Waiting is some zen shit. This is my first test. Waiting. I guess this has been a poorly planned mission from the start. Chinese New Year. Nobody in Yunnan around to package and send me my puer. I suppose they're too busy drinking it.
And so I sit here, still waiting in Toronto for my voyage to really begin. But I will not be dissuaded. My anticipation is greater than ever. It grows with each day, in fact.
I am a stubborn, impatient Canadian whose soul has been stirred.
I want and I get. That's how my life goes. But puer isn't to be got. It'll come when it decides I'm ready for it.
I stand on the dock each morning and watch the ships come in, empty. I'm still not ready, I supposed. Still too impatient. Still too greedy.
"I'm not a fucking lager. I'm not at the fucking beer store," it whispers to me in my dreams.
ya ya.
I try not to order anything new as I wait. It's coming. It will be here. But my scouts tell me they've been held by customs for days and I'm getting worried. And ordering more online is so easy. A couple of clicks and more is on its way. Perhaps all my various shipments will pool in storage at customs and arrive at once. My postal worker loaded like a yak with tongs of the glorious stuff.
I hope not. I hope they stagger. A symphony of glorious pu, spread out over days.
White 2 Tea one day, Chawang Shop the next. Tea Urchin. Yunnan Sourcing. A fireworks display spread out over a full week. I drink beer as I wait, but my heart isn't in it. My heart is a hole waiting for the good stuff, the tea with the romance and terroir of wine and the variety and human hand of beer and the faraway mystique of coffee. The tea with the bitter and the flowers and the sticky sweet fingers that reach back out of the back of your throat and the light headed euphoria.
Perhaps it's waiting for me to stop placing orders. Maybe it's waiting for me to go a day without ordering anything new before revealing itself. Chill the fuck out.
I can't though. I've been bit. I've been bit bad.
Maybe it will come faster if I camp out on the front porch. Let it know it's really wanted.
