My husband and I had this tea with mooncakes this Monday to celebrate Mid Autumn festival. It was a very raw pu-erh tea: a light, lingering sweetness and that taste that comes with a new raw pu-erh that I can only describe as chewy: slightly bitter and rough, the kind of bitterness that might be too much for me, a person scared of bitterness, except that paired with a lotus paste and salted duck yolk moon cake, the bitterness just rounded out the mild sweetness.
It was an excellent tea for this purpose, although I would probably not choose it for drinking alone.
I cannot emphasize this enough: yes, you want the salted duck yolk moon cake. The salty richness of the yolk pairs perfectly with the mildly sweet lotus paste and crust. Add in a tea that has just a touch of bitterness, and it’s a wonderful little treat that hits all the main flavor points for a perfect hit of serotonin.
Mid-Autumn Festival is a harvest festival, but it’s also a time to celebrate family unity. The full moon (it’s a lunar festival), round and whole, symbolizes the family, together. A moon cake is not eaten on its own; it is divided into pieces and shared among family.
This mid-autumn festival felt bittersweet for that reason: as nice as it was to enjoy tea and moon cakes, I cannot help but think of families that have been separated.
This newsletter is late because I have been grappling with what is happening out there. It is Not Good. I did not want to downplay how Not Good it was, but I also have a policy of Not Newslettering From a Place of Despair. I am not despairing, but I do not think things are good right now, and we have a lot of work ahead of us.
So I am just going to say this. I appreciate everyone who refuses to give up. Here is a thing that gives me hope today: the people dressed in inflatable animal costumes who are bringing joy to the process and doing their best to make photos of what is happening out there look a lot less like “war zone” (a thing entirely in the control of the people who are throwing tear gas) and a lot more like “why you gotta crash our Hallowe’en dance party with your fascism?”
There is never a point where I give up, because there is always something to do. We are going to make this world a better place, and we might as well have fun doing so.
Speaking of things to do…
A request for people who need help
Shada and Alexzavier are two people who are in one of my local in-person communities. They are disabled artists. Right now, they are barely getting by, and by “barely getting by,” I mean that they are unhoused. They have been working on fixing that. They were recently able to get a very used RV, which they are living in. This RV does not have heat or electricity, and while they've been making do, winter is coming to Denver.
Alexzavier is on disability. This last week, he discovered that he had not received his disability payment for this month. When he logged into the portal to see what the issue was, he was told that he had been determined to be ineligible for disability and needed to pay back several years of payments. While letters are supposed to be sent, he did not receive anything at his PO Box, and so he has (at present) no idea why his disability status was revoked, or when the determination was made. He will need to file an appeal immediately, but for now, the two of them are in desperate need.
Shada and Alexzavier volunteer in one of my local communities. They both have giving hearts and are always willing to answer questions and help anyone who needs it.
If you have the ability to help out, they have a gofundme up here. (The text of the GoFundMe is a little outdated: the person running the gofundme has used the amount they raised up until now to purchase an RV on their behalf).
There are a lot of things I cannot do: I cannot change the world we live in, beyond doing my small part to be one of many. But I hope that I can help shine a spotlight occasionally on people who genuinely need assistance so that we can get as many of us through as we possibly can.
Until next week!
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