The leaves in my teacup were telling a story.
You had to listen quite hard, they were speaking very quietly, and slowly, and in leaf language; but, if you were patient, concentrated hard, and happened to know leaf language, you could just make out the outline of a tale about the coming of the Winter Winds.
Always the Winter Winds, never the Summer breezes – and perhaps an allegorical tale about talking field mice that was actually about something other than the mice of the fields.
Anyway, I had had to endure a cup of tea for this. I was a coffee drinker through and through (and through a bit more) and only tortured myself with the evil brew so as I could hear the stories of the leaves.
If only coffee beans could tell such tales.
Graeme Sandford 