Flower Power

My Christmas presents for the nurses I work with on the LDRP unit are back-ordered (the order was placed in November).  I had some not-very Christmasy words with the distributor last week to no avail.  So it looks like they will be morphing into Valentines.  Oh well.

Back at work this morning, the unit directors gifted me with a tea set (as their present was also back-ordered at the time I left for my twelve days of Christmas).  But it was not an ordinary tea set. 

It was "flowering tea".  You put this weird-looking dried up pod in a teapot, pour boiling water over it, and wait.

In the first batch we made this morning (apple-cinnamon), the pod sat immobile at the bottom of the pot for about two minutes and then started to "bloom".  I did not think it was all that impressive until the middle of the pod suddenly exploded into a "flower" . . . on a stalk that reached almost to the top of the pot.  I literally jumped back from the teapot.

The tea was actually very good - and pleasantly aromatic.  As uniqueness goes, it's not quite "the cat's ass".  But very good just the same.