A Good Cup of Tea
I come from a long line of tea drinkers, it’s part of my Celtic heritage. It’s not that I don’t like coffee, I do, but I prefer a mug of tea. I like a good strong black tea with a splash of milk. I use to drink it with sugar, like my grandmother, later in life with artificial sweetener, but now I drink it with just a splash of milk. I have all types of teas, green, white, herbal, organic, ginger, red, but I always come back to a good mug of black tea with a splash of milk.
When I was a little girl, I spent a tremendous amount of time staying with my grandparents at their house in the Bronx on Hollywood Avenue. I loved that house, my happiest memories are in that house. The holiday dinners, the smells, the closets with clothes, umbrellas, shoes from days gone by, the front vestibule that I played house in, the sun porch with the lumpy day couch and all the plants, sometimes a birdcage filled with canaries, my grandfather’s chair that smelled of the pipes he sometimes smoked, his cigarettes (Kent’s I believe they were), the little sewing table in the stairwell that led upstairs to the bedrooms that the phone sat on; filled with buttons that my grandmother collected from clothes that no longer existed, the middle bedroom that was mine when I stayed with them, the back bedroom that was my Aunt Nellie’s and we weren’t allowed in, my grandparents bedroom at the front of the house, the basement with the painted red boiler and the second kitchen, my grandfather’s workshop with all those mysterious tools, sitting on the front stoop with my grandfather, Mr. Fenton, Mr. Massett, Mr. Haw, Mr. Locasio (forgive me the spelling of their last names), walking the dogs with my grandfather to the boulevard, sitting in the back courtyard with my grandmother, Mrs. Fenton, Mrs. Massett and Mrs. Haw; listening to their conversations, pausing when a plane passed overhead because you couldn’t hear anything at that point. I loved that house, I could go on and on about my memories in that house. I always felt safe, warm, content in that house.
But my favorite place in that house was my grandmother’s kitchen, her pantry with its great smells, the little black and white stool, the green cookie jar on the shelf, the tiled walls, the linoleum floor, the cast iron frying pans, the way my grandmother referred to the refrigerator as the frigidaire or icebox until the day she died. My grandmother reigned supreme in her kitchen. I wasn’t allowed to touch anything, just sit at the table and watch her make all my favorite meals, the soda bread, cookies, cakes from scratch, tapioca pudding with the great lumps of stiff egg whites, those holiday meals. The kitchen was her kingdom and I loved being in it with her. My introduction to tea was in that kitchen.
My grandparents had a cup of tea with every meal and in between too. The first would be at breakfast. Breakfast would consist of eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, juice (apricot juice, never orange..I believe it was in a pinkish can with a heart logo on it, I think the brand was Sweetheart, can’t find that juice now) or hot oatmeal or farina that had to be cooked on the stove…never cold cereal out of a box or instant anything. It was always a full meal, I can smell it now. I can see my grandmother in one of her house coats, not a robe, her hair still in pin curls, apron on in front of the stove, moving efficiently from the frigidaire to the pantry and back again to the stove. Breakfast would be ready by the time my grandfather returned from walking the dogs.
My grandmother would always fix my grandfather’s tea in a creamy white over-sized coffee cup with a saucer (not a tea-cup) and he would always pour milk into that cup of tea so that it overflowed into the saucer. I don’t know why, but he always did and after he drank a few sips would pour the overflow back into the cup. This ritual was repeated at every meal, holiday’s included, same cup, same saucer. I started drinking tea at that kitchen table. My cup of tea was more milk than tea with plenty of sugar from the sugar bowl that was a permanent fixture on the kitchen table, the very bowl I would dig in and consequently be scolded for, but it was tea just the same.
At my parents home, the day also started with a cup of tea. We didn’t have the kind of breakfasts my grandmother made. It was either cold cereal, instant something or another, maybe toast, but always a cup of tea. During the week it was my father’s duty to set this out for us before he left for work in the morning, get us up to be ready for school and out the door. But tea was always the norm. We drank mugs of tea, not dainty cups and saucers. Everyone had their own mug and a war would start if you took someone’s mug for your tea. I can remember those quarrels with my brothers and sister.
As adults at my mother’s house tea was the common factor between us all. We would drink tea throughout the day. You would stop by to visit and you always had a mug of tea or two or three. It didn’t matter if it was 30 below or 90 degrees out, you always had a mug of tea.
In 1978 my grandfather died and then the following year my father. Holidays were solemn and my grandmother’s house seemed so empty without these two men. It was soon decided that it wasn’t safe for my grandmother to live alone in the big house in the Bronx anymore. My mother built an addition to her home and my grandmother and grand aunt moved in. Grandma had so much that had to be given away, donated or thrown out. She gave me a teapot. It was a large teapot, it was called a Brown Betty. She had taught me how to make tea in that pot long ago. It was something she did for me as a child, just me and Grandma.
First, you would swish boiling water in the pot and empty it, this was to heat it up. Next you would fill the pot with enough boiling water for at least two cups each (I would say it was a four cup pot) and add your loose tea or tea bags and let it steep for a while, depending on the strength of tea you preferred.
As the new owner of that teapot I thoroughly enjoyed the ritual of making a pot of tea for myself almost every night. I had that teapot up until two years ago when I moved to my current abode. It survived the move, but not the unpacking.
I don’t how it happened, but it did. As I unpacked my Brown Betty from all its newspaper protection it fell from my hands. I tried to catch it and it hit the corner of the counter and crashed to floor, shattered. It had survived for well over seventy plus years and now it was in pieces on the floor. One of my few cherished possessions. I remember a friend was over helping me unpack and didn’t quite know what to do as I sank to the floor on my knees and cried. She saw it as a broken teapot, I saw it as the last remnants of my time with my grandmother as a child. I still have those shattered pieces wrapped in a kitchen towel in a shoebox on a shelf in a closet as if keeping them keeps my grandmother with me.
Whenever I’m out and trawling in second-hand stores or antique stores, I always look to see if there is a Brown Betty tucked away in a box or corner collecting dust waiting to be claimed, so far I haven’t found one nor have I purchased a “newer” teapot. Maybe it’s time I should.
I have my own favorite mug for tea now, it’s cobalt blue, glass, over-sized. It’s a good mug for a good cup of tea. It belonged to a set of four that I found in a dollar store well over 15 years ago. I broke one recently much to my dismay, it seems I’m getting clumsy in my middle-age. So now there are just three. I treat the remainder with care and if you are a lucky visitor, I might make you a nice cup of tea in one of them. Nothing soothes the soul or warms the heart then a good cup of tea, maybe with a splash of milk in it.
