Tea from Fortnum & Mason

Oh, happy day! My colleague Jonathan has returned from his latest trip abroad, and he successfully acquired just what I had requested: tea from Fortnum & Mason! He even knew that I'd want their signature blue-green bag (it's a color as iconic to F&M as Tiffany blue is to us).

I visited this legendary Piccadilly establishment in 2004, and I became quite fond of the Mango and Ginger Green Tea I purchased there. They don't make that blend anymore, but even when they did, you couldn't get it shipped to you here in the U.S. So, my solution? A friend goes across the pond and returns with F&M's Mango Tea as well as some Ginger Tea. Lovely! I've been enjoying both, although of course I have to sip them slowly or until my next friend books a flight to London.

Finally having the longed-for teas in hand, I reminisced about my own visit to Fortnum & Mason, and enjoying afternoon tea there, by revisiting the book "Fortnum & Mason: A Fine Tradition of Tea." And the one snippet I especially liked was a note that some of the tea thrown into Boston Harbor in 1773 is believed to be from F&M, and it was LAPSANG SOUCHONG! That's pretty much the only tea I despise, and it makes me proud of America all over again for having the good sense to dump that particular variety. (If they'd been carrying that Green Tea with Mango and Ginger, however, well that would have been a different story!)