Chinese Rose Tea

 

I’m on an economy drive and have just run out of tea.

For a tea drinker like me this is terrible.

I am trying to use up what is in my cupboard. What is left at the bottom of my tea caddy is not very nice. It is a spicy concoction which makes me grimace.

Even more unpleasant is what lies in my cupboard. Here are the gifts of tea, herbal infusions and the like. There is one box right at the very back of the cupboard on the top shelf. You have to stand on the shoulders of a giant to reach it. I do so and bring the pretty box down to eye level.

The wording is in Chinese. One of the ex-teenager’s friends bought it for his Chinese mother. She declared that she did not like it and so this mysterious box was somehow passed to me, and it has remained at the back of the cupboard ever since.

But now desperation forces me to try it.

The instructions are written in Chinese, but I assume that the method of brewing tea to be universal and known to all known civilisations, except for those living in North America.

I opened the box and discover a plump sachet inside. I open the sachet. There is something curled up and brown inside. It looks like a desiccated foetus. I prise it out gingerly. It does not look like tea at all. I drop it into the pot and pour boiling water over it. Then I leave it for a minute or too.

When I eventually pour it out something akin to urine fills my cup. I try it. It is tasteless, perhaps there is a hint of rose petals as suggested by the label on the packaging, but it is not tea.

Disappointed I pour the rest of the brew into the sink.

Then I look and shiver.

In the sink are blanched alien things. They look like mini starfish with octopus tentacles, that are spread out and open, and half the size of my hand. I’m guessing this was the ‘rose’ flower. But it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in the sink. Sort of slimy yellowy-green and transparent.

It makes me shiver…or perhaps that’s the withdrawal symptoms from the hard stuff: proper tea.