The Best Tea for… Making Friends
by Heather M. Surls
“Come, Heather,” Malika says, the first syllable of my name rough with Russian, “come drink tea.”
We are walking through the parking lot of our apartment complex after taking her son to kindergarten. She is not feeling well today—something about her heart (and she’s only twenty six)—but clouds cover the sky, and I have no one waiting at home and how often have I refused tea with a Turkish friend?
Never. Once I even went to the door of a friend’s home, determined just to drop off a card. But when she invited me in and asked, “Would you like tea?” I could not say no. I only stayed twenty minutes, but in that time, I drank — with relish — two scalding cups of tea, while sweating in the overheated kitchen.
I know the ritual of Malika’s kitchen. I sit at the table while she fills the lime-green kettle and sets the water to rapid-fire popping on the electric coil. She pulls a tin of Hyson loose leaf green tea from the cupboard and scoops a tablespoon or two into a porcelain teapot. This tea comes from our local market, which boasts a massive tea selection ranging beyond Twinings and Stash and Bigelow.
I never cared much for green tea before I met these Turkish-speaking Ahiska women. And though I still never drink it in my home, I drink it in theirs, because with it comes conversation, stories, friendship. They prepare and drink it with cultural quirks passed down through generations — from their grandmothers who were expelled from Georgia by Stalin and shipped to Uzbekistan in railcars, from their mothers who were forced from Uzbekistan to Russia.
Small glass cups and saucers appear on the kitchen table—four or six ounce cups with rings of gold fire on their edges. Inevitably, before the tea has steeped long enough, Malika pours a cup—palest yellow-green, faintly floral, and steaming—then unlids the pot and dumps the tea back in. Why, I don’t know. To check its strength? To cool the rest?
Tea never comes without food. While I ask questions—“Where is your husband today?” (he is a truck driver), “Did you catch the mouse?” (one came in the open kitchen window)—she microwaves a round loaf of homemade bread from the freezer, ladles a bowl of dilly soup from a covered pot, places a saucer of goat cheese in front of me.
And then she finally sits, one knee pulled up to her chest under her long skirt, the crescent and star necklace twinkling on her chest, her chiffon headband slipping back on her almost-black hair. We have known each other one year now and have done this so many times — after she became a U.S. citizen, after calling doctors’ offices, over discussions about our respective faiths, over sheaves of loose photos of her family, her childhood, her wedding.
With a smiling sigh, Malika reaches for a shiny, wrapped chocolate, then puts the candy dish in front of me. “I can drink coffee alone in the morning,” she says. “But not tea. I cannot drink tea by myself, Heather.”
Tea Info:
Jasmine Mystique Green Tea
Can Be Purchased: Hyson Teas
Website: www.hysonteas.com
Cost: $29.99 for 200 grams
RedFence Rating: 10 (out of 10)
