The story of Blue Tea

When I was a child coloring with my mother, her daring and unorthodox use of color would often shock me. Much to my astonishment, she insisted on green suns, pink grass, and purple trees, while I meanwhile dutifully adhered to the hues prescribed by schoolroom tradition and rudimentary observation.

One day much later, we had purchased a new box of Crayolas and sat down together for some nostalgic doodling. True to form, she began picking out bright crayons and drawing things that weren't usually associated with those colors. She drew, among other objects, a sturdy, squarish mug of swirling, steaming coffee, and it was blue.

"Blue Coffee," I remarked. "That would be a good name for a website."

But it wasn't. I didn't really like coffee all that much, and I felt that whatever I had to offer should be more soothing and introspective, and less jittery. Tea addict that I am, just like my mother, I adjusted the title to Blue Tea.

I used the name for a short-lived website in which a version of this story originally appeared. In the days before blogs, or at least before blogs were mainstream enough for me to know about them, Blue Tea I was a sort of proto-blog, a collection of random, brief writings and rambles updated semi-regularly by hand (no fancy publishing software, no!). It never really got off the ground, and after a few spotty entries, I discontinued it, and I recently removed it from the web, to save on both embarrassment and confusion with my current endeavor.

Because I had the cute little graphic drawn up already (drawn and colored by hand, then scanned and tweaked a bit), and I had the lovely name, I decided to reuse the brand for my new blog when I migrated from Blurty to Blogger. I was still fond of the theme, and decided that my earlier project hadn't done it justice. So here we are.

Since the original project's inception, I have discovered that blue tea, along with black, green, white, red, and potentially others, belongs to the spectrum of real tea varities. I know nothing about it, really, but the odd visitor has showed up to my pages in search of the genuine article. Mine, alas, is but a metaphorical blend, but I hope a tasty one nonetheless.