It’s just rained steadily and mistily here, and the garden smells of damp leaves, rich earth, spring wetness. It’s the first rain we've had for more than a week, and as I sit by the window and the breeze moves through the room, I sip from a glass cup filled with green tea.
My tea isn’t as refined as some of the teas listed in that link. Especially not the revered Bi Luo Chun which is delicately harvested by hand from only 2 mountains. But it is delicate enough, and today I have added honey, as the hayfever season is getting underway.
Delicacy is the watchword with green tea, from the harvesting to the treatment of the leaves before packing and storing; from the kitchen–based teabag–and–kettle approach to that of the tea ceremony, described here and lovingly photographed here by f r a n g i p a n i.
The delicacy of the aroma is, I’m sure, why instead of drinking from a cup one must use a tea bowl instead. To constrict the vapour inside a narrow cup would surely concentrate it too much.
And that’s why I have my glass cup of green tea sitting on the windowsill, its vapour being teased apart by the breeze from the fresh garden in which a bird settles, cheeps, and bounces from stem to stem.
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