SPRING GRAPEVINE – 50 Gms

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” –  Hemingway (A Movable Feast)

“To lose an empty feeling; to begin again; to be happy; to make plans again – what does it all take? A foreign stone cast by an even foreign force into the stagnant waters of unchosen, placid existence – a ripple, a wave, a disturbance – very native; very un-foreign – that brings to the surface, what lay dormant below; to get it all moving – what does it all take, indeed?” While there may be no definite answers to that question – at least, not one that’s expressible without the mystery perishing or without the loss of a feeling– Hemingway does manage to express the feeling of having found it. That the feeling exists and it can be found, is assuring enough – assuring enough that Hemingway could re-write ‘A Farewell to arms’ a good thirty times, before his words achieved certainty:  That as sure as the world comes to a placid halt, it is also certain that there are things external, blessed and belonging to the world, cast splendidly yet unintentionally capable of surging the hushed calm of existential waters – getting them moving.

It wouldn’t be fair to call it a bold spring tea – boldness is a virtue of summer – fair would be to call it assertive – to evoke an unwilling but unexpectedly compelling response – in the best of possible ways, of course. More than the prominent taste of Grapes, it’s the aroma of Grapevines and a Honeyed hay-ness dulled by the Grapes themselves, that’s compelling. Unexpected was to find it in the first place in the unassuming and as yet overlooked leaves of the RR144 – almost as unexpected as the answer to what it indeed takes to lose an empty feeling – to begin again? Smooth fruitiness wouldn’t quite justify the Honey and Grapes, there is a distinct aroma of slightly woody- distinctly mossy layer with the taste of Caraway seeds that gives the Spring Grapevine’s brew a fairly appreciable texture. The aroma of grapes and honey with the mossy Caraway taste, never quite gets out of range but the mind wanders as the tea cools to find the equally present taste of Rosewater and Saffron – with perfumy milkiness.  It’s inspiring – the sincere surprise that the Grapevine begins with, that by the end turns into a fondly memorable assurance that lingers long after one has lost that empty feeling, begun again, started feeling happy and making plans again.