120. The Cup Runneth Over – Cat Miles
To me, there’s beauty in the ritual of a beverage, in the way it can slow you down, in the way it can connect you to others.
I think a lot about what we drink, and how, and why. This is partly because beverages are my business—I’m a wine importer—but I suspect it goes deeper than that. I think about coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon as much as wine in the evening. I think about the ways these drinks mark our days and our lives.
I can still recall my first cup of coffee after my first child was born. I’ve always loved coffee, but when I was pregnant, I got to a point where everything tasted awful, coffee included. After my son arrived, I was exhausted, so one day I brewed a pot of coffee, poured it steaming into a mug, and took the first sip. It was magical. It was everything that coffee’s supposed to be: warmth, earthiness, that buzz, waking me up to the wonders of the world.
When my children were young, we had a morning tea ritual, where I’d light a candle and make a pot, then we’d all have a cup while reading a story or having a snack. That ritual has evolved; the kids are teenagers now, and each prefers a different (admittedly fancy) hot drink before school. For my youngest, I make hot chai. I adore the whole process: boiling the water, adding the fragrant loose leaves, steaming the milk, swirling it all together and sprinkling cinnamon on top.
To me, there’s beauty in the ritual of a beverage, in the way it can slow you down, in the way it can connect you to others. It’s the act of opening the bottle of wine and pouring it into a beautiful glass; it’s infusing honey with lavender to make a sparkling mocktail for a friend who doesn’t drink alcohol.
Other times, it’s more private than that—sometimes, just you and a beverage is enough. I’m currently back home in Mississippi. Recently my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and I drove down from New Jersey a few weeks ago. I spent the other day at the hospital as he underwent his first round of chemo, and after we got back, I sat on the porch by myself with a glass of montepulciano and let my mind wander. It was a chance to settle in and be present—and for the present to be enough.
– Cat Miles
Prompt:
Write about a beloved drink—about how you make it, a memory associated with it, or the way it connects you to others or yourself.
Annika Sampson
Location: Washington State
About: I'm a writer, educator, and gardener who has always lived on the literal (and perhaps figurative, too) edges of the world. I was inspired by a blend of tea I make almost every day, and how it's acted as a connection throughout seemingly disparate elements of my life.
Age: 27
I don’t measure the peppermint, the licorice, or the tulsi. They measure themselves, or as my old coworker would say, ‘Haath ki baat.’ Let the hand speak. If I had to give a ratio, it would be 3:2:1, in the aforementioned order, but who is to really say. I first had tulsi and licorice - or as I knew it then, mulethi - together in Dehradun. When I drink it now, it doesn’t take me to that point in my life; it isn’t discrete. It is more like a sweet, fragrant thread that has connected all the moments since.
I’m drinking a thermos of it now, down at Squalicum Beach. A child is throwing rocks into the sea. Every splash and ripple seems to surprise her. The patterns and predictabilities of life have not yet set themselves in stone.
I’m eating a ginger cookie made by a friend. The air smells like seaweed. The water is so, so still. Lummi and Orcas Islands grow from the fog, or the marine layer, as a more precise observer could say. A single oystercatcher takes flight.
I drink the tea and it’s slightly too hot, almost scalding, but I am left with no doubt that I am alive.
Smaller islands show themselves, like the two friends who walk by, laughing, talking. In some ways, this morning does remind me of mornings in India, as the Mussoorie hills shook off their monsoon clouds, or mornings in Maine when the island was shrouded and the brightest thing was a blossom, or an eye.
And in other ways, this day is only of itself. I can hardly believe how beautiful it is. Or rather, I can hardly believe that I am seeing, tasting, smelling the world, now, as it is, and so need to call it beautiful.
I feel beauty in my stomach like joy, or a crush. I am so in love, it is almost silly.
Danielle Dalton
Location: Melbourne, Australia
About: This prompt just had to be answered. This is partly because I am known to ask for the kettle to be boiled at any lull or random pause in a conversation. Mostly, I had to answer, because tea has been such a comfort in 2020, and a quiet pause while working like crazy from home in 2020
Age: 50
Beloved leaf of Camellia,
How I kneel to ya!
Raised best in exact latitudes,
Of preferred altitudes,
My expressed gratitudes
May never be suffice.
For the fragrant,
The flavour,
The bittersweet nice
Of my favourite brew.
Add one for the pot,
Sprinkled with Bergamot,
Sometimes Rose, Assam
And yes, Darjeeling will always do.
In the dry heat, or the muggy
Blistering cold, wet or foggy,
Tis a sure fire bet
I'm known to murder for you.
A panacea A respite
A go-to when nothing might
Be said to soothe
Without the pot entwined.
Calmer than the coffeed,
Steadier than the wined,
For those long conversations
That need the care of time.
Tea, chai, char,
Whatever name you prefer,
My tea,
Oh THE mighty
Always and forever
I humbly bow
Then gratefully toast
To thee
Photo from Portland, Victoria, Jan 2020 during the terrible bushfires that blanketed us in an unescapable smoke haze as 46 million acres of forests burned.
Lena Schiffer
Location: Bozeman, Montana
About: I was drawn to the prompt because I find sharing a beverage to be a sign of love and friendship. It is a way to have an honest conversation and enjoy the luxuries of life!
Age: 32
When I was a child, my concept of love was my dad bringing my mom a pot of tea and the newspaper to her in bed while he got us ready for school. He’d make us breakfast, help us pack our lunches, and occasionally try to do our hair. I give him credit for trying with three daughters. My mom would lay in bed, sipping Earl Grey, with the New York Times and the Santa Barbara News Press laid out on all sides.
As I have grown up, I still find the gesture to be romantic, and a sign of affection that my parents had for each other. I believe it now, even as my parents are divorced. The ritual has continued in my life, and I have found my own partner to share a cup with. I may have known it was love at the very beginning when Ryan would wander into the kitchen on a cold winter morning and return with a steaming cup of coffee and some breakfast. We would sit under the covers in the early stages of our relationship, sipping the rich, earthy flavors, talking about our plans for the day. We don’t read a physical newspaper, but we read through daily news briefings and social media (not the best habit.) Sometimes Ryan makes it, sometimes I do.
Our morning ritual has slightly evolved. Though we’ve moved into a larger house and could eat and drink downstairs, we still opt for that slow wake up, under the covers and staring out the window to the mountains. I have decided, reluctantly, that coffee in the morning doesn’t suit my anxious personality. Now my mornings involve a decaf chai tea latte with a few tablespoons of coffee. It makes me realize that although I miss the taste of straight coffee, I really am just in love with having a beverage to start off my day. I love when Ryan makes it for me and allows me to roll around in my warm bed for another twenty minutes. But I also enjoy when I am the one downstairs, trying to pour the perfect drip for him, and measuring coconut oil and honey for myself into a mug.
I’m not sure that making tea and coffee in the mornings for each other is all that love is, but I’m certain that it helps.
Megan Minutillo
About: My Nonna recently passed away from COVID-19 - and my mother is still going through her things, grieving and releasing at the same time. I have always processed life lessons by writing them down, and this prompt was a perfect entryway.
Age: 35
My mother hands me a cardboard box
full of my grandmother’s glassware.
Go through these, she says. Let me
know if there’s anything you want.
There is a cabinet in my kitchen full
of glassware. I don’t know where I
would put another piece, let alone a
whole box full.
And then I look at my mother, standing
there with a box full of glasses that her
parents used to use, and it’s as if she’s
holding the memory of them both in that
single box.
Cordial glasses rimmed with silver, and
long-stemmed wine glasses etched with
flowers, and tumblers, and tiny glasses
that once held their daily orange juice
in the morning and red wine in the evening.
And then there was this one little glass
that didn’t have a match. A single cup
that stood out from all the rest, with a
thin gold stripe, and the word “Paris.”
faded at the bottom.
I held the glass in my hands and could
feel my imagination start to turn. Where
did they get this? Why hadn’t I seen it
before? Was it a token from the days
when they used to get dressed up and go dancing?
I look back at my mom with the box
full of glasses and a heart full of
memories. I tell her I’ll take them,
and her face breaks into a smile.
My grandparents might not be living
amongst us anymore, but their memory
is still found within the things that they
cherished, like a tiny glass from Paris.