Ewa

I used to love chamomile. Mum would give me chamomile tea whenever I had an upset stomach, and it was always nice because chamomile is naturally sweet and usually medicine is…not. Now, whenever this happened, we’d be talking in Polish, so I only knew the tea as “herbata rumiankowa.” It actually took me an embarassingly long time to figure out that the rumianek that mum gave me and chamomile (which I read about in books – for some reason it appears a lot in fantasy novels – and was like ‘oh look, it are another herb that helps with stomach problems’) were in fact the same thing. I still have no idea how to actually pronounce the word, though.

Fast forward (mumble) years and we get to last fall when I had the Wussy Flu of Never Going Away for like three months. My fever never went above 100, and sometimes disappeared altogether (note: do not attempt to measure your fever orally right after drinking tea, it only leads to panic), but I basically felt gross, lethargic and nauseous for the entire three months. To counteract the nausea so I could, you know, actually eat something, I drank a LOT of chamomile, sometimes mixing it up by making a particularly chamomile-y cup of foxtrot.

Eventually, chamomile itself started making me nauseous. Which I call RUDE of my subconscious or whatever’s doing it. At the time, I just switch over to mint/ginger (or a combination thereof) tea, but the effect has persisted and has, in fact, extended itself to foxtrot. Which is why I have 1/2 a container of delicious, delicious foxtrot sitting in my tea cupboard that I CANNOT drink – although I’m hoping the association will go away at some point.

Why did I tell you this story? Well, for one thing because I enjoy whining. But also because I CAN drink cha cha. Maybe because it has mint in it? Mind you, doesn’t foxtrot also have mint? /checks. It totally does! In that case, I got nothing. Maybe cos the lemongrass is sufficiently distracting FROM the chamomile?

Actual Tea Discussion and Not Storytime: As displayed by my enthusiasm for Thai Chai, I enjoy lemongrass well enough, although here it is hard to distinguish where the bite from the lemongrass leaves off and the spearmint begins. Still, I am getting all three things here, so that’s good. It’s a nice refreshing tea, and leaves you with minty fresh breath! But if I could be drinking foxtrot, I would be.