A TEA PARTY IN THE AMERICAN WONDERLAND

Would you care for a cup of tea?

For Pa, Bubbe and the rest of my Eastern European ancestors, the complexities undergirding that question are proof that the infamous Boston Tea Party was waged by Lithuanian Jews, not American revolutionaries.

The British, of course, are preoccupied with the ethnic purity of their tea: Where in the Himalayas? First flush? How tippy? Single estate? Which garden? My Bubbe, on the other hand, knew only Swee-Touch-Nee and Wissotzky. Otherwise, who cared about origin or subtleties?

A cup of tea did accompany sweets at an occasional afternoon repast or card game. But tea attained its zenith for its restorative powers. Its astringent quality together with its scalding heat made it a perfect esophageal clog-buster after a heavy meal of brisket, kugel and chopped liver. I remember no Shabbos dinner being complete without it. And, I never returned to school having eaten a salami omelet for lunch unless I washed it down with hot tea.

Jewish mothers knew that tea flushed out all kinds of toxins, particularly when it was laced with honey and a shot of schnapps. Science has found this true, although I have yet to understand my mother’s belief in its efficacy over an ingrown toenail. In my childhood home, the therapeutic effectiveness of a cup of tea was regarded as second only to administering the dreaded enema.

As a child, I could gauge the stature of an occasion by one particular tea ritual. At special dinners, each guest would receive a personal tea bag. When we were among family and friends, anyone who insisted on an individual bag was called “fancy” (or a Yekke!) behind his or her back. Bags were shared, for a bag had not paid its dues unless it produced two or three cups of tea.

Akin to the one-versus-many dichotomy came the cup-versus-glass consideration. A visit from a New York relative or the president of the landsmanschaft called for tea from a cup. Otherwise, tea was served in a thick-sided glass. And, no, not just any glass. Ironically, Jews would for some reason associate morbidity with their beloved tea by drinking it out of glasses that had once held candles used to memorialize their dead! Pragmatically, the thick glasses did hold up to the heat. But, you and I know that pragmatism aside, one gained some kind of lachrymose boasting rights by having a matching service of twelve “yahrzeit glasses.”

A pristine cup of first-flush Assam Darial may be befouled by sweetening, but a scalding glass of Wissotzky demanded it. Can anyone find lump-sugar in the supermarket anymore? This confirms my theory that its only purpose was for our immigrant ancestors to place a cube of it between their front teeth and sweeten their tea by sucking through it. The magic of utilizing only one lump for an entire glass of boiling tea was second only to the miracle of being able to sleep poppa, mama, four kids, two uncles and a border in a one-bedroom tenement. Then again, both my grandmothers had dentures by the age of 60.

I was introduced to drinking tea in the spirit of losing my virginity. Bubbe poured tea into a saucer and blew on it until it was lukewarm. This rite continued until the I was forced to drink a cup of half-tea and half-strawberry preserves. By the time I should have been ready for a steaming glass of brown-black Swee-Touch-Nee, I was probably off with my buddies in somebody’s basement getting drunk on a purloined six-pack of cheap beer. But, then again, didn’t all of us?