Dearest readers: Months since my last entry, and I should apologize. But I won't. In fact, I'll stop doing that. A blog's a blog, and only the professionals with paychecks keep it up. For the rest of us: life happens, the tea goes cold. We put the kettle back to boiling, we resteep the good stuff. The circle of life, etc. etc. etc.
Suffice to say, I'm a grad student, I'm busy. I'll step this back — no more illusions of weekly posting, which has resulted in diluting the quality of content in the last year or so — and I'll write when I can. I'll write when I have something good. Don't want to shut it down, by any means. Just let the kettle cool.
In the meantime, enjoy some of my greatest hits:
I've visited so many great shops around the country — in Tulsa, in Texas, in Iowa, in Los Angeles, throughout Chicago (Nada, Big Jones, Julius Meinl, Billy Corgan's place, and the amazing Green Teaist, plus endless trips to Dream About Tea and Tea Gschwendner), and a lovely new one here in north San Diego County — as well as some spiffy shops around the world: London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, even Buenos Aires.
Speaking of travel: I posted and posted and posted and posted and posted and posted from my star-studded London tea trip, and also posted and posted and published and followed up about my tea trip to Hawaii.
I've blended tea into my work life as a pop music critic — talking tea with Morrissey, Billy Corgan, and Brendan Benson — and mixed it in with my personal life as a lush — making highballs, toddies, and cocktails. I've even blathered about my garden, including my tea plant.
I've written a lot about tea writing, from Laura Childs' delightful mystery novels (and some others'), plus moments with Kakuzo, Douglas Adams, Barbery, Chekhov, Burroughs, Neal Stephenson, my friend Mark Brown, and, of course, Proust. Not to mention the occasional great tea book or two or three. That's not "weak tea"; it's more than "a pinch for the pot."
We've shared some tranquil tea moments — learning to do nothing, learning not to see, learning to stop multitasking — and paying more attention to the big, hairy now.
And, of course, all those songs. Someday a mix shall come.
