Let's Talk About Balance

At this point I’m going to come right out and say that these blog posts may not come out on the same day each week, but by golly, I’m trying. 

So, back to the tea blog.  What can we talk about now? You pick…oh wait, that isn’t how this works. 

How about something I need to get better at? Let’s talk about balance.  

We only have one go at this life thing.  Some say it is short, but there is nothing else you will spend more time doing than being alive. Even short lives lasted longer than one bad day or a crummy mood.  I’ll be honest with you, I’ve got a lot on my plate and I’ve been getting anxious. How can we do it all?  Let me share a phrase with you that I’ve been hearing in various iterations, “How do you eat a horse? One bite at a time.”

It is silly, but I think the sentiment rings true.  Bit by bit, you’ll eat that damn horse if you really want to.  What motivates you to eat a horse?  Maybe another tea blog will tackle the existential dread of finding motivation.  Not here, not today, but email toadstonedriedgoods@gmail.com if you really want me to ramble about motivation. 

To extend this metaphor to our tea blending, we have found several ingredients that we know are winners.  Most recently we were able to break out our organic lavender to create a special mother’s day tea called “Lady Lavender” that you’ll have to get from us in person, or email us nicely asking for it.  The other fun part is that we narrowed down a lovely organic sencha from our wholesaler that was begging to be blended.  Bite by bite, we tried many different varieties till we settled on the one we just re-ordered and bagged up with lavender and local pears.  Now we have a tea blend.  It didn’t happen overnight (only Dirty Daisy came from a dream) but we still came up with a lovely blend just in time for Mother’s Day.  We are also sitting on several pounds of wild chaga.  I won’t tell you what it will be yet, but let's just say Clever Joe. 

The chaga may be a better metaphor, because man oh man is it a hassle to process.  It feels like I’m trying to bust up a slab of concrete with a meat tenderizer, but we finally did it and consumed several cups of pure chaga tea.  I have to say I like it.  There is a slight acidity and was surprisingly not very woody like I had imagined it would be.  The mushroom extracts the tannins from the birch trees and in the process you get a very unique flavor that is reminiscent of a birch soda.  It makes sense why there are so many Chaga Chai teas out there due to its spice quality.  We aren’t doing that though.  Come to the Mesick Mushroom Festival or visit our booth afterwards to see what we came up with. 

So now I will leave you to continue with my ever growing list of things to do, but now I have one less obligation.  My advice, start with the “fun” work first and then your gears may be turning just enough to do the monotonous tasks.  Put on some tunes and I’ll talk to you soon. Stay bumpy out there!