Old Friends

One of the things I did today, along with trolling a million websites for job postings, was meet my best friend from grade school's best friend from college for coffee. I know, it should have been tea, but it wasn't. It was very interesting to meet Liz, who I hadn't met before even though we've been living in the same city for a year or so. We had a great time talking and getting to know each other, and filling each other in on gaps in our friend Cindy's life.

Of course, I also spent an inordinate amount of time complaining about the flat spot in my hair that seemed to result from going to a new stylist over the weekend, which Liz kindly said she didn't notice. These are the kind of friends you want to keep!

Before I went out, I had brewed a pot of a tea called "Natela's Gold", which is one of my favorites. I hadn't been drinking it lately, after my oolong tea indoctrination in San Francisco, but this morning I wanted something familiar and relaxing. Clearly it didn't help enough, since I still got agitated over my hair, but I think it helped to make me just a bit more zen.

"Natela's Gold" is a black tea from Georgia (the country, not the state) that I bought at a local tea shop called Tea Embassy (http://www.teaembassy.com/ ). Although it's a black tea, it's very mellow, with an almost sweet flavor to it naturally. The liquor is a clear coppery color, and the aroma has just a hint of nuttiness (kind of like me, my friends would say). See the slightly blurry picture above. I'm not very good at coming up with adjectives to describe tea flavors--my favorite being "like an orange stuffed with capers"--so I don't know if my descriptions will ever want to make anyone drink the tea I like. I guess that's something I need to work on if I ever want to have a tea business of my own, huh?

Anyway, I always love drinking this particular tea, and today it felt singularly appropriate, as I was meeting an old friend of an old friend, and I feel like this tea is an old friend. One whom I love to spend time with, whether I'm working away at my job hunt and business plans, or just relaxing with a book in front of the fire. It's not a demanding tea, but one that gives quiet rewards every time you brew it, and therefore always has a place in my tea cabinet.