This tea is for drinking

There’s something about sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with a rug underneath you. Not the kind you buy from Marshall’s. The kind of rug that immigrates with you from a faraway land. A land of pottery and paint—tapestries and gold-rimmed glasses—cigars imported from Spain. A rug that followed you to Italy, then to the United States.

A Persian rug in Orange County holds stories, centuries-old dust, and hidden stains from the children who sheepishly spill tea.

There’s something about serving black tea on a tray full of matching glass cups. It’s the only way you can really compare their darkness and heat. The right shade of amber-brown. The color that makes them say, with a satirical-sarcastic grin: She’s perfected her tea; look at this young girl’s beautiful steep. Someone… come make her a wife!

This family worked hard, broke barriers, and overstepped boundaries so the youth that follow them won’t be trapped under the craze of a man. In this home, serving tea is a kind, familial gesture. In this home, making tea is not to showcase our womanly abilities; not to fulfill their weirdass fantasies.

This tea is for drinking.