AUTUMN MASQUERADE – 50 Gms

Sometimes it’s hard to hear the ‘music’ and you think maybe the magic is gone. Maybe finally the part that you never had any control over – the one that came from elsewhere and took a seat within you – the one that added up everything else you always had and gave it expression has finally deemed you unworthy and left! Your charade is over; you’re now exiled to the desert of eternal doubt and despair!

Then, after what seems like a lifetime, through all that gloom and darkness, flickers a faint reminder – of why you loved ‘it’ in the first place; from back when you first invited the magic in – made a seat for it and let it orchestrate. It’s almost always a faint reminder and the ‘meantime’ always feels like a lifetime but then something shifts – like God shuffled his feet- like you opened the window, to see the same god-awful dark clouds and rain, but now you say “I think I’ll just let it rain!” …and then slowly the sky changes color and you hear the music again -and it sings “…. While Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Sons of bankers sons of lawyers, Turn around and say good morning to the night, For unless they see the sky, But they can’t and that is why, They know not if it’s dark outside or light….”

The magic, it seems, masquerades as both love and despair and holds in high regard the human foolishness that believes and wishes to hear the ‘music’ in both. But then, why the masquerade? It seems, it’s there simply because we let it. Maybe, just so we can hear and re-hear the ‘music’, again and again. But we don’t really need to answer the ‘why’. The important thing to remember is sometimes you hear the music, sometimes to don’t but if you’re lucky enough to be reminded why you loved it in the first place, you’ll be fine.

The Autumn Masquerade comes bearing the reminder. It is yet another Autumn Oolong and it’s hard to describe the ‘freshness’ its brew bears – a very instinctively recognizable aroma of freshness! Freshness like Tea tree oil but most definitely will wear a different masquerade for each of us. Really large leaves of the AV2 smell of Olives, maybe Pistachios. The aroma and taste masquerade as a white tea initially but it’s the taste of mangoes and tamarind in a sweet, thick brew that gives it away. The taste of Olive oil and Pistachios and a woodiness, maybe sandalwood becomes more apparent midway but as the tea cools down further it reveals Vanilla mixed with mangoes and biscuits.

“Patience little heart, patience….”