Orange Pekoe Tea

Arun Kumar

Be it winter, spring, summer, or fall, if I am home and not zooming around in some distant part of the galaxy in search of nirvana, the day begins with a cup of loose-leaf orange pekoe black tea. 

Holding a warm cup of freshly brewed tea with palms wrapped around the cup as if trying to hold a fragile baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, is such a wonderful start to a day. In the months of winter, the feeling will be even more sublime.

Making Orange Pekoe tea each morning follows the same ritual. From the dark recesses of the kitchen cabinet, pull out the jar of tea, take a spoonful and put it into the infuser. This is while every passing moment, water in the electric kettle edges towards its boiling temperature. 

Once the electric kettle lets me know that it has done its job, water gets poured in a cup in which the infuser also sits. I set the timer on the microwave for four minutes, and when the timer goes off, it is time for ...drum roll... My Very First Cup of Orange Pekoe Black Tea. 

The tea has a beautiful deep brown color, and the translucent cup in which it sits brings out its glory; a wonderful aroma wafts up with the steam that rises from the cup. The cup of tea whispers to me to slow down and take time to appreciate and enjoy its company.

The main story, however, is about the jar that holds the loose-leaf orange pekoe tea.

Once I fill up the jar with tea, taking a spoonful each day hardly registers on the amount of tea that is remaining. In the beginning the change in the amount of tea is barely discernible; the level seems to stay the same. My mind never goes to the thoughts that there might come a day when the jar would be empty. 

But sooner or later, illusions get broken and reality settles in.

Today morning after taking out the usual spoonful of tea I noticed that there is only few more spoonful worth of tea was left in the jar. With that realization came the thought that after a few more days, the jar would be empty. 

The thought also led to the epiphany about how similar the process of jar emptying one spoonful a day is what happens with our life also.

In the beginning, life starts as a full jar. All through childhood, youth, days of building a career and slowly getting too immersed in it to the extent that it becomes our definition and identity, it is hard to realize that each day a spoonful of time is being taken away. 

Initially the emptying the jar of time is so gradual that it does not seem like we are ever going to run out of days. 

But one innocuous day going over the 60th birthday or having an existential moment of reckoning while sitting at some random spot or realizing pain and aches in the knees when outside temperature drops, or the humidity rises or when the work is no longer all-consuming, comes the awareness that the jar of time is suddenly whole lot emptier. The amount of time left in the jar is suddenly close to the bottom and there are not that many more spoonfuls left to take out.

That is when we say – where did the time go?

That moment of epiphany is the moment when a whole lot around, and within us, changes. 

The transformation is like waking up one day and seeing the world around us with different colored glasses, or suddenly starting to see things that did not register on our consciousness before. 

Foremost among them being that if you drink orange pekoe tea one day at a time, the jar will eventually get empty. Or alternatively, as you live one day at a time, the jar will eventually get empty. 

And with that, different aspects of life that sat high on the totem pole of priorities start to inch downwards and lose relevance they once held.

That point in time when the awareness of the limits of our existence gels is a milestone and how we handle the awareness shapes our future journey.

Today I also broke another myth I held. It turned out that there is no orange in the orange pekoe tea. Really? 

Contrary to what I thought, the tea does not have extract from the orange peel. Here is what ChatGPT had to say: 

“The term "orange" in "orange pekoe" refers to the color of the dried tea leaves used to make the tea, rather than the fruit itself. "Pekoe" is derived from the Chinese word "baihao," which means "white hair" and refers to the young leaves and buds of the tea plant...The use of the word "orange" in "orange pekoe" can be traced back to the Dutch traders who played a significant role in the early tea trade. The Dutch term for a high-quality, whole-leaf tea was "oranjebohea," which over time, was anglicized to "orange pekoe,”” At least, that is one story behind the name.

Oh well. I also once thought that turquoise is the name of some fruit!  

Ciao.

Orange Pekoe Tea

In the dark recesses  

of the kitchen cabinet 

sits a jar  with an airtight lid 

of the Orange Pekoe, loose leaf  

aromatic black tea. 

 
Each morning from that jar 

a spoonful gets taken out 

to help start the day 

with warm cup of a tea 

sitting in a wooden tray. 

 
The same happens 

be it winter, spring, summer,  

or fall. 

 

One spoonful a day 

the jar gets little emptier

and emptier. and

emptier.
 

Then one day  

hits the awareness 

there is only few more spoonful 

of the Orange Pekoe tea  

are left in the jar, and then,

there would be none.

 

 Is it not very much alike 

what happens with life?

A polyamorous threesome

 

Past, Present, and Future

are forever engaged in

a polyamorous  threesome

where rules of engagements 

constantly change;

a machiavellian game;

except one -

Present is navigating

a tightrope between 

what is memory

and what is there

but yet to come.

Love and Hate for Chemistry

 Arun Kumar

Chemistry. Chem·is·try.

It was one of the subjects among few others that I disliked during my halcyon days of high school years. Chemistry felt different from physics or mathematics where after learning a few basic principles, the rest could be deduced using hierarchical reasoning.  Physics and mathematics seemed logical. All I needed to do was to learn a few axioms of number theory and use them as the building blocks of lofty structures of increasingly complex theorems.

Chemistry, on the other hand, was a different beast – dark, mystical, magical. I never figured out the rhyme and reason of balancing the left- and right-hand side of the chemical reactions, and never understood what the underlying principles were.

To barely manage passing grades and advance into the next class, I memorized the chemical reactions to the extent the neurons would hold, gave the exam and the very next day promptly forgot everything about them. 

There was no pleasure in that process of trying to learn chemistry.

Perhaps it was because of the chemistry teacher we had, but that might just be deflecting blame.

Whatever the reason, I never developed an interest in chemistry and was thrilled that after 12th grade, I did not have to take any chemistry classes or prepare for annual examinations. It was an amicable separation. Little did I know that later in life I would begin to appreciate chemistry, and I do not mean the chemistry between me and other fellow beings. 

Throughout the history of my youth and decades that followed, the relevancy of chemistry in life did not catch or hold my attention. 

In the torrent of youth and following that in the years of building a career, lots of trivial and important aspects of life, took a back seat. It is only now that I am past 60 and the single-minded focus on my career has receded leaving me with the feeling of the spaciousness of time and space that I realize the importance of chemistry, and of chemical reactions in life that I so much disliked.

And now, now, I see the profound influence of chemistry of small molecules, their interactions, and their contributions to the intricate steps in dance of life. Perhaps now being more aware of the world around, and world within, has brought the working of small molecules to the fore.

Take the grass in our front yard. One serving of fertilizer, and it turns from pale green to looking like a lush green carpet. All I am giving it is a 21-22-4 mix of Nitrogen-Phosphorous- Potassium (NPK) and with one serving, grass is all smiles.

Being a diabetic, I can see the fingerprints of what I eat at dinner on the blood sugar the next morning. A meal with a larger amount of carbohydrates, although so pleasing, comes back to haunt with higher level of blood sugar.

Take a small pill of medication, or some other mind-altering chemical, and like a magic potion the entire body reacts as if I have taken gobs of a chemical that are not part of my daily regimen. 

It is only now that I am beginning to realize that the biology of life is all made of chemical reactions. The proteins that genes create carry on the task that is assigned to them by shape determined by their molecular structure. Molecules act as messengers in every kind of process going on within my body and have magically allowed me to celebrate my 65th birthday which will be coming soon.

Now I am so much more cognizant of what my hands bring to my mouth. If I am not mindful, the hands are always singing the siren song that plays along the lines of - come my love, it is just one more honey glazed donut, how bad could it be when it feels like heavens above? And to those lyrical words, our hearts cave in.

Oh well. There is not much I can do about the youthful indulgences and fallacies of the past. But in the present, with new respect for chemistry and what it means for the cellular functions in my body, now we head out to organic food stores, and thankfully, have the financial wherewithal to be able to do that.

I now stay away from loading my plate with carbs – no rice, no pasta, and yes, no donuts, no fun. Well, not really. With creativity such food still tastes good.

Perhaps, I should also be more cognizant of what I am feeding the grass in the front yard. The 21-22-4 NPK mixture may ultimately turn out to be what donuts are to my body.

It is time to let go of my aversion to chemistry and learn the meaning behind you are what you eat or realize that meaning behind what Hippocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."

Ciao.