Examiner.com was nice enough to offer me a position as their Chicago Tea writer, but due to a couple of other writing projects I wasn't sure if I could devote regular hours and posts to examining all things tea in Chicago. So I'm veering over to Blogger instead, not so much with a total focus on tea, but also coffee and other hot and iced drinks -- and hopefully this will all come through in the eclectic matter of a 1920s style bohemian tearoom. (Where as pretty much everyone knows, not only tea was served in teacups.)
Just by happenstance, the term mystical potations in the description above comes from James Whitcomb Riley's poem "A Cup of Tea", and today's posting date of October 9th would have been James Whitcomb Riley's 161st birthday. Here's an excerpt from his tea-loving verse:
'Tis a mystical potation
That exceeds in warmth of glow
And divine exhilaration
All the drugs of long ago--
All of old magicians' potions--
Of Medea's filtered spells--
Or of fabled isles and oceans
Where the Lotos-eater dwells!
Though I've reveled o'er late lunches
With blase dramatic stars,
And absorbed their wit and punches
And the fumes of their cigars--
Drank in the latest story,
With a cock-tail either end,--
I have drained a deeper glory
In a cup of tea, my friend.
Green, Black, Moyune, Formosa,
Congou, Amboy, Pingsuey--
No odds the name it knows--ah!
Fill a cup of it for me!
That exceeds in warmth of glow
And divine exhilaration
All the drugs of long ago--
All of old magicians' potions--
Of Medea's filtered spells--
Or of fabled isles and oceans
Where the Lotos-eater dwells!
Though I've reveled o'er late lunches
With blase dramatic stars,
And absorbed their wit and punches
And the fumes of their cigars--
Drank in the latest story,
With a cock-tail either end,--
I have drained a deeper glory
In a cup of tea, my friend.
Green, Black, Moyune, Formosa,
Congou, Amboy, Pingsuey--
No odds the name it knows--ah!
Fill a cup of it for me!
