Peppermint with dried apple.
I had always made jars for friends at Christmas.
A coworker suggested selling them at a farmers’ market.
My first Saturday, I rented half a table.
I sold twenty-three bags.
Twenty-three.
I came home feeling like I’d conquered Wall Street.
The following weekend, I sold forty-seven.
Then seventy.
At night, after Jeffrey and George went to sleep, I’d sit at the kitchen table filling little paper bags with tea.
Sometimes I worked until one in the morning.
Then I woke at six to make breakfast.
When the twins were four, they helped stick labels on bags.
Most were crooked.
I sold them anyway.
Customers found the crooked labels charming.
When the boys were six, George invented a blueberry blend name.
“Blue Thunder.”
“That sounds like an energy drink,” I told him.
“No, Grandma. It sounds AWESOME.”
We called it Blue Thunder.
It became one of our best sellers.
