When my cousins and I were young, they used to come to my grandma's house as opposed to us going down to Iowa to see them. It was usually around Christmas or other holidays until recently when they began coming up for college visits and even more recently, to see my oldest cousin off to college for the year.
One of the most vivid memories I have is one Christmas when my eldest cousin, my sister, and I all received a Madeleine themed tea set. My grandmother drinks tea like no other (and the occasional cup of coffee). For years, we admired the many tea pots that she kept hanging up above the stove in her kitchen-- anything from Winnie the Pooh to a summer-y floral pattern hung above that stove. We had been allowed to look and poke as long as we asked, but we had always wanted to use one, and finally, we were allowed to.
We called my grandma Nani.
Nani boiled some water and put it in one of the teapots. She poured the water in the teapot and laid a tea bag in there, letting the tea particles disperse. After that, she poured some of the tea from the big teapot into our little Madeleine teapots (they were really small, so we came back quite often for refills, because the cups were also tiny). We also grabbed some crackers so we could have a "real tea party."
For the longest time, I forgot that I liked tea. Well, peppermint tea. We didn't have any tea at my house because I was the only one that liked it at the time, so it was a treat whenever I went over to Nani's house. Once I entered high school, I didn't go there as often as I used to (I used to go to my grandma's house every day all the way through eighth grade, because that's how I got to school. The bus wouldn't come to my house). I soon forgot about my love of peppermint tea.
When we hosted our second French student-- she liked tea a lot. She had it every morning she was here-- she brought us tea. Le Thé des Ecrivains, or, The Tea of Writers. I loved the container, and it smelled really nice, but I didn't care too much for the taste, but then again, I might have made it too strong because we had to put the tea in tea bags ourselves if we wanted that kind. Since she was staying for three weeks, my mom got a variety pack of different kind of tea, letting everyone try one kind of tea or another. What could be found in this variety pack? That's right. Peppermint tea. Then all of these old memories came up and it was lovely!
Needless to say, I've been drinking more peppermint tea ever since.
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Author's Note: I've been lacking anything really good to post, so I figure I might as well post memories or dreams here too if I can't think of anything fictional to put. Sorry if this was incredibly boring. I liked writing it though.
Alrighty, my tea is cold and I think it's time to add a little more water and warm it up so I can figure out what I need to do today. Have a good one!
