Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act III scene 1
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then!
Antony & Cleopatra, Act I scene 5
If someone made this tea for me, then I would have drank it graciously. If this imaginary person didn’t tell me what this tea was, then in the back of my mind I’d be thinking “Can Darjeeling go bad?” For me the Darjeeling overpowered the oolong, but the oolong was there lending an odd veggie quasi-oolong note to the tea. The leaves themselves seemed pretty shredded, and I wonder if this is what caused the astringency I experienced. It wasn’t bad, but it had quite a bite.
I present Antony & Cleopatra in tea form. Another pair of “star-crossed lovers” but told in a more muddled and unremarkable way than Romeo & Juliet. Yes, there’s some great poetry throughout, but this play as a whole just isn’t that good. Just like this tea: the individual types of tea separate might be good, but together it just doesn’t come together for me. I’m rather “cold in blood” (i.e. passionless) about this tea. M
