Evaluate this scenario: It is the parking lot of a supermarket. Far from the front door, next to a newspaper and cardboard recycling station, are a few empty parking places. It is late afternoon in that month known locally as Junuary. The wind is howling, and cold raindrops the size of jelly beans are falling horizontally. Suddenly a dilapidated fifteen year old pick-up truck pulls into one of the parking spots next to the recycling station. The engine is extinguished with a resounding explosion and a huge puff of white steamy smoke belches out of the tail pipe.

The driver – fat, frumpy and fifty-five – hops out of the pick-up, grabs a soggy old newspaper from the back of the recycler, and jumps back in to the driver’s seat. Apparently, she is reading the newspaper as the rain turns to hail and back again. Fifteen minutes pass.

Just as suddenly, a new hybrid vehicle pulls silently into the spot next to the bucket of bolts previously described. Out hops the driver of this vehicle. He is fit, fashionably dressed and also fifty-something. In his hand are two small paper bags. He takes them to the pick-up. Money changes hands. The pick-up driver inhales deeply of one of the bags and remarks to no one in particular, “This is the good stuff.” The hybrid pulls silently away. The pick-up chugs out of the lot, sounding a lot like a washing machine full of ball bearings.

What just went down here?

You, too, can make a tea deal with the kind folks at T Ching. If you live in the Hood River area or are visiting our recreational paradise on holiday, you may purchase T Ching’s teas on-line, and pick them up at a central location, avoiding shipping costs in the process. It’s easy: visit the T Ching store on line; click on Contact Us on the right side under Information and let them know you are a Hood Riverite (or in HR) – someone will email you a special free shipping code. Make your selections, insert the code at checkout and someone will contact you with a time and place to rendezvous in town. At T Ching, great tea is just an e-mail away.

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