SPRING SAUDADE – 50 Gms

“I Still Have Everything You Gave Me
It is dusty on the edges.
It is slightly rotten.
I guard it without thinking.
I focus on it once a year
when I shake it out in the wind.
I do not ache.
I would not trade.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

That there is Saudade – Make what you will of it and you’re bound to fall very near to the experience yet fall short, by far, from any meaningful expression. You can express Happiness, Sorrow, Sadness, Despair, Nostalgia and Love in ways that are all meaningful, but not saudade. It is that fragile, that delicate – almost lost in expression. English translations all orbit around Longing, Nostalgia, Melancholy, Love, Pain, Grief, Hope and Despair but don’t justify. But if you can take hints from expression then draw feelings with your fingers in the ether, and stay awhile, then you have certainly experienced saudade – A freshness in the presence of something so absent.

If you randomly glance at the oil painting by Almeida Junior, you’ll catch a captured glimpse of the ‘Saudade’.  Look too closely and you’ll read into something else altogether!!…. Weight on one foot…. leaning away from herself…. the window….the tilted head….the raised hand….gently raised fingers….the palm holding the scarf covering the mouth….All inherently seen and understood in a single glance!!

Portuguese writers describe it as “a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy.”  But it’s not a suffering at all. More like a pain you wouldn’t wish away; It’s the love that’s leftover; trails of a feeling, felt long ago; the love that lives in your bones, not the heart; the one that doesn’t ache, one you don’t trade. The best part is, we all have it. It’s how we retain the fleeting beauty of life’s moments, people, places, pets…………

The Spring deals specifically in the ‘presence of absence’. This captures the Saudade in the flavor – not surprising at all, we could find it.  There deep contentment in the dense leaves, a longing that’s not looking to be fulfilled. Almost like it’s absolutely full, contended, self-sufficient in the absence, yet expectant, yet hopeful.

Mary Oliver writes in ‘Blackwater Woods’, “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go”.  The thick liquor that the Saudade brews into sits with the definite awareness of this.

The gossamer flavors roll with a familiarity and belonging between your palate and tongue, beginning with the hovering aroma of butter biscuits baked long ago. There’s the distinct spring freshness but with a depth and warmth….. Indubitably floral, In-bloom but aware of its constraints….. Mellow sweetness, reminding of pineapples, celebrating something absent affectionately…..The flavor has no edges, delivering, orbiting around something precious, it lingers, takes you places then lingers again…..A certain citrous refrain that adds to the honey brew…..Coats your mouth…..(seeps into your bones).

What else do we have except out Presence and Absence and we hold on to both, equally.

Brewing Instructions: 180ml water with 2.5 Gms of leaves for 3 minutes at 80 Degrees Celsius. Add 30 more seconds for the subsequent.