the saucer to drain remaining tea while the leaves stick to the bottom and sides of the cup. Now, peer into the cup now and check out the pictures, numbers and letters that may have formed!
Symbols read in the tea leaves are very open to interpretation and glossaries may be found in books on tasseomancy or on the internet. Some symbols are more common than others; I've included a short list of these:
- Anchor: At the top of the cup, an anchor can mean career or romantic success. In the middle, it symbolizes health and at the bottom an improvement in health or wealth.
- Bell: The bell means unexpected news is coming! The news is good when at the top of the cup and several bells may mean a wedding.
- Eye: This can mean a warning of caution or an overcoming of trials or difficulties.
- Hourglass: The hourglass represents a decision that must to be made.
- Mushroom: A mushroom symbolizes growth or setbacks unless it is flipped and then it may mean frustration.
- Spoon: Generosity.
- Umbrella: Annoyances and a need for shelter are foreseen by an umbrella
String multiple symbols together creating complete readings to ponder over as you relax with your tea or to giggle over with your friends while you put another kettle on the stove. Whether a mystical scenario or an interesting evening activity, here's to delicious tea and to your own continuation of a timeless past time!
Like Alice in Wonderland, I've felt time disappear like a vacuum sucking up lint balls. This summer, I traveled through the heart of China--to a mystical mountain where green tea grows in its mist, to pandas so cute its difficult to consider them bears, to teahouses where you can sip, sign and forget the existence of watches and time altogether.
Until, that is, you emerge from the rabbit hole, jet lagged, and you see the reality outside the portals of an airport. August 16th, huh?
Stay tuned for the tales. This is a teaser of what's to come.
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