Suntory’s bottled “Black Oolong Tea” is an institution, as well loved in China as in its native Japan. And here it is, refrigerated and available for purchase, in the UK.
Always the stingy skinflint, I resent paying three times the price when the main ingredient, water, is on tap and essentially free. But here it is. Nice to know.
I buy a packet of oolong leaves instead. This is an Asian supermarket in Cardiff. These stores are easier to find than ever, thanks to the steady stream of Chinese students in the UK’s cities. Brits can buy Northeast big-grain rice (branded “sushi rice” because English-speakers still favour Japanese connotations) and flagons of soy sauce.
It’s my daughter who points out the tea. I’ve brought enough green from China to meet my own summer needs, but she espies the bottled Suntory in the supermarket fridge. Like me, she’s fond of this drink; the unsweetened version, of course; and considers stocking-up.
Never mind the microplastics for now; it’s not necessary to pay import prices for a drink like this, I say.
I urge her to brew her own oolong tea from leaves, bottling and refrigerating it herself. She’s already tried it now, humoured her stingy dad; once anyway.
You see, unlike the rest of our family, my daughter isn’t just staying here for a month; my daughter is going to study in the local high school of a Welsh town barely even town-size. She’s going to live with my parents and take GCSEs. School uniform is already purchased. She looks very smart in it. Are we doing the right thing?
We’re enjoying a rare week of golden-hot days. Today this really does feel like a nice place to live. But there was a rainy day last week; rainy, windy and cold enough to give me the fear. In July. Is she going to have the resilience and resourcefulness to get through a year of grey days and saturated grey days?
This town is far from that Chinese supermarket and far from those urban Chinese students. She’ll be getting re-acquainted with her Welsh side.
But what about her hyper-consumption turbo-convenience side? And what about her first language and culture?
In my opinion, this tea from Fujian is pretty good. Its brown curled leaves brew up with a hint of the Japanese hojicha I mentioned here last year. It’s better than the stalwart “Sea Dyke” brand of Oolong I expected to find in the shop. It’s as good as the Tenren oolong tea I once received from a Taiwan friend. Consumption upgrade has arrived. No problems with the tea.
I’m full of admiration for her. She’s visibly growing each day we’re together.
Lots of us expats and halfpat families face these watershed decisions at some point. Continent-hedging necessitates choices. We’re going to miss living with this brave, suddenly-quite-grown-up teenager.
And, hopefully, this country is growing-up, too. There’ve been some changes. This sunlight-starved Atlantic island is never going to grow its own oolong leaves. Inflation is, presumably, here to stay. But this place means more to all of us than a mere backup, a mere education station. Let’s drink to hope.
