Before It Begins

Impala and Peacock

Five minutes with a cup of tea, every weekday morning. Pour the water, watch the colour arrive, and hear one true thing about what's in the cup — why lemon myrtle carries more lemon than a lemon does, why hibiscus isn't a flower, why no ginger plant has ever been found growing wild. Then one thought worth carrying into the day. A new blend each week, Monday to Friday. Made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. Best taken with something steeping.

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English

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Yesterday · 4 min
Genmaicha Green - A Forest Asked to Sit Down
The cup of Genmaicha arrives pale yellow, edged with green, the grains drifting as the leaves slowly open and flatten. Watch long enough and the leaves begin to look like themselves again, as if the garden has found its way into the cup. In the tea garden, the plants are shaped to the reach of a person, held at the height a hand can find. The plant doesn’t know it’s been shaped, but the world is full of quiet adjustments made for someone’s reach. There’s probably one near you now, set at just the right height. --- Today's cup: ⁠Genmaicha ⁠— Camellia sinensis and brown rice. 1 tsp, 200mL, 75°C, two minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
Tuesday · 4 min
Genmaicha Green - Black Tea Isn’t Green Tea Gone Wrong
Genmaicha is a cup that begins with colour—pale, yellow-green, clear enough to see the bottom. The grains catch the eye, toasted gold, a few burst open, but it’s the leaves beneath that do the work, darkening and deepening as they steep. Every true tea, green or black, starts from the same plant, but what happens after picking changes everything. Some things are kept green, caught at the moment, while others are left to darken and become something else entirely. Most are allowed to change. Both end up in someone’s hands, on a morning like this. --- Today's cup: ⁠Genmaicha ⁠— Camellia sinensis and brown rice. 1 tsp, 200mL, 75°C, two minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
Monday · 4 min
Genmaicha Green - Water Can’t Make This Flavour
There are toasted grains of rice in this genmaicha, a few burst open and white, and the warmth they carry is something the water in your cup can’t make. Not at seventy-five degrees. Not in two minutes. It was made somewhere else, somewhere dry and far hotter, before the kettle went on. It’s the same reason a boiled sausage stays the colour of an apology. And it’s why the gentlest parts of an ordinary morning so often trace back to a room you were never in. Today's cup: ⁠Genmaicha ⁠— Camellia sinensis and brown rice. 1 tsp, 200mL, 75°C, two minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
Sunday · 4 min
Genmaicha Green - The People’s Tea
The cup is Genmaicha, a blend where the colour is barely there, pale yellow with a hint of green, and the only things in the cup are narrow leaves and grains of toasted rice. The aroma is warm and nutty, the taste round and easy, and the story behind it is one of thrift—rice added to stretch the tea further, until the cheap part became the part people loved. What begins as a compromise can become the thing you seek out. Today's cup: Genmaicha — Camellia sinensis and brown rice. 1 tsp, 200mL, 75°C, two minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 15 · 5 min
Relaxation Tea - Poor Man's Saffron
The cup is warm and clear, copper deepening to red, with small things suspended in the light—needles, petals, grains, and a single bright strip of gold. The aroma is layered: rose, honeyed rooibos, lavender, and something faintly green. The taste is gentle, sweet, and round, with one flower mostly lending its colour. Its name is a fragment of Roman timekeeping, a flower that turns up quietly, month after month, making things brighter without being called precious. There’s a kind of person like that, too. Today's cup: ⁠Relaxation Tea⁠ — rooibos, rose petals, rose buds, lavender, calendula petals. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, four minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 14 · 5 min
Relaxation Tea - The Armour Everyone Loves
The cup opens in copper and red, warm and clear, with gold at the edges where the light gets in. Most of what floats belongs to the same family of colour—rust red, pink, gold—until you notice the small, grey-purple grains that hold their shape, cool against the warmth. They look less like flowers, more like seeds, and they keep their scent close, hidden in a tough casing. Some things are made to keep others out, but sometimes what keeps the world at bay is what draws you in, if you come close enough. Today's cup: ⁠Relaxation Tea⁠ — rooibos, rose petals, rose buds, lavender, calendula petals. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, four minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 13 · 5 min
Relaxation Tea - Whoever Gets There First
Relaxation Tea opens as a warm copper red, clear enough to see the bottom of the cup. Before you even look, something arrives first: a scent rising with the steam, gentle and unmistakable, softening the air before the day has decided what it will be. There are petals here, some open, some still tight, and the window for catching them at their best is short. Most mornings pass unnoticed, but sometimes you find yourself in the stretch before anything has begun. Today's cup: ⁠Relaxation Tea⁠ — rooibos, rose petals, rose buds, lavender, calendula petals. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, four minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 12 · 5 min
Relaxation Tea - The Red Is The Bruise
The cup is red before anything else, a clear, coppery colour that deepens as you wait. Most of what you see comes from the fine, rust-coloured needles at the bottom, swept together with rose petals, lavender, and gold. The scent is honey and timber, flowers and dry grass, a memory of somewhere bright and dry. But the colour itself is not what the bush grew. It’s what happened after: the bruising, the air, the sun. The change is slow, and nothing is added. What does it mean to be known by what happened after you left the place you grew? Today's cup: ⁠Relaxation Tea⁠ — rooibos, rose petals, rose buds, lavender, calendula petals. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, four minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 11 · 5 min
Relaxation Tea - Everything the Flower Will Ever Be
Relaxation Tea is a cup that gathers both what has opened and what is still folded. In the water, rose petals drift alongside tight rose buds, rooibos needles and threads of calendula, each releasing colour and scent at its own pace. The bud is not a draft or a smaller version; it is the whole flower, waiting for time and water to show what is already inside. Some things are not missing, just not opened yet. Today's cup: Relaxation Tea — rooibos, rose petals, rose buds, lavender, calendula petals. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, four minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 8 · 5 min
Lapsang Souchong - A Mountain That Became a Word
Lapsang Souchong is a cup that deepens in colour almost as soon as the water hits the leaves — amber, copper, then a dark red-brown. The leaves themselves are long and dark, with a faint sheen as if they spent time near a fire. Lift the cup and the first thing you find is smoke: pine fire, old wood, leather, and a dark sweetness underneath. This style of tea comes from the Wuyi mountains in Fujian, and in the eighteenth century, those mountains gave English a word — Bohea. It started as a name for somewhere rare, and ended up meaning something ordinary, by being wanted. What else becomes ordinary only because enough people decide to keep it? Today's cup: ⁠Lapsang Souchong ⁠— Camellia sinensis, smoked over pinewood. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, three minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 7 · 5 min
Lapsang Souchong: What the Rest of the World Asked for
The cup of Lapsang Souchong gathers colour fast—amber, copper, then a deep red-brown that almost blacks out the centre. The smoke rises before anything else, filling the breath with wood fire and resin, but underneath, if you wait, there’s a sweetness that’s easy to miss. In the Wuyi Mountains, some of the most prized leaves are barely smoked at all. The world remembers the smoke, but that’s only the first impression. What else is in the cup, waiting for someone to notice? Today's cup: ⁠Lapsang Souchong ⁠— Camellia sinensis, smoked over pinewood. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, three minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 6 · 4 min
Lapsang Souchong - Leaves Four and Five
The cup is Lapsang Souchong, and the leaves in it are larger than you might expect — long, broad, dark, with the roughness of something that’s weathered more than one season. As they open, you can see the shape of a whole leaf returning, not just a tip or a fragment. The aroma rises with smoke and malt, and the taste holds its ground: full, round, never lost under the fire. The prized tips are delicate, but it’s the mature leaves, further down the branch, that can take the smoke and still taste like themselves. Some things can only be carried by what’s been growing a while. Today's cup: ⁠Lapsang Souchong ⁠— Camellia sinensis, smoked over pinewood. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, three minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 5 · 4 min
Lapsang Souchong - Easy to Spoil
The cup darkens from amber to deep red-brown, and the first thing you notice is smoke—broad, warm, unmistakably from a tree, not just a fire. Stay with it, and something sharper emerges beneath: resin, sap, the green of pine on a hot day. The leaf in this cup has taken in more than water; it has absorbed the room it was dried in, the smoke of one particular tree, until the line between leaf and fire is gone. Some things are changed by what they’re exposed to, and not always in ways you can choose. Today's cup: ⁠Lapsang Souchong ⁠— Camellia sinensis, smoked over pinewood. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, three minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠⁠
October 4 · 5 min
Lapsang Souchong - The Fire Nobody Chose
The cup is dark and smoky, the colour rising fast from the leaves—amber, then mahogany, then the brown of an old violin. The aroma is wood smoke, not from a fire burning now, but one that burnt last night, with resin and pine beneath, and a sweetness that waits its turn. The taste is gentler than the scent, the smoke lingering long after the sip. In the Wuyi Mountains, the story goes, this flavour began as an accident—leaves dried over pine fires in a hurry, a fix that became the thing itself. Sometimes what people love most in us started as a way through an emergency, and it takes someone else to see it for what it is. Today's cup: Lapsang Souchong — Camellia sinensis, smoked over pinewood. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, three minutes. It takes a second infusion. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠
September 24 · 5 min
Reserve Tea - The Root Heard It Wrong
At the bottom of the teapot, something heavier waits. Everything else in this blend is light—leaf, stalk, bud—rising towards the surface, but one piece has gone the other way. It sits low, cut like kindling, slow to give itself up, and the only thing in the cup that never saw the sun. The first sip is cool, bright, soft, and then, late and lasting, a sweetness that stays behind. There is a root at the bottom, and a name that has been wrong for seven hundred years, left unchanged because it works. What else do we keep because it fits, even if it isn’t true? Today's cup was a Reserve tea, Happy Melon. We produced this one exclusively for our client and for subscribers of our Tea Ritual Box. If you'd like access to the reserve teas, visit https://www.impalaandpeacock.com.au/pages/subscribe --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠ --- Next Month's Tea Ritual Starts The First Monday Of The Next Month.
September 23 · 5 min
Reserve Tea - What Stayed When the Petals Fell
The tea opens green-gold and clouded, with every leaf and stalk sinking to the bottom—except for the small, violet-grey grains that float, turning slowly on the surface. They are the only colour in the cup that isn’t green or brown, and the only thing that came from near a flower. The scent is layered: mint first, lemon underneath, and then something softer, faintly sweet, waiting behind the others. The floral note lingers at the roof of the mouth, more felt than tasted. Those floating grains are not petals, but the calyx—the sleeve that once held the flower. In lavender, the scent is kept not in the petal, but in the holder. The flower falls, but the calyx stays, carrying the memory of what was once there. Today's cup: Happy Melon Tea exclusive to their studio in Armadale, Melbourne. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠
September 22 · 5 min
Reserve Tea - A Grass That Smelled of Violets
Everything in today's cup has a colour — except for the pale, straw-yellow pieces that look as if they were dry before they were ever dried. They sit in the water, hollow and faintly gold, doing almost nothing, but their scent is unmistakable: a lemon that isn’t a lemon, softer and greener than fruit, rising behind the mint. The taste is cool at the edges, bright in the middle, and the thing that brings the brightness was never grown for tea at all. Sometimes, what something is for gets decided in rooms it never entered. Today's cup: Happy Melon Tea exclusive to their studio in Armadale, Melbourne. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠
September 21 · 5 min
Reserve Tea - The Nerve Doesn't Know the Difference
In this tea there's one dark green, serrated leaf, crumpled as if it never quite unfolded. It’s the most ordinary thing in the cup, but it’s the one doing most of the work. Watch as the water gets into it and the green shifts from dusty to deep. The aroma is cold before it’s anything else, a sharp, green sweetness that grows colder with every breath in, even as the cup steams. The taste is hot, but the mouth reports coolness, as if a window had opened behind your teeth. There’s a sensor in the body that only knows one word, and it’s being pressed by something that isn’t what it seems. The feeling is real. What’s worth asking is what’s pressing on it. Today's cup: Happy Melon exclusive to their studio in Armadale, Melbourne. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠
September 20 · 5 min
Reserve Tea - The Last Thing to Arrive
The Reserve Tea opens with a cup that glows green-gold, shifting in the light like a leaf held to a window. Four shapes loosen in the pot—leaf, stalk, flower, root—each from a different plant, none of them the tea bush. The surface is scattered with buds that drift and never sink, while something pale and fibrous waits at the bottom, the odd one out. The first sip is all peppermint and lemongrass, bright and clean, but what lingers is a sweetness that arrives late and stays long after the cup is empty. There is a trick to how some things last. Today's cup: Happy Melon Reserve — Exclusive to Happy Melon Yoga Studio in Armadale only. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠
September 17 · 5 min
Earl Grey - Mr Grey's Legacy
The cup is Earl Grey, and the colour comes up fast—amber, copper, then it stops. There are dark leaves, pale curls of rind, a drift of blue petals, and a scent that reads as old: citrus at the front, malty tea beneath. The name is everywhere, but the man behind it is not a legend or a marketing invention. He is a real person, and the strange part is what he is remembered for. The tea carries his name further than his life ever could, and the story that travels is rarely the one chosen. Today's cup: ⁠Earl Grey ⁠— Camellia sinensis, bergamot, citrus peel, cornflower petals, bergamot essential oil. 1 tsp, 200mL, 100°C, two minutes straight or three-plus with milk. --- A tea and a musing every weekday morning. Before It Begins is made by Impala & Peacock Artisan Teas, blended by hand in Melbourne. To join our tea ritual - ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠⁠

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