Best Tea for Surviving Chiberia (and other cold places)
by Heather M. Surls
Chiberia, n. a term coined by NWS meteorologist Ricky Castro (on his way to work) before the 1/6/2014 polar vortex outbreak. The City of Chicago and greater suburban areas reached air temperatures around -15 degree Fahrenheit, combined with wind chills down to -50 degrees Fahrenheit and about a foot of snow. (urbandictionary.com)
In early 2014, I survived the polar vortex. In the midst of it, people did things I’d never heard of. They threw boiling water into the outside air, and watched it come down frozen. They blew bubbles on their porches, only to have them crystallize. They stored their food in snow banks when the power went out. School districts cancelled classes because it was too cold for kids to walk outside. The City of Chicago launched a pothole tracker so people could report snow plow-inflicted abysses in the asphalt.
On these Antarctic days, I found myself at home with my one-year-old son. Outings were so infrequent that sometimes our apartment felt like prison. (If we could get out for a brief walk, we looked like this.) One ‘warm’ day, we went to the car wash to clean the salt and dirty ice chunks from the Metro’s undercarriage. I crawled in the backseat and sat next to David as our car was squirted with blue and pink foam and swabbed by giant mops. It was the most exciting thing that’d happened in days.
For Christmas — before winter had set in — I received lined leather gloves from my in-laws who live in Arizona. Within a couple of weeks, I dropped one while hurrying in from the car, but it was snowing and too cold to turn back. All winter long, my husband and I joked that once the snow melted, we’d find it on the soggy yellow grass, mixed in with neighborhood trash and cigarette butts that’d also been absorbed by the snow stratum.
In the absence of gloves, I warmed my hands with tea. On more than one day, I sat at the dining room table during nap time wearing sweats, socks, and slippers, wrapped in a double-layer fleece blanket with the oven on and its door cracked open to release the heat. I hunched over a white mug of Two Trees Green Tea, cupped my hands over the top, and let the sweet steam burn my palms.
Two Trees is one of the ways I survived Chiberia. A loose-leaf blend of green tea, walnut pieces, and maple toffee bits, it is just lightly caffeinated, so I could drink it any time without condemning myself to sleeplessness. With a light maple color and aroma, it was sweet enough to feel like a treat—and on lonely, -13 degree days with a sick little boy, I needed a treat. I hope you will not need the same this winter, but if you do — well, now you know.
Tea Info:
Two Trees Green Tea
Can Be Purchased: Serene Teaz
Website: www.sereneteaz.com
Cost: $11.50 for 4 oz.
RedFence Rating: 10 (out of 10)
