Black Raven Tea from Eastern Shore Tea Company. . . .

Goths, unite! I was wearing this dress today.. . . .so of course, destiny called for me to try the corresponding tea.

Here’s the description from Eastern Shore Tea’s site:

“Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, this luscious blackcurrant tea blend is a Polished Paean of Praise to the mysterious romanticism and darkly poetic imagery of one of America’s first and still foremost authors of spellbinding tales.”

This tea is rich and juicy and moody. It steeps a really dark brown. There’s a shocking amount of flavor, depth, and opacity in it.

It’s kind of like those poems I used to write. DEEP AND DARK, MAN. INCOMPREHENSIBLE. BEYOND THE SCOPE OF YOUR MIND.

Were you ever a teenage goth? If not, let me tell you: it was exhausting.

On a day-to-day basis, it was fine.

The issue was that it had to be maintained. You couldn’t just pull on a jean-plus-tee-plus-sneakers look. At least two of the three elements of that had to be black. If you wore something without enough black, you had to wear a bunch of moody makeup to counterbalance it.

If you run black clothes through the wash, they start to fade. Then they turn into brown-blacks, blue-blacks, etc, and you have to be careful you don’t wear clashing blacks together. So you wind up doing your laundry BY HAND to keep the blacks fresh. (My mom wouldn’t let me fabric-dye my clothes back to their witching-hour glory. Not in HER washer.)

And then if you liked something counter to your persona (say, if you were a Backstreet Boys fan) (oh yes, this was me), you had to lie. Otherwise: universal derision, from fellow black-wearers and normies alike.

Nowadays, kids have it easy. Being a geek is cool. You can absolutely be into Edgar Allen Poe, and sci-fi, and boy bands, and dogs, and the color purple, and combat boots — all at once. You can dress however you want, all the time. You can even be OPENLY GAY in HIGH SCHOOL nowadays. (Even in some of the red states!) You can just pick out your interests and march forth into the sunshine.

This was not the case when I was a kid. It was a Mean Girls clique horror-show, you guys. You had to pick your clique and stick to its rules.

This tea would have gone with my high school persona. But it also goes with my adult persona, because adult me just does what she wants. For better or worse. For dumpster or dumpster fire. I’m staying true.


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Black Tea
Where to Buy: Eastern Shore Tea
Description

A blackcurrant blend, darkly delicious, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe’s spell-binding tales and haunting imagery. Flavored black tea. Contains caffeine. 3 oz. loose tea with re-usable tea bag.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!