Books and Conversation over Tea, another Bigelow Tea Runner up Constant Comment® Story

I have been enjoying Constant Comment® tea since 1973 when I was fortunate enough to get my first after school job at our local public library in a small town in New England. I came in at three o’clock and worked until six-thirty in the children’s book room. The library was an old Victorian mansion formerly owned by a local family at the turn of the century. Walking up the granite steps and through the front door was like walking back in time. In the afternoons the sunlight streamed through the maple trees along the main street and danced through the southwest windows of the great room, over leather reading chairs, the enormous fireplace and vast shelves of books.

When the Westminster chimes of the grandfather clock in the entry room tolled four o’clock it announced tea time. The library’s long time librarians and antiquarians Mabel and Julia would invite me to tea with them in their office. They always served Constant Comment® tea heated by an electric tea pot that stood amidst stacks of books in the corner of the room. Julia would clear the books off a wooden chair and hand me my porcelain tea cup filled with the steaming tea and a ginger snap cookie on the saucer. They inquired about my parent’s health, and were always eager to know how I was doing in school. Mabel would consult with me about what new children’s books she should order for the library and whether I had any ideas about decorations for next month’s bulletin board in the children’s department.

Over cups of Constant Comment® tea I would learn the art of conversation and the etiquette of sipping tea. I remember the very first time I tried the tea I ran home and demanded that my mother buy some Constant “Comet” tea on her next trip to the grocery store. I soon found out that the tea was not a product of an astronomical event but rather an inspiration to conversation, and that it has always truly been for me with old and new friends to this very day. Mabel and Julia have long since left this world and it seems that I am light-years from those Victorian afternoons spent at the library, but if I close my eyes I can still smell the soothing aroma of the Bigelow tea mixed with the intoxicating scent of the old and new books and I recall the love and nurturing of those two dear friends, never forgotten.

By Janice Safoyan