Tea Time

My first cup of tea was with my maternal grandmother. I remember quite well the tea things. She drank Red Rose brand. I don’t remember when I first had my first cup; I must have been young when I was allowed to sip a taste. Later, I had a British nanny, who would have her chicks over once a month for tea. Memories are vague, but the emotional recall is that of pleasure. It gave me a sense I was doing something like adults. I knew my grandmother drank it, so it must be something that ladies and gentlemen drink (my parents were coffee drinkers, which had no élan). I can see still the white porcelain cup with its pale gray and blue grape vines, the brown, clear warm liquid therein, with steam rising. Back then I used sugar, 2 spoonfuls, that did not always dissolve right away. There would be some grains to swirl at the bottom of the cup.
So tea arrived first as a ritual, a social interaction. “let’s make a cup of tea’ my grandmother would say on winter weekend mornings. It was a sort of social ‘glue’, a tonic for all emotions. It cheered you up when one was down; it calmed you down when one was frazzled.
My parents did not drink hot tea, but iced tea was consumed in season. In the summer, my mother would put 3 or 4 teabags in the same curved metal pot and place it in the sun. I saw it in the same ilk as strawberries, melons and other treats only available in summer time.
I never moved on to coffee. Coffee seemed dull, something my parents drank in the morning to get going. It has a delightful smell but its dark opaque pungent cup did not suggest peace. It certainly did not have the social appeal (in my mother’s defense she had many coffee socials; with an olive green percolator chugging along, but I was not invited to those hen parties.
I’ve graduated from Red Rose a long time ago. I drink all sorts of tea now – green, white, oolong and black. How pleased I was to find out that at least one thing I liked turns out to be good for me! I have a basket of varieties for different times of the day and needs.
And I drink alone. It is another element of my life where I stand apart; I am a tea drinker in a coffee world.
But the routine of boiling water, hearing the impatient whistle announce ‘it’s time!” and the sights and sounds of that first poured cup – well, it still evokes serenity and a sense of peace.