I was perusing the aisles of my local grocery last night when I came across a buy one get one free deal for Celestial Seasonings tea. Weighing my options I settled for True Blueberry and Sleepytime. Soon after getting home I put some water in the kettle to boil, mug and blueberry tea bag all set to go. I dropped the bag in the boiling water and as soon as the smells hit my nose I knew I had to take a taste, no matter how premature. That was it! That was the taste!
You see, I traveled in Eastern Europe in 1999, and I studied with a group of college friends. We studied in Slovakia during the week and traveled on the weekends. Part of our weeknight ritual was to stop by the local Potriviny (market) on the way home from the university. We would pick up that night's supper. We would go home and hover over the two electric burners we had to share among the eleven of us. We'd share our food and drink. Those were good memories!
(Ahem) Back to the tea...I had tried some tea from one of these markets and fell head over heels in love with it. I brought back as much as I could. It was some sort of fruit tea, from what I could make of the Slovak writing. Well, years later, in a friend's kitchen in California, she served me a cup of fruit tea. The same thing! That delicious flavor, reminiscent of the far off memory of that Slovak tea. And then again yesterday, in my tiny kitchen, half way around the world, I tasted the same thing. It's the blueberry! Simple. Ordinary. Even grown locally. The summertime blueberry. I'm headed to the store to cash in on more of those little boxes.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Day 7: Finger puppets and tea
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5 comments:
…and the daily morning ritual of stopping by the potravini to get a whole container of that fruit juice and woven string cheese, with which we would infuriate Dr. Hesselink all morning long with extending arms feigning a question only for him to find it was how we ate the string cheese. Hilarous! Fond memories.
ahh fingerpuppets! they remind me of the days when i traveled about east germany with only a backpack and a prayer. my fingerpuppets would conduct harrowing beethoven sonatas for loose change from passerbys in the open square. some days I would eat, others I would just talk to my fingerpuppets about the days of yore. they were my friends in the loneliest of hours. that was a long winter.
I'm gonna have to go out and get some of that. Cause I remember the smell of that tea too! Funny how we have such similar memories from trips years apart!
Enjoyed reading about your taste memories! Thanks for visiting me blog + commenting ~ glad you did + so now I've come across your lovely blog!
Love how you capture your *moments in time* with insightful words + photography....look forward to reading + seeing more ;-)
LOL!! Ryan! Oh, the memories!! I had all but forgotten about that tea and as soon as I started to read your entry...wow...the taste is in my memory and almost to my lips. As hard as that semester was for me (due to my own selfishness :-( ), I am so thankful to have so many sweet memories--thanks for assisting. :-)
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