The Memory of Names

In 1757, after France’s defeat at Rossbach, Madame de Pompadour is said to have consoled Louis XV with “Après nous, le déluge”—after us, the flood. Whether the words belonged to her or the king remains uncertain. Their meaning endured: let disaster come, so long as it comes after us. Versailles and the approaching storm meet in this tea.

There is no secret lover in this story. Only another cup. Cheating on You is the brief betrayal of the tea or coffee you drink every day: the moment white tea, jasmine, rose, lemongrass and cinnamon persuade your attention to wander. No promises are broken. Still, a second cup may require an explanation.

The proverb began not with curiosity but with care: worry, not inquisitiveness, was what killed the cat. Over time, curiosity took its place, and a later reply—“satisfaction brought it back”—quietly reversed the warning. For a tea built from Assam, saffron, rose and pistachio, curiosity seemed the proper risk.

In 2023, one question spread across social media: ask the men in your life how often they think about the Roman Empire. The unexpectedly frequent answers turned ancient Rome into a modern shorthand for the subjects that occupy us for no obvious reason. Naturally, Mama Ram thought that deserved a tea.

“Hippity-hoppity” began as a playful imitation of a small animal’s bouncing steps and, through American popular culture, became the cheerful rhythm of the Easter bunny. Yet there is no rabbit on this Mama Ram tin: a great tit sits on a budding willow branch, another early messenger of spring.

Hipster Paradise is not a joke told from outside the room. It is a self-portrait of a world of single origins, small batches, carefully aged furniture and product names requiring a little explanation—a world Mama Ram knows very well from Moda. The tea turns that affectionate irony into rooibos, coconut, lavender and cocoa.

Erzsébet Báthory died while confined at Csejte Castle in 1614. The story that she bathed in the blood of virgins appeared 115 years later, in a 1729 account—too late to serve as evidence, but early enough to become legend. That tension between dark myth and the promise of youth gave House of Bathory its name.

With only a handful of films, James Dean became a lasting symbol of youth, rebellion and dangerous charm. In Giant, as Jett Rink, he briefly appears serving tea to Elizabeth Taylor’s Leslie Benedict—a sly, unexpected image that found its way onto a Mama Ram tin and gave this sharp, spiced black tea its name.

Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” turned an animal known for changing colour into one of pop’s most memorable metaphors: someone who shifts with every mood, room or desire. Mama Ram’s blend takes the idea literally—blue butterfly pea changes colour with citrus—giving the song title a second life in the cup.

Long before disco, boogie began in African-American boogie-woogie piano and kept moving—through dance halls, rhythm and blues, rock ’n’ roll, funk and finally the glittering floors of the 1970s. “Let’s boogie” is both an invitation and a command: stop standing still. That rhythm gave this bright botanical blend its name.

Before Marilyn Monroe, there was Norma Jeane Mortenson. Hollywood fashioned her into a flawless blonde icon, but Sam Shaw’s photographs often found the laughing, intelligent and vulnerable woman beneath the image. One of those quieter moments—with a cup of tea at the St. Regis—gave this Mama Ram blend its name.

The strange and cheerful journey of “runcible”—a word Edward Lear dropped into the middle of a poem and steadfastly refused to define—from literature into everyday language.

Samhain was a threshold in the old Celtic calendar: the end of summer, the beginning of winter and a night when the boundary between worlds was believed to grow thin. A festival of endings, beginnings and transformation, it lent its name to Mama Ram’s dark, warming pumpkin and spice black tea.

Sobremesa is the Spanish name for the time spent lingering at the table after a meal, when the plates are empty but the conversation is not. Neither dessert nor digestif, it is a small refusal to let the evening end. That unhurried ritual gave its name to Mama Ram’s cocoa, spice and mate blend.

Sherwood Forest is more than a place on a map. It is the woodland of English folklore, where Robin Hood and his outlaws turned the shelter of ancient oaks into a legend of resistance, loyalty and freedom. This path between landscape and myth eventually led the name to a Mama Ram tea tin.

In Greek mythology, Syceus was a son of Gaia who sought his mother’s protection while fleeing Zeus. Gaia raised the fig tree from the earth to shelter him. In this Mama Ram blend, rooibos becomes Gaia, dried fig becomes Syceus, and warm spices carry the magic of transformation.

“Tickety-boo,” one of the English language’s cheerful and slightly old-fashioned expressions, describes a state in which everything is fine, in its proper place and just as it should be. Its exact origin remains uncertain, but the strange phrase’s natural optimism has carried it from everyday speech to a Mama Ram tea tin.

Despite the name, this old English expression has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. A curious tale of astonishment, euphemism and a word whose history reaches much further back.