A Double Tea Leaf

Sometimes, when plants grow, for whatever reason, two leaves fuse together. I found this while brewing an Alishan Oolong from the Taiwanese brand Tradition tea (my review), and I thought it was interesting enough to photograph and share:


Notice that the two leaves have separate veins, but are fused together in one leaf. The effect is the appearance of a lobed leaf, with two separate points.

How often does this happen with tea leaves? It's the first time I've noticed it in a couple years of drinking a fair amount of whole-leaf tea, and I regularly handle used leaf teas because I always compost the used tea leaves. But it could be that it happens pretty often and I just haven't noticed it before.

One thing I love about nature is its diversity and unpredictable nature. Sometimes in our modern, western society we want to have everything look perfect, we glorify an aethetic of regularity. But I find this aesthetic, the aesthetic of control and uniformity, to be sterile and stifling. I like it when interesting things arise spontaneously, and I like to focus on them and appreciate them. I find beauty in the random, and the deviant, even when the distinctions are subtle, like this leaf that I almost tossed in the compost bin without noticing.