Thursday tea

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by Anastasia at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog.

The tea: Black Pearl from Lipton. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive - just a very delicious black tea from Sri Lanka with a lovely, lingering flavour. I drink it plain, no sugar, especially at work. Lovely stuff.

The book: The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland, a novel about the life of Emily Carr. (See yesterday's post for an example of Carr's painting.) I'm loving this book as much as the other novels she's written about painters (all of which are on my night table to be read, or read again). The prose takes you there, whether it's inside the home of a basket-weaver, or in Paris where she discovers that Fauve and Post-Impressionist art can merge her artistic vision to her artistic technique.

Do they go together? Hmmm. Interesting. The novel takes place in a strict Canadian homestead, Native villages, and Paris. I would say that any tea would "go" with one of those places. Alas, the plain black tea would be most likely found in the most repressive of these, but since I loathe herbal teas and shy away from most flavored black ones, I guess I'll have to say that the novel goes with me, and so does my tea.

Thursday Tea

Thursday Tea is a meme, hosted by Anastasia at Birdbrain(ed) Book Log. I learned about it from Sandra at Fresh Ink (whose blog header is to die for...)

• "To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the willingness to answer some very simple questions: What tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together."

Since I'm not home, my tea is from a bag of Twinings Darjeeling. (The bag comes in a packet, which is environmentally unsound, but at least it's purple.) I have just begun to read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, a novel about the very real Sarajevo Haggadah.

Does the tea complement the book? Oh yes, especially since this is the first day of Pesach. The tea tastes, to me, like a subtle but lingering wine. Drinking it, I imagine myself at a seder in Odessa with my great-grandfather. In the room lit by candlelight, I imagine the ancient story of liberation as I sip my delicate wine. Our Haggadah is plain, my family is scholarly, and the desire for freedom from tyrrany is ageless. I wrap my dark green shawl about my shoulders and listen to the youngest boy asking the Questions. At least for this moment, I am content.