07.16.09
Once upon a tea
posted by Murielle Hamilton | 9 comments
Memory from childhood: I bring a steaming cup of sugared Ceylon Orange Pekoe to my mother’s bed. Her room is dark and silent; a faint bluish light filters through the closed drapes and blinds and a damp facecloth covers her eyes.
She removes it and props her upper body against the pillows. She sips the tea, very slowly, so she can hold it down. She is having a “liver crisis”, as we call it.
As an adult, I will get those when I drink too much, but she hardly drinks at all, and she is not sick in the conventional sense either. She stresses, though, and keeps it all in. She never talks about how she feels – perhaps she does not even know. Her intense pride condemns her to always keep up an unimpeachable front; not once in my life have I heard her apologize.
So this is the poison she fights with black Ceylon tea. Some mysterious property allows it to grab onto the stomach lining and stay down, sip after tiny sip, rehydrating her body worn out from vomiting the bitter bile her liver has produced (hence the term “liver crisis”). At least, this is how I picture the magic of this tea, as it comes alive with a healing strength of its own.
The violent vomiting has burst blood vessels in my mother’s swollen eyes. She applies cataplasmas of this same tea, steeped and wrapped in cheesecloth, over her eyelids, and it magically shrinks them to a quasi-normal appearance.
Being a child, I use the tea to dye doilies – it gives them a comforting vintage look with its lovely shade of “earth peach”. My mother is aghast: I have ruined both the tea and the doilies, which now look dirty and old, she says.
As a teen, I try to make my own Lapsang Souchong. I hold a sieveful of loose black tea over a burning tire – that is how it is done, I am told. The experiment fails. I choke from the stenchy smoke, my eyes tear up, I drop the tea and the sieve into the tire, and I run for a hose.
Later, I will come to appreciate the loveliness of that steaming cup of tea when I too succumb to stress and have my own “liver crisis”, which decommissions me for a solid forty-eight hours. Later still, I learn to release the stress, but the cup of tea remains a symbol of loving comfort, the sweet, hot, tangy liquid dripping into my thankful body, strangely akin to the soothing feel of a cool hand on a feverish forehead.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
EGAD - I could almost smell the stench of the burning tires in this post! Such vivid imagery.
And, “Liver Crisis” - that’s a new one I’ll have to put in my Stash of Polite Excuses.
But, seriously, sorry you had to see your mom so ill. That had to be hard on a little girl… We always expect our parents to be immortal. Nice to know that tea - with or without smoldering tires - was there for you then and even now.
July 16th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Hi Murielle. I’m curious about your use of the Spanish term Cataplasmas instead of poultice. Are you or your family Spanish speaking?
On another note, if you are buying Lapsang Souchong from a retailer who tells you the tea is made from infusing the tea leaves with smoke from burning tires, RUN AWAY as fast as you can and never return. Tire fumes are highly toxic to you and to the environment. Although there may be some unscrupulous individuals making their Lapsang Souchong like that (if you know any, please report them to the tea authorities), the good quality Lapsang Souchong that comes from Fujian China, is made by drying tea leaves over burning pine wood to obtain that smoking flavor - NOT BURNING TIRES - Arrrrrrrgggggh!
July 16th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Hi Sandy,
I used cataplasm from the French “cataplasme”, as it is my mother language. I couldn’t remember the word poultice for the life of me, but it certainly would have done the trick!
Re: the Lapsang Souchong: the burning tires tale is something I was told when I was a teenager, loooooong ago!
I know of no one who manufactures LS, alas, so I cannot ascertain whether or not they are using the proper kind of fuel… LOL
July 16th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Lovely piece so glad I came to read it. Keep up the good work your fellow DD member.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I feel the nostalgia and melancholy that seeps through your words, your past, and into your present. I’m glad that tea brings you a sense of comfort, as it does for me.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Murielle, a fascinating tale. Well told, as yours always are. Amazing that children ever grow up (breathing the smoke from a burning tire!), and I’m glad you did.
July 17th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Really nice story- I especially liked the mixture of scenes from the views from childhood, teenhood and adulthood. The first mention of “liver crisis” suggested to me haute-consumption of alcohol.
Now I must find that tea!
July 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Nice writing, very pictoresque. The tannin in the tea soothes the liver crisis. Although I use Dandelion/Blessed Thistle for the same purpose, I can see how Lapsang Souchong could do the trick.
July 17th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Hi Murielle,
Sorry your mother suffered so. Glad you both had the tea to console you.
I felt your heart through your story. Thank you for sharing such an intimate piece of your early life. That can be a cathardic as your tea.
Bette
DD member