SPRING AUBADE – 75 Gms

“Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air.
Across the clouds, I see my shadow fly,
Out of the corner of my watering eye.
A dream unthreatened by the morning light,
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night.
A soul in tension that’s learning to fly,
Condition grounded, but determined to try.
Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies,
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I”.
-David Gilmour (Pink Floyd –‘Learning to fly’)

Somewhere between a sweet lament -the end of a mystery – and contentment of revelation, resides the meaning of Aubade in poetry. Its mood lies elsewhere – in the mood of a morning; early morning – when the eventful night hasn’t completely parted yet. Meaning takes us only so far, after that it’s the sounds, then it’s the silence and in the end…? – the end is simply an aubade of eternal mood. Moods are important – the most creative ones are more bestowed than evoked – in music more so than other places. David Gilmour’s contribution is not in meaning, it’s in mood – of humanity soaring on a wing and a prayer – the fact that it can be shared, is what makes it bestowed.

Inscribed on the side panel of NASA’s ‘Clipper’ spacecraft is a poem by Ada Limon. Part of it reads – “We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein. O second moon, we, too, are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas. We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark”.

They say, there’s an ocean of water 2 billion miles away, underneath the icy crust of Europa – a moon of Jupiter, that Clipper ventured out to explore! For a humanity that seems to be forever divided by its own commodified individuality, space – the final frontier, seems to unite and inspire the more primal urges of yore – curiosity, risk and exploration; making it not too difficult to see that while our undebatable uniqueness grants us our individuality, it is still an emergent property- emerging right out of our native and shared instincts – How we all move towards the light; how we all seek out water; and how we all make our presence known to the unknown and hope for a response- wherever we are. While her words are befitting of a venture that carries meaning 2 billion miles away, they leave behind enough wonders – ‘Still, there are mysteries below our own sky: the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree’- for us to revel in, while we await the poetic Aubade Europa will write back to us in time, in the no less poetic company of tea – The Spring Aubade.

It is ‘garden fresh’ and invigorating – absolutely an aromatic mood changer. Made in late spring, it expresses with a more panoramic profile of Spring – more capturing the complexity of mood than flavor.  While all other mixed cultivars of spring carry the distinct flavor profiles of their constituent leaves, the Aubade makes its appeal by adopting a more classical expression of spring instead of leaning on pedigree – Deeply refreshing, floral and herby taste with an aroma of ripe mangoes, it is sweet and floral with a thick Glycerin like texture. The mango becomes more apparent as the tea cools down.  With a satiating floral and herby aftertaste that doesn’t outstay its welcome, it contains both pleasure of company and the lament of parting. While a Classical Darjeeling Spring tea certainly has no shortage of more academic candidates, the Aubade is very much the exception to criteria.