Billions of Chinese people have been doing this for thousands of years. That's what I told myself while the mixture boiled and bubbled steaming up my kitchen. As I stirred the brew, I fully expected an eye of newt to stare back at me. Maybe this is what inspired Shakespeare to write that famous witches -with -cauldron scene. Maybe Shakespeare too had a cough that just wouldn't go away.
After days on a diet of cherry Ricola, hot tea with honey and warm salt water, I gave up on all things Western. Chinese medicine here I come.
This was not completely unfamiliar territory. I lived in Korea for a while and had some success with herbal remedies. When I taught ESL, many Asian students offered to nurse me back to health with syrups -- usually dark brown and smelling like a clothes hamper -- they swore by.
At the herbalist's office there was the examining of the tongue, the taking of the pulse, the asking of the same questions as on a standard medical intake form. I left the shop with several small plastic bags of unfamiliar ingredients that would soon become tea. That and a box of small pills which read "Chinese Natural Herbal Concoction". Let's hear it for truth in advertising!
I recognized orange peels -- and that's where my intellectual skills ended leaving plenty of room for my imagination to take over. Several pieces looked like the ivory paint chips that fell from my bathroom ceiling last month. Others looked like used tongue depressors, mini-mothballs, tree bark and those little whirlybird seeds that fall from trees in the spring. I guessed that the brownish, raisin-like particles were reindeer testicles.
With sweeteners standing by ready to rescue sacrificed taste buds, I took a sip. Surprisingly, the tea was quite yummy. And -- now hear this Western medicine -- the next morning the cough was gone.
Yes, I'm concerned about Chinese imports like everyone else. Just don't mess with my miracle tea.
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