Maya Angelou's Black Tea Blend

The brewed cup is a delicately balanced blend with a reddish amber color and a fruity, heady, sassy taste. The combination of pineapple, vanilla and orange dance playfully on the tongue. The addition of cloves brings a new depth to this taste, while the hibiscus adds to the fruity flavor and adds a reddish tinge to the amber cup. There is a mild astringency and a lingering fruit/spice taste on the tongue.

Brand: Simpson & Vail (Local CT tea company)
 - Literary Tea Collection.
Ingredients: Black teas from China and Sri Lanka, hibiscus flowers, orange peel, cloves, orange blossoms, natural pineapple flavor, vanilla flavor, and orange spice flavor.
- Allergen warning: Hibiscus may be intercropped with peanuts. Occasionally, fragments of peanut shells may be present.
- Certified Kosher
Makes: 10-12 cups of tea

Creating a blend to honor Dr. Maya Angelou has been a nerve wracking task. How do you honor the sun, the stars, the moon, a goddess? To create her blend we looked back at the early writings of Dr. Angelou and found lots of lovely tasting clues in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and from the cookbooks she wrote in her later years. One of the flavors in this blend is pineapple:

“… for every bad judgment, the fine was no silver wrapped kisses, the sweet chocolate drops that I loved more than anything in the world, except Bailey. And maybe canned pineapples. My obsession with pineapples nearly drove me mad. I dreamt of the days when I would be grown and able to buy a whole carton for myself alone."

Our next flavor inspiration, vanilla, came from young Marguerite’s interaction with a lady in her town, Mrs. Bertha Flowers:

“The odors in the house surprised me. Somehow I had never connected Mrs. Flowers with food or eating or any other common experience of common people. There must have been an outhouse, too, but my mind never recorded it. The sweet scent of vanilla had met us as she opened the door. “I made tea cookies this morning." ... The sweet vanilla flavor was still on my tongue and her reading was a wonder in my ears. I had to speak. I said, “Yes, ma’am.” It was the least I could do, but it was the most also."

The rest of the blend fell in to place once those two main flavors appeared. A little natural orange flavor, a few cloves, some hibiscus, orange peels and blossoms .... et voila! The brewed cup is a delicately balanced blend with a reddish amber color and a fruity, heady, sassy taste. The combination of pineapple, vanilla and orange dance playfully on the tongue. The addition of cloves brings a new depth to this taste, while the hibiscus adds to the fruity flavor and adds a reddish tinge to the amber cup. There is a mild astringency and a lingering fruit/spice taste on the tongue.

A small sampling of works by Maya Angelou:
Books:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)
The Heart of a Woman (1981)
A Song Flung up to Heaven (2002)

Children's books
Life Doesn't Frighten Me (1998)
Kofi and His Magic (1996)

Poetry
And Still I Rise (1978)
Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women (1995)

Personal essays
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993)
Letter to My Daughter (2008)

Cookbooks
Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes (2004)