Chugging beer is a skill I’ve never acquired; I’m not any good at doing shots either. I would have been better off improving these skills than chewing my fingernails off studying for exams.
Choking down the Chinese herbal tea formula — animal parts, twigs and all — that my acupuncturist devised is now part of my routine. The full grocery bag that I brought home yesterday held a week’s worth of herbs in seven bulging lunch sacks.
Coupled with D’s warnings about the tea’s vile taste — in China the saying is that if a tea tastes good, the formula isn’t good — and the potential of vomiting, the smell the bag emitted was ominous. Even better, it takes an hour to cook and I have to drink it after dinner, but three hours before bed. Mmm, we ate a tasty dinner with the odoriferous concoction simmering on the stove.
The recipe takes four and a half cups of water and is supposed to cook down to one cup; I wound up with two. Afraid that I would change the tea’s potency if I let it reduce to a single cup, I reluctantly took on the challenge.
Even without a chorus of frat boys cheering me on, I drank it all. It was truly awful but not as gross as I expected. Until I hit the bottom where all the sludge accumulated. Still, no vomiting and no horrendous aftertaste (unlike beer).
I see D again today (my insurance covers 45 acupuncture visits a year, so I’m going to cram in as many as I can). I hope he can impart the secret to making only one cup; I don’t think I can repeat last night’s feat.