Yosemite Earl Grey Tea

A family at chapel with a penchant for wonderfully exotic holidays brought me back a tin of Yosemite Earl Grey tea from the California’s most famous national park. Known for its granite cliffs, waterfalls and giant sequoias, I cannot think of many places further removed than the natural habitat of Charles, second Earl Grey and twenty-sixth British Prime Minister (from 1830-1834). I suppose it goes to show that even Americans can occasionally exhibit good taste.

The tea’s sales patter is more concerned with the place which lends the name rather than the proffered liquid that washes down the throat:

A place unchanged with time, can change you in a moment.

The moment you arrive at Yosemite, you’ll begin to experience what others have cherished for more than 10,000 years – when American Indians first put down roots in Yosemite Valley. Surrounded by natural beauty, seemingly endless wilderness, sheer cliffs and remarkable tranquillity, a spirit of discovery will well up inside you.

A pungent black tea blend.

Perhaps American folk are at greater ease talking about their nation’s fantastic geography than the Old Country’s beverages. “…Unchanged with time, can change you in a moment” is a rather attractive contrast. I cannot vouch for Yosemite’s ancient powers of transformation, but I can testify to its Maker’s. He, the changeless, ageless and unfading One graciously chooses to alter, remedy and sanctify the fallen sons of Adam. He is older and more beautiful than those Californian valleys yet fresher and more nourishing than a pot of English tea. Finally, and for which I am especially grateful, He is more readily accessible than either.

And [He] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us… - Acts 17:26-27

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