Tea

Making tea is my ceremony. A ritual—not grand or loud or majestic. But the quiet process of the water boiling from the kettle, the individual leaves curling upwards as they meet the heat, each unfurls a cast of color: sometimes brown, sometimes green, sometimes yellow, creating a warm and delicious liquid of familiarity. It is a liquid that slows time and lets me breathe. 

The first sip: a burst of warmth that goes beyond temperature and spreads throughout me. My day’s tensions dissolve as the amber liquid blossoms in my chest. As I sip my tea, the world slows. It's almost like a potion that reverses over-stimulation; there are no Schoology notifications, blaring car horns, or blinding colors on a projector. It’s just me and my tea. 

Mom is the reason I love tea. I spent much of my childhood ill—my immune system useless. When I was six years old, I came down with a case of Mycoplasma. That was when my mother first introduced me to a magical liquid made by unicorns that would make all of the “ouchies” fly away. When I first took a sip, however, the bitter, pungent flavor was not suitable for my young taste buds—this was no liquid made by unicorns.

 I spat it out immediately.

 But my mother was not one to back down. She continued to force the horrendously thick grass water down my throat. And she was right. I did feel better after a while. But I would never tell her that. Instead, I’d hide my grin under a facaded pout as she mocked, “See, I told you so.”

This liquid, Tolak Angin, which means“remove wind,” is an Indonesian tea believed to alleviate any sickness, to remedy any situation. Sometimes, I question its efficacy, but Mom says it works, so it works. 

As I grew older,  my mother continued to bring me tea. As she sees me working late into the night, fingers cramping and eyes burning from the long hours looking at my screen, she brings me a new calming blend of citruses and mint, extra caffeinated to keep my eyelids open.

“Sayang”, she says, to break my entranced state, “minum.”

Mom’s mantra has never been to coddle me. She has never been one to whisper reassurances in my ear and leave words of affirmation in my lunch box. But tea is her way of anchoring me, her frail hands holding mine, her way of letting me know she is there. I feel my mother’s love through tea.

As I sip my tea, the flavors of the leaves bring me back in time. The grassy, almost earthy, notes of green tea are my Grandmother’s warm hands as she stands in the doorway to greet me after a cold day. The floral blossoms in chamomile are my mother’s arms around me as I shiver in cold sweats and sniffles. The creamy maltiness of milk tea is the laughter of friends during our days on the playground that always ended with a bowl of ramen and a warm bottle of tea from the vending machine. The almost tangy citrus-ness of Earl Grey is the sheering pain of the boiling tea burning my flesh as my older sister mistakenly knocked over my mug onto my bare lap (This one is not so much of a delight). My cup of tea carries memories.

As I write this essay, I am sipping on my routine cup of tea. Drinking tea brings a sense of gentility and calm to each task. It delights whatever it accompanies and is my simple delight on its own. It holds a certain sense of hominess and love.