Wild Leaves - Pursuing the Essence of a Season

A Tea ‘Ode to Autumn’

There is something inexplicably creative, restless, and transfixing about the way the autumn wind blows, the particular scents it carries, the way it sounds as it moves through withering leaves, scattering the last petals of late-blooming flowers and shaking the seeds from oxidized seed heads. Words can often fall short in their ability to capture and convey the essence of so many seasonal subtleties; however, taste and scent can be especially powerful mediums.

Wild Leaves is our Ode to Autumn - a taste-poem about nostalgia triggered by the changing season–about the qualities of the wind, the scents of rose-gold grasses and bare stone once the mosses have receded; about blown flowers and the seeds that drop and cling; about and the way the water runs cold, making the creek beds stiffen.

Is it possible to capture such things in a cup of tea?

Taste is indeed a powerful suggestive force . . .

Often, tea artisans and purveyors of fine tea insist that the best tea is able to capture the essence of a (distant) place—a specific locale—and this is absolutely true. Yet a finely crafted tea also has the potential to take us even further, by helping bring us into a deeper sensual awareness of the places we already inhabit. Tea is an endless process of discovery—of particular places, of the specific artistry of individual tea artisans, of the very unique taste profiles and habitats of each plant, and of the relationships and correlations our mind and heart make as we sift through the tastes and aromas of each, reflecting upon what they mean to us, and how they make us feel.

So, take your time sipping. Linger in a doorjamb; stare out across the yard; watch the trees move as you inhale the aromas of chocolate graham, marigold and steamed bun. As you taste, you may experience suggestions of dried cherry and redwood at play across the tongue and the back of the nose. See if you can distinguish the scent of sunflowers and acacia blossoms, a dash of vanilla or the savory sweetness of toasted grain . . . and allow yourself to tune into, and become a part of the many seasonal changes happening around you.