Friendship Tea Mix

The first week of August, and Carrie's senior year begins. She left the house on Monday morning in her Ashley Hall uniform for the last first day of high school, and the last-ness of it was in the air like perfume — present, noticed, impossible to ignore. She did not look back when she walked to the car. She does not look back. She is Carrie. She walks forward. And the forward-walking is the quality I admire most and fear most, because forward means away, and away means gone, and gone means I will stand in this kitchen and miss her the way I miss everyone who has left: with my hands in dough and my heart in my throat.

James started his sophomore year at College of Charleston with the confidence of a returning student — the campus is known, the routines are established, the library has been mapped and claimed. He is taking constitutional law this semester, and the prospect of studying the Constitution with the rigor of an academic after spending a summer watching the law in practice has him energized in a way I recognize: the energy of a person who has found the thing they were made to do.

Mama was lucid on Wednesday. She woke up clear, came to the kitchen, and made grits without prompting. She looked at me and said, "Naomi, when did my hair get so white?" The question was innocent and devastating — she does not remember the whitening, the aging, the years that turned her hair from black to silver to white. She remembers herself as younger, and the mirror surprised her, and the surprise was the cruelest thing the disease has done this week: it stole not just her memories but her sense of her own time, leaving her stranded in a present she cannot recognize because it does not match the internal calendar that tells her she is forty, or fifty, or any age but seventy-six.

I said, "You look beautiful, Mama." And she did. White hair, pearl earrings, the blue robe she wears in the mornings. She looked beautiful the way old things look beautiful: with the accumulated grace of survival, with the quiet authority of a thing that has lasted.

I made Mama's cheese straws — the Southern cocktail staple, sharp cheddar and cayenne rolled thin and baked crisp. The straws are a party food, and there is no party, but I made them because Mama asked — she saw the cheddar on the counter and said, "Cheese straws," and the two words were a complete sentence and a complete recipe and a complete world, and I made them because saying yes to Mama's requests is the most important thing I do.

Mama’s cheese straws were barely out of the oven when she looked at me and said she wanted something warm to drink — and I knew before she finished the sentence that she meant the tea, the one she has kept in a jar on the second shelf since before I was born. Friendship Tea Mix is what she called it, what her mother called it, what every woman in our family has called it: a thing you make in a big batch and give away, a thing that tastes like cinnamon and orange and the particular sweetness of a kitchen where someone is home and the door is open. I made a fresh jar while she sat at the table in her blue robe, and the making of it felt like the most natural thing in the world — the right thing, after the grits and the cheese straws and the white hair and the question about the mirror, to say yes one more time.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 40 (about 40 cups, 1 heaping tablespoon per serving)

Ingredients

2 cups orange-flavored drink mix (such as Tang)
1 cup instant sweetened lemonade mix
1/2 cup unsweetened instant tea powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (optional)

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the orange drink mix, lemonade mix, instant tea powder, and granulated sugar until evenly blended with no clumps remaining.
Add spices. Sprinkle in the cinnamon, cloves, and allspice if using. Whisk again until the spices are fully incorporated and the mixture is uniform in color and texture.
Store. Transfer the mix to a clean, airtight jar or container. It will keep at room temperature for up to 3 months. Label the jar with the date and serving instructions if giving as a gift.
To serve. Stir 1 heaping tablespoon of mix into 8 ounces of hot water until fully dissolved. Taste and adjust with an extra pinch of mix if you prefer it sweeter or more citrusy. Serve immediately.
To give as a gift. Spoon into a quart-sized mason jar, tie with a ribbon, and attach a card with the serving instructions. This recipe fills one standard quart jar generously.

Nutrition (per serving)

Friendship Tea Mix — The Jar on Mama’s Shelf