Brigadoon Tea Gift For Leap Year (Leap Day is February 29th)
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The elusive Brigadoon Breakfast tea appears only on Leap Day, February 29th—a day that only appears on the calendar every four years (see the origin of Leap year below). Named after the mystical Scottish village that comes to life only once every 100 years, on Leap Day, this rare blend of loose teas and cornflower petal, Brigadoon Breakfast, created by Adagio Teas is a lovely gift for a tea connoisseur, and a calorie-free gift. Like English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast teas, Brigadoon Breakfast is blended to be enjoyed in the morning (but only avid tea connoisseurs would restrict it to then). It brews up with a pleasant malty flavor with a hint of floral notes from the cornflower petals. The tea tin is a keeper that can be repurposed for many years to come. There are illustrations of the mythical town of Brigadoon both on top and underneath the lid. Alas, like the village of Brigadoon, the tea can be purchased on one day only: February 29th, 2024. Mark your calendar, and: > Head here to get your Brigadoon tea. To better understand tea, head to: > The different types of tea: a photo glossary. > The history of tea. (It’s one of the most popular of our 100 food glossaries.) > How to brew tea. Brigadoon is a wonderful musical and film. Written by the lengendary Broadway team of Lerner and Lowe, Brigadoon tells the story of a Scottish village that comes to life only once every 100 years (it’s fiction, of course). That’s because in way back 1746, 200 years before the present-day setting of the play [the 1950s], Brigadoon’s minister prayed that his village would disappear into the mist to protect it from a plague of witches. > Here’s more about the plot. You can currently stream the film on Paramount+. It stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse. > Here’s an excerpt from YouTube. In 45 B.C.E., Julius Caesar decreed that every four years, an extra day be added to the calendar. This reform created the Julian calendar. Why was the change necessary? The previous Roman calendar, which was based on lunar cycles, had become out of sync with the seasons. The observation engendered the change to the Julian calendar. All would have been perfect if a solar year were exactly 365¼ days, but it’s actually 365.242 days, not 365.25. Over time, those teeny bits added up. |
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In fact, by 1582 C.E. that slight discrepancy in the Julian calendar added up to 10 days. So Pope Gregory XIII (or rather, the lay people doing all the work) created the Gregorian calendar and coined the term “leap year.” This proclamation established February 29th as the official date to add to a leap year. Why February? We couldn’t find a reference, but we’re guessing that it was because February is already the shortest month. Now, a leap year occurs in every year that is divisible by four—but only in century years that are evenly divided by 400. Therefore, 800, 1200 and 2000 were leap years but 1700 and 1900 were not, because even though they are divisible by four, they are not divisible by 400. Fortuitously, 2024 passes both requirments and is also a leap year. Now: Modern astronomical techniques and measurements have since provided even more precise calculations of the solar year’s duration. But there’s no need to switch to a new calendar! Back to the beginning: |
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