hyper-seasonal tea

Hello!!

Something that maybe I should be sharing more of (?) is the process of working on my book, which I’m deep in right now. I have been trying to move everything else to the side. A really fun aspect has been thinking about the intersection of tea culture and fashion - example ~~

I created a tea blend to celebrate 40 years of the Noguchi Museum, sourcing organic Japanese green tea from Shizuoka, wild-harvested ponderosa pine from Coastal Washington as a nod to the Japanese pines in the garden, and a cherry blossom blend with flowers from both the US (Washington State) and Japan (Kamiyama, Tokushima).

There is some of this hyper-seasonal tea remaining, and you can buy it on mashatea.com - I made it so that you can get the blend that I created, but also you can get just the cherry blossoms, or just the pine, etc, so ENJOY. Since I am so grateful to all of you for reading and would love to share this tea with you, you can use the code museum for 20% off of this particular tea.

But anyways, I thought that serving tea at my favorite museum on Mother’s Day warranted getting a poppy-print Wales Bonner dress from my favorite store (get the Outline catalogue if you don’t already have a copy!) because -well- it’s just more fun to have tea in a beautiful dress. Tea can be a simple, thoughtless part of your day, a well-earned break while working hard. But is can also be so beautiful, a ritual of adornment, and symbol of repose. Cups, spoons, clean fingers.

On that note, because I’m always often handling delicate teaware and use my hands in that way, I’ve gotten a bit addicted to having perfectly manicured hands. But I also think it’s so luxurious to get a manicure with no color and just have perfectly shaped bare nails. I also would love to be somebody who can do this themselves, but I’m just not.

To get back on topic, and tie it all together, I went to the Met last week to see both Superfine (where Wales Bonner featured heavily) + the Sargent in Paris exhibit and was greeted as always by this Noguchi sculpture outside.

I hoped that somebody drank a lot of tea in this Wisteria dining room.

Thought that one of my friends needs to date this man.

Empathized with this girl’s mood,

And - upon seeing this Sargent Among the Olive Trees, painted in Capri, realized that we have one room remaining for the Masha Tea writing retreat on an olive oil farm in Italy.

While Capri is very much not in Tuscany, this scene with the olive trees will feel familiar. The remaining room on the retreat fits three people and could be a really cute friend moment (of course, two can come too and I may also be able to pair people.) Write to me if you’re interested in this last room! The retreat is going to be so beautiful - it’s July 1-6, each meal is prepared fresh by a private chef using local, organic ingredients, there is an infinity pool and plenty of places to write, and Kayla Principato is coming from NYC and teaching daily pilates. We will have a Masha Tea of the day to set the theme / mood. I have created a special book of journaling prompts with

The Moon Lists

for retreat guests <3 (email me at m@mashatea.com w title retreat for more info.) Florence is the closest airport to fly into.