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Well! ...There, I did it. Honestly I believe that exclamation points in general are rather uncouth, a sure sign of lowborn literature. Nonetheless, our tea of the month this month, "Pink Lady", is so refined, so sophisticated, so utterly unspeakably superb, that I feel it can smugly hold its head high in an article containing one.
Allow me to introduce myself to those of you who may be lacking in culture. My name is Kaia Constance Snoot, and I am launching a competing magazine and tea of the month club, "Colorful Flavorful Teasnack Hut" (though, in my humble opinion, there isn't much competition between the two.) I was a little surprised at first when a strange-looking man approached me about writing this article; I thought he wanted spare change by the look of him. (I can only assume the reason to be, in spite of the obvious danger to their membership, some dubious hope that a bit of my refinement may have a positive effect on their, ah, coarseness, shall we say? What is a "Global Tea Hut" anyway?)
We digress. Back to this month's delightfully glorious infusion. When you have as many years of experience as I do, you can identify a fine tea by sight, and I knew as soon as I opened the bag that this was just such a rare tea. Although it is only a general rule and no substitute for expertise such as mine, if you can place your tea next to your potpourri in identical containers and be unsure which one to brew, that's a good sign, indeed.
Now, as you all should know, the most important quality of any tea is its color, and this tea really delivers, providing us with a blazingly bright pink opportunity for decorating our tea spaces and ourselves. Be warned that there are those out there not sensitive enough to realize the importance of color. They may say that flavor is most important. If you meet such a person, however, you have an opportunity to practice the two great joys of a true tea lover: condescension and rejection. Make the most of the opportunity! Now, the color of your tea defines absolutely everything about your tea session, from your pot and cups, to your flowers, crumpets and fingernail polish (Though it shouldn't stop there, and if it does you're a common floozy! More on the subtler aspects of makeup and attire in a later issue of my new and far superior magazine.)
On to flavor: Flavor is, to the credit of the common people I don't ever drink tea with, second most important. It is tied in importance with tea snacks, since you can't have one without the other. Now, this is the only area on which this tea falls slightly short. There are citrus peels, roses, spiced apples, cranberries, and even some little shreds of some unknown green leaf in this tea, which I regarded not without some suspicion. Frankly, it doesn't quite fulfill my 'minimum of nine ingredients' rule. Upon drinking it, however, I actually felt more ladylike, and my nose rose up in the air at least twenty degrees with no conscious effort on my part. Not only does this tea actually taste pink, but you can feel 'pinkness' spreading everywhere as you drink it. I was actually colorblind to everything but pink for about a week, so it must have had something good in it.
It would be difficult to compare this tea with some of my other favorites, such as Blue Razamatazz or Green Ringle-Dingle #5, due to the obvious color differences. Those teas have the requisite ingredient amounts. Still, this tea is pink, and greens and blues are a dime a dozen - not to mention out of fashion this season. Not only that, but I discovered that the smell of this tea continued to rise from my skin all day, making it an excellent perfume, and it is also effective as a hair dye. All in all, I give it four out of five noses up, with lifted pinkies in the air. Stick another flower in your bonnet, grab a scone and we're on to the next cup... *If any of you wish to join my far better and much more refined tea of the month club email me at: pinklady@doilies.org Next month, we'll all be drinking Chocolate Pumpernickel Rooibos together, yeah!
