Today we have another book-inspired tea choice. As I mentioned before, usually the review’s featured book is inspired by my tea selection. But sometimes – like today – the book chooses the tea.
I have become a member of Shelterbox Book Club. Shelterbox is an amazing charity who provides shelter and other essential items to families across the world impacted by disaster. As they say on their website: Having somewhere dry and warm to sleep, to prepare meals and be with your family is vital for starting the long process of rebuilding your life.
Their book club focuses on fiction and memoirs from throughout the world, offering the opportunity to explore the lives and hear the voices of people from places someone like me might otherwise only know from newsreels.
So it is with this month’s book choice: The Wife’s tale by Aida Edemariam. This is the story of Yetemegnu, the author’s grandmother, born in 1896 and married at eight years old to a priest decades older than her. It is also the story of Ethiopia. One hundred years of its turbulent history are intertwined with the life and experiences of the indomitable Yetemegnu.
It is a powerful book. It reads like a novel with Edemariam narrating personal tragedies and political upheavals in the voice of her grandmother. The sparse prose is poetic and beautiful, the story it tells is often brutal.
It does seem a bit flippant to segue from that to a tea review, but this is a tea blog after all, and I am going to press on and do just that. Even though tea doesn’t actually feature in The Wife’s Tale.
Coffee, however, features heavily. Ethiopia is one of the largest coffee growing nations in the world. In Yetemegnu’s life, coffee is a comfort, a moment of peace and a basic courtesy when welcoming visitors. This is a book of tastes and smells. Evocative descriptions of coffee, spices, warm bread, fruit and flowers all draw the reader into its world.
And so it seemed appropriate that today’s tea should feature coffee and spices. Bird & Blend’s Mocha Chai contains Sri Lankan black tea, cocoa nibs, coffee beans, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla pieces.
The last time I had coffee beans in a tea blend (Bloom Tea’s Tiramisu), I was a bit weirded out by it. But this time, I really enjoyed myself. Bird & Blend’s Mocha Chai is absolutely lovely. The coffee is very much a secondary player here, assuming the role of another warming spice alongside the cardamom and cinnamon, and providing a kick to the rich cocoa nibs.
I’m always a sucker for both cocoa blends and spicy chais. Mocha Chai’s coffee beans in no way spoiled my fun. In fact, they were quite a welcome diversion.
This was quite a circuitous route to get to a tea review so thanks for sticking with it. I’ll probably do the same thing again in a few weeks time with Shelterbox’s next book club choice, Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma.
You can buy A Wife’s Tale directly from Shelterbox. If you want to learn more about the book club, you can check out the Shelterbox Book Club website or visit their Facebook page.
