After stealing the world’s heart with “Toast” (and getting nominated for the Grammy for Best Reggae Album), Koffee has graced us with another single. According to the artist herself, “W” is about focusing on your wins in life and minimizing your losses. But the song doesn’t match the theme with the sort of euphoric sound you’d expect. It’s intrepid and reserved, suspending on the same base note throughout so you stay alert, ready for some sort of drop that never quite comes. Instead, Koffee holds steady on that note, riffing along over blossoming percussion as if she’s keeping her head down, celebrating privately. We’ll see if a Grammy changes that.
What a gift: NYT Styles just profiled the former model Baelyn Elspeth, who has left the world of entertainment to lead tea ceremonies in LA. On that note, she’s going by Tien Wu now, which is what you do to be taken seriously as a tea teacher, evidently. Wu (or, yeah, we’ll keep calling her Elspeth) learned her chops from a guy named Wu De (né Aaron Fisher) who lived in Taiwan for a while and has developed a following of American students to spread tea gospel around the US. What is that gospel, exactly? It’s not exactly clear, but if we had to guess, it might be something like, “drinking tea outside is relaxing.” Of course, Elspeth’s language is much more exciting, or you can take it from her former Incubus-frontman boyfriend, who calls it “wonderfully pointless.” Learn all about it here.
Meanwhile, here’s my friend and colleague Max Falkowitz schooling us on tea in Mark Bittman’s new online magazine. According to lots of folks (and perhaps thanks to the former models leading tea ceremonies), 2020 is supposed to be the year of tea. It’s sober-friendly; laced with wellness-word compounds; and ever so full of tasting notes. But to be real, tea will probably never be a huge thing in America. That’s because it fundamentally slows things down, and in America, we’re a fast-paced coffee people at heart. And to be fair, says, Max, that’s probably to tea’s benefit, because America screws things up when we commercialize them— just look at the livelihoods of coffee and cocoa farmers. Hush up, trend forecasters. Leave the tea in Topanga.
If you are a tea person, I trust you can find it on your own. And if you’re in the anti-tea camp, here’s something uncontroversial: a very soft sweater. Everlane’s alpaca crew is the kind of sweater that makes you feel like a fancy person. It’s a sneaky degree of warm for its light weight, and it’s cut really nicely, so you feel put-together when you’re not. And, yes, as a bonus, it has nothing to do with tea. Get yours here.
