SUMMER SYZYGY – 50 Gms

When Icarus went flying too close to the sun, his wings made of wax melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. They say it was spring and life carried on nonchalantly around the sea where his splash went unobserved – at least, that what you make of the painting by Pieter Brueghel titled ‘landscape with the fall of Icarus’. Though painted to highlight the nonchalance of life and not to account for the facts and wisdom of the legend, it does beg to bring into perspective the importance of the observer to witness and add meaning to events – almost as important as the event.

Syzygy would refer to the alignment of celestial bodies in a near straight line with the temperamental nonchalance of such events replaced by the presence of you – the observer. The all-important observer, placed in the path of totality to witness, experience wonder and derive meaning. It isn’t just that we are able to observe these syzygies and alignments, astronomical or otherwise- it is very much in Syzygy of our own, that we become observers. A syzygy within us – that too must be observed!! Doesn’t it make you see the point in philosophers and physicists splitting hairs over questions like “Did it really happen if it went unobserved?” or “Do we indeed create reality in observation?”

What the quantum physicists establish as “the observer interacting with the observed, through the process of observation” or the astronomers of yore expected to derive as they witnessed the gargantuan mysteries of the night sky, can also be found in the Buddhist principles of the syzygy of mind body and soul, for each to practice and discover on their own, much like our own personal observations in cups of tea.

Far from pursuits of Astronomy and Quantum physics, we absolutely sit delighting in this Summer Syzygy and do the only natural thing that comes after – share with you a brew of gratitude and silence that, if not reveals the mysteries of aroma and taste then might just make you revel in the delightful eunoia of “Let’s drink it all and forget it all!”

The summer actually began with the ‘relief’ of Bug-bitten then came the ‘manufactured crises’ of Ennui followed by the ‘wisdom’ of Desiderata, the ‘pleasantness’ of Eunoia and the ‘desires’ of Bacchanalia. Notes evolved or devolved, from honey, coconuts, caramels, cakes and we anticipated it to settle on the elusive chocolate or cocoa. Thus, the Syzygy. You immediately notice a temperamental nonchalant edge with the first apprehensive hot sip – that’s when you recognize the aroma emanating while pouring; of damp, forest wood. The dark chocolate, cocoa and muscatel first appear as a syzygy of flavors that quickly take on their individual singularities just as you’re settling in the rich, pleasant aftertaste between sips. It is a complicated syzygy, more like a 3-body problem, this one, so to put it very carefully, there’s this undercurrent of some-fruit-jam throughout the taste, that most definitely makes its presence known in the brewed leaves. The dry leaves plucked from the original China cultivar can be, thankfully and much more easily, described by their chocolate and cocoa aroma.

It took some Syzygy, all right, for this tea to see the light of day and will take quite a few more to make it to you – we can only imagine the observations this will yield in your cup!