Between Christmas and New Year, we drink tea

The weather is cold, the feasts have been wonderful, the letters from old friends have all been read and reread. We need a pause, a few days of simple living, before the New Year festivities begin, with first-time skiers from England arriving soon.

We drink tea every day, but now is the time for our special ones, such as a very delicate white tea at the end of the day, a good book in hand. I'm reading Mauve by Simon Garfield, a history of the color, and rereading A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. Late in the afternoon we have pungent Two Sisters' Weddings tea, bought in China, in Kunming, southwestern Yunnan province, where we smelled jar after jar of tea before settling on three we wanted to try.