One of the recurring inspirations for tea ideas is people talking about food on Twitter.1
I will read a description and some aspect of it (sometimes the entirety of it) will provoke the thought of “I bet this would make a good tea.”
Most of the time when this happens, the idea gets scribbled down. On a good day, it goes directly into a tea journal. On other days it might get scrawled on the margins of my calendar, or written in cramped shorthand on a post it, or… for eventual transfer to one of the tea journals.
This particular concept came from the description of a friend’s breakfast porridge. It was oats, cinnamon, apple, and almonds.
It was one that settled in immediately as a “make soon” – in part because the friend commented that not everything is better as a tea, and in part because I am on a near-constant quest to increase the list of Simply Tasty teas that do not have caffeine.
Nothing immediately sprang to mind as a name for this tea – probably because there were a number of different directions the theme for it could have gone in, and sometimes my brain gets snarled up in its own traffic – which can be frustrating.
In this case, the name could come from the comforting nature of the combination of foods, or from the sheer stubbornness I can have both in proving concepts or in the pursuit of tea ideas, or even from the seemingly infinite number of possibilities for tea.
Sadly, at this point, there is a bittersweetness to the whole affair as the friend who inspired it is no longer here to speak to or to weigh in on possible names for what she inspired. 2This, of course, adds another potential path to a name for the tea.
Initial queries sent into the Twitterverse did net3 a few ideas: Tea Cobbler, Baker’s Comfort, Fairytale Breakfast and Breakfast Porridge. Once pictures were added to the mix, a more direct fairytale connection was suggested due to apples and the colouration of the almonds – Snow White’s Redemption. Due to my friend’s reaction to the test, I had some thoughts of Goldilocks and the just rightness of the thing – but there are some neon blinking sign issues with that particular tale.
I would appreciate any input – from weighing in on the current ideas to suggesting others. This particular tea has been waiting for a long time, and if it gets named, it will move almonds closer to the top of the list of ingredients to reclaim.4
- Hasn’t happened on Tumblr yet, but I assume it will eventually.
- She did get the opportunity to test the tea, which is a happiness, and stated that I had perfectly translated the porridge into tea.
- and inspire
- The original version of this post happened on the 25th of February, 2020. Mostly a marker for myself, for a number of reasons.