This is a green tea that I have had about seven times in the last month as part of my green tea re-education bombardment campaign.

 

The first time I had it there was a little bit of that taste that I don't like, but it's not bad. The last time I had it, I did not even notice any portion of the taste I didn't like. This tea is creamy and smooth with a velvety, almost unctuous, mouth feel.

 

Gyokuro is also apparently, is just chock-full of caffeine. I was wondering why I felt so hopped up afterward--it's a green tea and green teas are lower in caffeine, right? Not this one: it's largely grown in the shade and that apparently means that the caffeine content is about on par with coffee. Definitely something I can only handle in the mornings.

 

I also learned that you can eat gyokuro leaves after they're done steeping, and so I tried them, and indeed, they are extremely good! They're close in texture to spinach, and maybe just a little more buttery tasting.

If you want to just do the basic, have them with just a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. 

 

But I have been experimenting. They're great with salt and a squeeze of lemon on avocado toast, or mixed into a savory pancake mix made of egg, salt, flour, and baking powder.

 

In short, this is a tea that gives and gives and gives.

Speaking of things that give and give and give…

 

Way back in 2006, I finished law school and got a one-year job working for a federal judge in California. The pay was enough to live on (if I only squinted at my student loans), but I needed a car. I had saved some money from summer employment, but it wasn't a lot, see aforementioned law school debt, so I went and looked for something I could buy outright with my meager cash reserves.

 

I wanted something small, and I wanted something stick shift. I ended up buying my car, a 1993 Toyota model that is no longer in production, for something like $1800. At the time, I figured I would drive this car until it stopped working, whenever that happened to be, and then get a real car.

 

So here we are in 2023. This car came with me from California to DC and then back to Chicago, over to the Pacific Northwest and down to Denver. During that time, my car has passed almost all of the age milestones--old enough to drive, old enough to drink, old enough to rent another car. It's still not old enough to be elected president of the United States.

 

I have done all the routine maintenance and literally nothing else. (Also, I put maaaaaybe 500 miles a year on my car, which helps tremendously--we're well under 200,000 miles.) And up until this last week, nothing has ever happened that left me unable to drive it for longer than two days.

 

Specifically, it was stolen last week. It was stolen from in front of my house. No, I did not lock it; I forget to do that, and it's a 1993 vehicle, and while I know that this is a magic car that has run forever with approximately zero work required except routine maintenance, nobody else really does.

 

Except, apparently, for one person.

 

Eventually, I decided that I have absolutely had my money's worth from this car, and realized that this way I could pretend that my car drove off into the sunset, where it would run forever and I would never have to make hard decisions about its future. (This Drama was part of the reason last week's newsletter was short and late.)

 

A few days ago I got a call that my car was found parked on a side street about two and a half blocks from my house. I came to pick it up: it was in precisely the condition which I'd left it, with approximately 0.3 miles added to the odometer.

 

Seems like the person who stole it thought that it wouldn't be that hard to drive stick shift. 😂

 

I have decided to upgrade my car with an Apple AirTag, so that next time someone fails to take a joy ride, I can retrieve it more swiftly.

Next week, I will share the first chapter of this book! But for now, I wanted to share a very tiny snippet.

“My entire existence is in error. My life is the mistake. 

But you? You are the only part of my world that is correct.”

Buy The Marquis who Mustn't on:

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