I take the glass bottle and remove the plastic lid.  I fill it up to the neck with water from a jug.  It’s spring water, filtered tap…whatever…it’s better than our well water which is always cloudy.  The well is too deep or maybe too shallow or just ‘dirty’ as the well-driller said.

I open the canister of tea and lower two sachets into the clear liquid.  I take it to the back deck.  I pull up a chair and watch the water slowly turn into wine.  At first, the color appears from the tea bags, flowing down, like blood from a head wound.  Slowly, the water turns pink.  I lean closer to the bottle.  Removing the lid, I sniff the tea.  Funny how a color can carry a scent.

With my eyes closed, I try to detect the fragrance…what is it that I am smelling?  There’s hibiscus,  a hint of cinnamon,  a whiff of papaya, a tad of apple, a memory of lemongrass, a dream of rose hips, a breeze of blackberry leaves, a suggestion of mango…and those rose petals again.

This is not to be put into a glass and diluted with ice.  This is not to be sipped on a hot and muggy afternoon.  This will not quench a real thirst.  No, this is to be cooled gently, magically multiplied in quantity and then poured with love and care into a brass tub.  It is the bath for a beautiful woman…a goddess…a dreamer, a widow, a lover, a wife or a friend.

This is not tea.  It’s so much more.

This is what I see as I gaze at the water slowly turning pink.

I thirst.