Venus and Phoenix Oolong

Today was the transit of Venus in case anyone failed to notice! I remember seeing it in 2004 when I was in elementary school still, and although today was cloudy thanks to NASA I still got to catch the beginning and the end on live video stream from Hawaii.

(Photo rights to STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImages from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/venus-transit-2012-live-c_n_1571654.html#s=1061477)

To mark the occasion, I decided to pull out my plum blossom gaiwan set and drink some delicious Guangdong Dan Cong from Phoenix Tea (listed in English as Phoenix Oolong when it's available). I love Dan Cong because it tastes like Japanese andromeda and clover nectar. When I was in elementary school, the green was made of mostly clover. We all loved it when it blossomed, and one day some of my friends showed me that you could get what we thought was honey at the time from the clover petals. You pick off one single closed petal and lightly bite the end of it essentially. It was really delicious as a kid, but having such a short attention span, we only did that on occasion. Haha. But this tea reminds me of that smell and taste.

I mentioned it also reminds me of Japanese andromeda. When I was even younger, before I was in elementary school, I lived with my mother at my grandparent's house. In their backyard they had huge Japanese andromeda bushes.

(Picture from http://www.plant-care.com/japanese-andromeda.html)

These little bell flowers smell amazing when they bloom and I used to play on the bush. Haha. It was a variegata variety and they get to be almost small trees when they get large. Inside the bush there weren't any flowers but just these huge branches that I could climb on and sit on and pretend I was Tarzan in. Drinking this oolong reminds me of those very fun times and so I love it.

Today, June 5th, 2012, with the Venus transit and Phoenix Oolong, was a wonderful day.