Colorado: Boulder: The Scentsual

Mmmmm. Peanut tea. Credit: Eric Christopher Perry

I am a sensualist, there is no doubt. The luxuries of sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell are wondrous avenues to living a rich life, independent of one's material wealth.


Consider the sense of smell. So many nouns to describe the nuances of this gift. 

• Smell
• Fragrance
• Aroma
• Odor
• Stench
• Scent
• Stink
• Perfume
• Bouquet
• Musk

A twist of herb. Yerevan, Armenia. March 2012.

So many ways to describe the character of a smell: 

• Spicy
• Floral
• Citrusy
• Tangy
• Sweet
• Sour
• Musky
• Crisp
• Clean
• Pungent
• Light
• Sharp
• Fishy
• Metallic
• Herbal
• Earthy
• Moldy
• Musty
• Buttery
• Nutty
• Rotting
• Barnyard 
• Minty

Spice Market, Istanbul. June 2012.

A couple of years ago, when I attended the Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off in Eunice, I experienced the discordant but compelling aromas of sweet cinnamon rolls competing for air with spicy crawfish boils.

Spicy crawfish. Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off. Eunice, Louisiana. March 2014.

In 2012, a drive through Derry, New Mexico, introduced me to the heady scent of roasting peppers in October.


In 2011, in Awassa, Ethiopia, the odor of giant storks nesting in the branches above me was so outrageously pungent as to make me laugh in appalled admiration.

But getting back to Colorado. One day, I visited the Celestial Seasonings plant outside of Boulder.

A good tour, and I recommend it. No pics allowed in the plant, therefore I have none to show.

The most memorable take-aways for me: 

Walking through waves of scent. An aroma bath. Breathing deeply to pull in those biological perfumes. Sheer sensual pleasure.

The mint room. It's in its own room because mint's perfume is so sharp, so pungent, that it invades all other fragrances in its wave. Some visitors cannot even stay in this room for longer than a few seconds because they are overcome by its power.

Spice Market, Istanbul. June 2012.

Breathe in. Mmmmm.

Georgia: Gurieli Package Art

Gurieli Tea, a Georgian product, has a beautiful design for its fruit teas.


Here is the berry fruit box:

It's a work of art, in my opinion. Gurieli believes it, too:

I bought the fruit tea to see how it would taste as an iced drink, and because I loved the package design so much. 

It was a win-win purchase.

Letters from Matt #8: Haramachi, Japan: Tea and Toes

 Letters From Matt are letters from my brother, Matt, from various of his domestic and international travels. The letters span decades, and I share them on Living Rootless at intervals, in no particular order. 

11 March, 1993

Haramachi (now part of Minamisoma), Japan

Dear Family,

This morning I went to my last tea ceremony for the next couple of years. One of my students, a 67-year old man, had one of his kimonos altered to fit me and today he presented it to me. He and several others wore kimonos and the ladies helped me get dressed into mine.

The tea ceremony takes place in a very clean, simple room with paper and wood sliding doors, tightly woven straw mats, and a small brazier with hot charcoal and a tea pot sunk into the floor. We sit on our feet like we don’t notice there isn’t any blood getting to our feet. We wait silently while tea – not black tea but a green pasty solution is served to us one at a time. When the person next to me receives his tea he bows to me before drinking it. When I am served mine, I bow to the person on my left. Before slurping the tea down in three (not four) noisy slurps, I must rotate the tea bowl three one-quarter turns. After my slurps, I rotate the bowl again back the way it was.

I then put the bowl back on the floor and inspect it as if it were a wondrous piece of art and not just a very plain looking bowl.

After we’re all finished, I can sit on my side for awhile allowing blood to rush into my feet. I’m invited to stand up and move to the next room, but I decline and say, “I just want to sit for awhile” (at least until I can feel my toes). At another time someone told me that at that moment after the tea ceremony, some people are injured with sprained ankles.

You probably would never have thought that going to a tea ceremony was flirting with danger. Fortunately, I escaped the event with no damage.