“We’re about to do a tasting,” Mr. Edwards said when I got back with the nitro tanks. “Just got a new batch of Darjeelings in.”
“Awesome.”
I started to follow him, but I heard a shout and a clang and the sloshing of liquid. A table had just spilled a full carafe of iced hibiscus, which was dark purple and sticky from agave nectar and hard to get off the floor if it set too long.
Polli waved me down. “Darius?”
“I’ll take care of it.” I turned to Mr. Edwards. “Be right there.”
I mopped the spill up, and then helped break down some boxes for recycling. I was headed to the tasting room again when Kerry said, “Darius. I need some Uva. And New Vithanakande.”
“Tins?”
“Packs.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll be a second,” she said to this tall, beardy person with a trucker hat waiting at the register.
To be honest, they were the last person in the quadrant I would have expected to be looking for fine teas from Sri Lanka.
“Thanks,” Kerry said when I handed off the packs.
“Sure. I’m gonna catch this tasting if it’s okay.”
“Have fun.”
Mr. Edwards and Landon had already steeped four different cups of Darjeeling, and were dipping their spoons into the third when I knocked on the tasting room door.
“Just in time,” Mr. Edwards said. “Grab a spoon.”
I sat next to Landon and dipped my spoon into the first tea.
“Mm,” I said. “It’s good.”
“First or second flush?” Mr. Edwards asked.
“Um.”
I smelled the tea, studied the liquor, took another sip. It was lighter and smoother.
“First?”
“Good. What else?”
“Floral?”
“Hm.” His lips pursed for a second. “More spicy than floral, I think. Cardamom.”
“Oh.”
It didn’t taste like cardamom to me at all, and I drank cardamom all the time.
I tried number two. “Um. Tropical?”
“Yes, guava and passionfruit. Be more specific when you taste.”
That burning in my chest came back: this weird, kind of fluttery feeling, like I had a pulsar lodged behind my sternum, spinning and flinging electromagnetic radiation outward in rapid intervals.
