A Mother’s Day memory: Angel tea

Kindergarten. And I couldn’t wait for the end of each day. If my friend and waking companion, Allyson, dawdled, I’d leave her in the dust. Darting out of Johanna Perrin School in Fairport, N.Y., where I grew up, I’d run up James Street, past Potter, Dewey, and Miles, until I reached Briggs Avenue and raced down the hill to my house. I knew that once I was inside my mother would let me go directly to the china cabinet and pick out whatever teacup I wanted from her collection.

I’d stare through the curved glass door and scan the rows of cups and saucers, carefully considering their color, shape, and delicacy. Some cups were painted with dainty blue flowers, others with big butter-yellow flowers and green leaves, and a few were lined with elegant gold edges.

Mom would take whatever teacup I chose and fill it with what she called “angel tea.” We’d sit at the kitchen table, snack on toast smothered with strawberry jam, and sip our tea. I felt important with my fancy teacup, not simply because it was so lovely, but because it was valuable and Mom trusted me with it.

Years later Mom explained that angel tea was simply weak black tea with lots of cream. “I didn’t want you to have too much caffeine,” she smiled.

“Ah … very tricky,” I laughed. “I thought it was called angel tea because it was magic.”

Over the years, Mom added teapots to her teacup collection. A massive oak cabinet with drawers, shelves, and long rectangular glass doors replaced her modest china cabinet. Her new cabinet was chock-full of antiques, books, art, photos, and miscellaneous smalls. Though I was no longer a young child, I would still catch myself staring through the glass at the ornate silver teapot with matching sugar and creamer bowls; the vintage teacups with oval toast plates in moss green, sky blue, salmon pink, and golden fawn; the assortment of delicate Wedgwood flowered teacups from England, and the numerous heavy, hardy, and robust Fiestaware cups and saucers made in America.

When my daughter, Story, was in third grade, her class had an “Around the World” day. The goal was to learn about different cultures. In honor of Story’s Korean heritage, Mom and I volunteered to come in and share a bit about Asian tea ceremonies. We didn’t have a teapot from Korea, so we brought in a Chinese clay teapot that artisans had carved into the shape of a dragon — a gift from my brother, who was living in China at the time. We filled the dragon with green tea, shared a little information about Chinese and Korean tea ceremonies, and poured the tea into little paper cups for her classmates to sample.

Over the years, Mom and I continued to share tea together. If there was good news to share, we made tea. When bad news arrived, we made tea. The last time we shared a cup of tea was when she was in a nursing home. We sat in her room and drank black tea I’d found in the nursing home kitchen. It was bland and tepid, but we drank it anyway, I think in part because of what it symbolized for us, but also because it provided a momentary escape from the pain of our shared reality — Mom had a brain tumor and was dying.

I didn’t realize until recently how much the simple act of sharing a cup of tea with someone takes me right back to my mom. Some years ago, a friend of mine unexpectedly passed away. His death shocked me to the core, so much so that I could do nothing but sit on my couch and cry. After hugging me, Story ran into the kitchen and made me a cup of tea.