Nothing Without Us Too by Cait Gordon & Talia Johnson

Author:Cait Gordon & Talia Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Disability advocacy, disability, disabled, neurodivergent, autistic, Deaf, Blind, hard-of-hearing, visually impaired, mental illness, chronic illness, short story, anthology, fiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, romance, fantasy, literary fiction, paranormal, multi-genre, lived experience, CanLit, CripLit, own voices
Publisher: Renaissance Press
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

24 Things

You Never Needed to Know

that are Mostly About Tea

Anita Goveas

CN: Attitudes about and gaslighting of infertility disorders

The British public drink 165 million cups of tea a day or 60.2 billion a year, if “numbers so large they’re meaningless” is a good hook.

All teas come from the same plant. So, all those different looking leaves—black, green, white, oolong and pu-erh—come from the camellia sinensis, a sub-tropical evergreen plant native to Asia but now grown all over the world.

It’s 2 a.m., you have to get this article written by tomorrow or that’s your rent gone for the month, and you’re drowning in inane facts and empty words that won’t behave.

Globally, over 3 million tons of tea is produced every year, but are the people who read Heatwave Weekly interested in facts about the world?

Tea was first discovered in China by Shen Nung in 2737 BC, who used it as an antidote to poisonous herbs.

Tea is also the number one self-medication that random brow-furrowed, hushed-voiced aunties offer when you explain you’re not feeling well again.

It’s difficult to tell those aunties that even the strongest black tea brewed in a lovingly warmed pot won’t fix your ovaries, but this implies sex for some reason, and good Indian girls aren’t supposed to know about that.

Adding tea to milk originated because tea drinkers didn’t want to mess up their fancy porcelain. Milk was put into the cups first to take some of the heat out of the tea, so that priceless family heirloom cups wouldn’t crack. Probably not by the fancy tea drinkers, probably by whoever they paid to take care of the small inconveniences of life for them.

Meanwhile, when you’re single and newly freelance in the grand setting of Crystal Palace, you have to write your copy even when something is aching deep inside, and your body feels like a donkey has danced on your kidneys.

The oldest tea shrub in China is about 3,200 years old.

At least you know now you’re not going to shuffle off too early, so you’re supposed to be grateful that the lack of energy, the loss of hair from your head that seems to transfer to your chin, and the uncontrollable blood sugar is only polycystic ovaries and not something worse.

The myth about the origin of tea is that it was first discovered when the leaves from some tea bushes blew into the water that servants were boiling to purify it for the Emperor Shen Nong to drink, and he drank it anyway.

What they don’t tell you is why he didn’t notice he was drinking random bush water. Maybe he’d had a long day deciding the fate of people he didn’t even know. Maybe he liked the colour. Maybe he thought, I’ve reached the point where not much matters anyway.

Of all the pitches you’ve made since your coffee-soaked, nicotine-patched boss at The Hackney Chronicle took you to one side and explained that your combination of sick days and mood swings didn’t work in investigative journalism, this is not the one you thought would get anywhere.

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