A dream come true

This is Alex, of Steven Smith Teas. According to the story, Steven Smith had a dream of tea, and he slowly and patiently (if maybe also luckily) built up Tazo (and sold it) and then Stash (and sold it), and finally got his little perfect boutique tea production company, named for himself. A food blogger recently visited and posted all you might ever want to know about what it's like to spend time savoring a flight of teas at Steven Smith's.

Alex, who is featured in the blogger's post as well as in this one, has his own new blog and is a writer and photographer--and I invited him to join Blip, as he seems an ideal candidate to me. I met him because I took Devorah there for a tea treat, and he was so pleasant and generous with his time, I asked him if I could take a picture of him.

Devorah left this morning after four days of good talk and explorations in Portland. Long-term easeful honest friendship is just about as good as it gets in life.