Tea in a Beer Mug

Have you ever hung up the phone or finished a conversation with someone and felt dissatisfied, like there was something you really wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it?  Have you gone back and forth in your mind, wanting to express your thoughts about something said, wondering whether it even makes sense to say something, and whether you are making a mountain out of a molehill and you’d be better off forgetting the issue?

I had one of those this afternoon.  And one just a week ago.  With the same person.  Two remarks, made about a young woman who just married a very close friend of mine.  Both remarks would have hurt if they had been made about me.   Both were made by someone who, I’m sure, loves this young woman deeply.  Both remarks reminded me of remarks that people made about me regarding my marriage to my husband, and that hurt like a knife stuck in my heart.

I think it’s very sad when a parent (or close relative, or in-law)  suggests that a child has married up (or down, for that matter).   That they don’t “deserve” the spouse they chose, or that the spouse they chose is not good enough.

It’s also very sad to imply that one’s wedding day is the day one loses his/her freedom.   My brother used to dress in black for weddings because he said he was mourning the death of the groom’s life of freedom,  or something similar.  I never thought it the best of jokes, but I find it very distasteful coming from a pastor who’s been married for decades.

Maybe I really am making a mountain out of a molehill.  Maybe.  It feels better to have that off my chest!

Six years ago, I would have had to call this blog coffee in a beer mug.  I was a coffee guzzler. Now I down the tea like it were water (which it is, essentially)

My parents had a large tin of Oolong tea in the kitchen cupboard.  I thought it smelled like a goat and tasted like one too. (Not like I’ve ever tasted a goat, mind)

One day, I had a cup of Oolong tea, with a little milk and honey, and I liked it.  I made it through the tin of tea, but went back to coffee when it was gone.

Year 2003, I got married and soon afterwards, pregnant.  The first thing I went off was coffee. Not for health reasons, but because the smell of it, especially in the morning, was nauseating.  There were other smells that were equally nauseating, but talk about them won’t shed any more light on the issue at hand.  My conversion from coffe to tea.

My first son was born in November 2003. We just celebrated his 6th birthday with much pomp and circumstance.

English midwives are very nice. At least the ones that treated me during my pregnancies and deliveries.  Once you are settled in your room after delivering your baby and having a shower they bring you a nice hot drink.   I think it was during my first stay in an English maternity ward that I converted from coffee to Tetley tea.  Tetley.  It’s important.

One round bag, no strings attatched, goes into the mug.  Freshly boiled water is poured over it and the bag is left to brew for three minutes.  You have to fish it out with a spoon, squeezing the flavor out of it on the way out of the mug.   Discard the round bag, add a little milk and sweetener if you like it sweet.

The brew is hot, comforting, filling, delicious.  I don’t want to go without that first mug of tea in the morning.  Why should I?

1998.  I had come home, inexpectedly early, from a planned year in the US where I was going to take those vital steps into adulthood and independence.  I was living at my parents’ house again, and I wasn’t happy.

My cousin’s baby son gave me a mug for Valentine’s day.  It was very cute, a very good size and weight for my morning mugs of tea and coffee.  My little brother knocked it off the table with the expected consequences.  The mug was gone.

My sisters were tired of seeing me cry and decided to buy me a new mug, see if that would cheer me up.  The mug they chose for me was perfect.  Very large, with Eeyore, Pooh and Piglet on it, and some very sweet, classic Winnie the Pooh saying on it.  I cried, for other reasons.

The mug lasted some time, I think.  I can’t remember when it broke.

Fast forward one year.  I had moved out of home and was living in a little village, teaching English to half of the village school’s children.  I came home every weekend in order to attend church and stay connected with my friends.  By then I was used to drinking my coffee or tea out of an oversized mug, so I had to find something suitable in my mother’s kitchen cupboard.  There were two half-liter  stoneware beer mugs sitting in there among the many mugs.  I tried having my coffee out of one of them, and I knew I had found my new favorite mug.

Traditional stoneware beer mugs make wonderful hot drink mugs.   They hold the heat for much longer. You can preheat the mug with boiling water before preparing your brew in it, and it will stay warm.

Traditional beer mugs don’t taper in at the bottom, making the base smaller than the top.  No.  They are straight up and down, and stable. And heavy. Very heavy bottomed, a trait that in this case comes in handy.

They are stable, sturdy and practical. What more can you ask for?

But my last beer mug was not sturdy enough for my two-year-old.  It broke when she dropped it on the hard tile floor of our hallway on the way to the kitchen.  She cried. I said goodbye to my mug.

I’m back to drinking from a bog standard mug. It is a little big larger, but nowhere near the size of my beer mugs.  I miss my mug.