2014–Lady Grey

Yesterday, I had a tooth pulled, the last molar in the lower left jaw. I was so nervous about it that I didn’t sleep at all the night before and I couldn’t eat anything before I went in for my 9AM appointment. My blood pressure was elevated and they offered only novocaine so I stressed out even more, imagining that if I weren’t put completely out, I would suffer through the agonizing sounds and pain of the procedure. My long time, trusted dentist, my periodontist of more than 25 years, assured me that it was an easy procedure as he numbed my jaw with a shot of novocaine. In just a few minutes he told me that as soon as he scraped away the infection surrounding the tooth that had long needed extraction, I was done. Say, what? I didn’t even realize that he had removed the tooth. I was out of the chair and on my way home in a mere 25 minutes with painkillers, antimicrobial rinse, and a cold pack with instructions to keep it on my jaw 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off, for about 6 hours.

When I got home, I kept the cold pack on my jaw as instructed but got very chilled after a couple of hours. A steaming cup of Lady Grey tea provided the warmth that got me through the rest of the afternoon. About 6 PM, feeling pretty good and without the pain I expected to have due to the 800mg Motrins I had been taking, I checked out my Flickr group challenges and discovered that the day’s challenge was “warmth.” It struck me that my cup of Lady Grey tea fit the challenge perfectly but by this time, my tea had long since been consumed, my dentist had called to check on me, and, after my inquiry, assured me that the glass of Ménage à Trois that I had already poured was okay to drink. I considered photographing the wine glass for warmth but decided that a cup of Lady Grey tea was required. So, I brewed another cup and took photos, some with a shallow depth of field and some with a greater depth of field. I preferred the results of the photos using the shallow depth of field so that is what I am featuring.

When I took the photograph, I noticed the registered trademark for Lady Grey on the tea bag, something I had not previously noticed. I am a longtime fan of Earl Gray tea and a few years ago when I noticed that Twinings offered Lady Grey, similar to bergamot flavored Earl Grey but with the addition of orange and lemon zest, I tried it and loved it. I just now Googled Lady Grey and discovered that it is a trademark of Twinings, that Lady Grey tea was developed only recently, within the past 20 years. It was created by Twinings in the early 1990s to appeal to the Nordic market, who found Earl Grey tea too pungent. It first went on sale in Norway in 1994 and in Britain in 1996. No wonder I love it. My Nordic ancestors must have instilled the preference.