Yesterday my partner and I decided to go on a mini road trip, to see how the landscape is melting and to try out the new truck on some dirt roads. We drove the loop in Nopoming Provincial Park, which is north of the Whiteshell, along the Manitoba-Ontario border. It’s a lot more rugged and less developed than the Whiteshell, and much quieter at all times of year, which, in my opinion, makes it far superior. When I’m camping or in the wilderness, people are the last thing I want around.
The prairies at this time of year are fairly dull. While I generally see them with an artist’s eye, and appreciate the nuances of all the different colours and textures, even those subtle differences are flattened in the post melt, pre bloom of spring. The fields, trees and ditches blend together into a fairly uniform grey-brown, contrasted with the uniform blue and deep green of the sky and evergreens. Add to that the road and the clouds, and you have five colours for this season.
Once you hit Canadian shield, the landscape gets more interesting – shield is always a less subtle beauty than the stark flatness of the prairies (and so utterly flat, in a way that I haven’t experienced anywhere outside of Manitoba.) The rock, interspersed with mixed forest of fir, spruce, poplar and the occasional birch, creates a macro texture, while the lichens covering the surface of the rock, and striations of broken sedimentary rock that protrude along the side of the road add a more subtle and delicate texture. Lakes, rivers and streams frequently abut or cross the winding road that undulates over granite that the road builders chose not to remove.
I sipped a travel mug of this as we drove, prepared earlier. Two pagodas, steeped for five minutes in 14oz of water yielded a rich, deep tasting brew, full of cocoa, malt and sweet potato. A good choice, whose flavour held up well in the travel mug, which seems to inevitably carry some trace of other flavours, no matter what I do.
I got a second excellent steep out of the two pagodas later in the evening, still rich and deep tasting.
The directions on the package recommend three pagodas per cup, but that is without a doubt overkill. Each one is at least the equivalent of a teaspoon of tea, possibly closer to two.
Between sharing these and drinking them often, they’ll be gone soon, and this will be a definite restock. They taste wonderful and the shape is also wonderfully suited to steeping without a strainer, and so, quite convenient.
Flavors: Cocoa, Malt, Smooth, Sweet Potatoes
