Welcome to this week’s Writerly Bundle! A post where I hope to inspire you with three of the world’s greatest things: music, words, and tea.
This week’s Writerly Bundle is Persuasion by Jane Austen themed!
The Word:
vicissitude
noun
1.) a change or variation occurring in the course of something.
2.) interchange or alternation, as of states or things.
3.) vicissitudes, successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs:
They remained friends through the vicissitudes of 40 years.
4.) regular change or succession of one state or thing to another.
5.) change; mutation; mutability.
Example Sentence: Anne strives for a vicissitude for her future.
Image not mine.
The Song:
“Main Theme”
Persuasion
Since I’ve never read the book and I’ve only watched the movie in bits and pieces, I decided to finally sit down and give the Persuasion film a lot. Though I didn’t care much for the style of filming, I found both the story and the soundtrack intriguing. The strings and the piano in this piece are very moving and emotional with an air of romance. This piece suits historicals, perhaps contemporaries and fantasties as well depending on the style of writing.
The Tea:
Anne Elliot’s Hope
Poor Anne….. No fruit, no petals or plumes for flourish. However, like Anne, this tea is beautiful as itself and is the ideal tea companion to pouring over letters even with only the smallest hope. Indeed, this green tea is a beautiful example of what a tea should be.
Her virtues shine most when helping others in hot water. This green, silky, hand crafted tea from a jin xuan cultivar like Anne, is well rounded and from a quality family just waiting for love. This special cultivar from Taiwan produces a rounded and comforting cup with a smooth, lingering finish and a slight umami character that is sometimes found in lighter Japanese teas. It is a favorite of seasoned tea sippers as well as those just discovering green tea. Difficult to over steep because of its unique traits, this cup shares qualities of our heroine in that is most dependable.
Certainly a most calming cup of tea after a trying visit with relations or a reviving cup while sitting by the fire with good friends. And, you need not retrench in your tea budget either. This tea does very well with multiple steeping at a lower temperature.
Be sure to read the Emma’s Perfect Match and Lizzie Bennett’s Wit blend reviews!
The Tea: After trying over fifty different types of tea, I feel that I’m pretty well-versed in many different types, but I’m still trying to master the appreciation of oolongs. Oolong flavors are most of the time very subtle. There are exceptions such as Oriental Beauty, but most are very light with only light notes of flavor differences.
That said, Anne Elliot’s Hope is one of the plainer oolongs I’ve tried. I’ve tried a lot of scented oolongs such as Ginger Lily or specially grown oolongs such as Alishan Jin Xuan, but this tea is very simple and fresh. It has notes of Alishan Jin Xuan since it does have jin xuan tea in it, but it doesn’t have the distinct creamy taste of Alishan Jin Xuan. This is a very high quality green tea, which, especially with oolongs, is very important. A low quality oolong can ruin the overall flavor such as with the Coconut Pouchong I sampled a while back.
This tea is very calming and soothing with a lingering light finish. It’s a good tea for spring since it’s very gentle. I believe it fits Anne’s responsible and nurturing nature. It certainly fits her character.
Serving Recommendations: I steeped this tea at 195 F for three minutes and added sugar.
How much is it and where can you get it? This tea is available at the Bingley’s Teas website. You can get a 60 g package for $16.95. This amount makes at least twenty cups of tea, so you get your money’s worth. You also get it in the beautiful boxed packaging above. The presentation of Bingley’s Teas are just gorgeous. I can’t get enough of it!
So how good is it? This tea didn’t wow me but it was a very nice oolong nonetheless. Three stars!
Bonus! If you are a first-time Adagio customer I can send you a $5 giftcard! Ask in the comments for details! (This is no joke and no catch I seriously can. It’s part of the amazingness of Adagio Teas)
Have you seen or used this word before? Have you heard this piece before?Have you tried this tea? Have you seen or read Persuasion?
If you liked this post, come back every other Tuesday for book reviews; Friday for tags, character interviews, and link-ups; Saturdays for writing advice and life updates; and Sundays for the Writerly Bundle which includes a new soundtrack piece, vocabulary word, and tea review! To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! 🙂
