Tea and Sushi

Most of the time, when I don't like a food, that's the end of the story. I don't like it, I don't need it, I take any good-natured ribbing and shed it. Ew, no thank you, have it all for yourself.

However, there are a couple of things I have long wished I could enjoy.

Let's start with tea. Watching people drink tea is torture. They have an endless variety of flavors and the image of someone drinking that warm, gentle golden/red/green liquid while curled up under a blanket with a book nearby... it's just hard to surpass the relaxation and cozy of that image. True, I have hot mochas and chicory and hot chocolate and those offer some coziness. However, the flavor range always feels limited and coffee comes with an edge to it. Even decaf coffee doesn't mean NO caffeine, just less. Herbal teas can satisfy the cozy without any caffeine.

I've tried. Once I even approached tea-drinking scientifically, which mostly resulted in a spreadsheet of failures.

And sushi? I've worked my way up from only cucumber rolls and California rolls to just about all the cooked-fish rolls you could name. However, watching my husband down chunks of raw fish and exclaim with friends over the delicious, buttery texture of a good salmon toro, I can't help feeling like I'm missing out. Don't get me wrong, I have tried over the years, but every time I have recoiled from the texture of raw fish.

There's a lot that's about to happen in my life. We are one month out from flying to Japan and staying there for a year. And it may be silly, it may be trite, but I did say in my heart to God, "It would be really nice if I could enjoy raw sushi as my going away/arrival present." I may not have said, "and tea," but I think I'd been saying it enough over the years, because I was heard.

God has given me what I'd call a "Regional Shift Gift" before. For most of my life, I have been legitimately phobic of thunderstorms, diving for cover in the rare thunder-and-lightning storm that would hit Seattle or Los Angeles. However, when I moved to Houston, where thunderstorms are common and intense, it was gone. The fear, that is, not the thunderstorms.

I remember arriving in the middle of a downpour. I looked out at the flashing sky and thought how beautiful it was, and I was awed at the rolling thunder instead of terrified witless. I thought I'd have to do months of exposure therapy, but the shift was instantaneous, and to me that had all the fingerprints of a gift from God.

So, this time I explicitly asked Him.

Recently, I went out to a lovely place called the Tea Kettle Cafe with my Mom. I ordered hot chocolate because, as I said off-handedly, "I don't like tea."

The server paused, then turned to me and asked, "What specifically about tea don't you like?"

Serious deja vu. I'd been cured of a misapprehension that I hated wine just like this. So I explained that, to me, all tea tasted like hot leaf juice, barely more than lightly flavored water. She asked if she could brew me a cup, just to see if there's a chance I might like it. Suddenly hopeful, I accepted.

The blend was called Daydreamer (Earl Gray, passionfruit, lavender, hints of rose & bergamot). When I sipped it, I was amazed. I would absolutely finish a cup of this and have another, if I had any say in it.

"How did you do that?" I boggled at her. And then I found out the magic trick that solves my entire tea problem.

DOUBLE THE LOOSE LEAF. CRANK UP THE HONEY.

Per cup, I need twice the amount of loose leaf tea, brewed for at least four minutes, and when it comes to honey, I just have to open the floodgates.

I took home a packet of Daydreamer and resurrected a prior purchase of Hibiscus tea and brewed them under the new specifications. Both bowled me over with how good they were. Later I picked up Calm Your Apricots from that same cafe, and once again I was able to replicate the in-house taste at home.

I like tea.

I like tea.

I like tea.

I sat there in the Tea Kettle Cafe as I tried cup after cup of different flavors, so happy that I was almost crying. At thirty-five years old, I got my wish. I like tea.

Now, sushi. When I last went with Sergey to Japan in 2018, one of his great joys was sitting at small 8-seater sushi shops where the chef behind the counter was clearly a lifelong master. Sergey would eat the chef's artfully prepared work and tell me afterward it was incomparable to anything he'd ever had in the US.

The problem was, by and large, these particular places did not serve any cooked sushi. I would wander around outside, too anxious about taking up a seat as a non-paying person in a place that small.

Everyone eating sushi looks so satisfied, I thought. Sergey talks about how great it is. Raw fish is supposed to be good for you. Why can't I get past it?

I want to be able to sit with him in those small family shops, eating quality sushi from the masters who have done it their whole lives. Raw fish is such a big part of the food culture there, and I want to be a part of it.

The first step was months ago. I tried wagyuu nigiri at Kura Revolving Sushi bar. Since then, I have learned some locations do it better than others, but at the time I tried this barely seared piece of beef, it melted across my tongue. The next several times I went, I would watch out for the wagyuu and see if it was good that day or at that location. I learned to taste the difference in flavor and texture and to have a preference about it.

Then, I started trying the seared salmons (with mayo, with cream cheese, etc). They were mostly cooked, with only a little bit of raw to them, and they weren't half bad. Lox is way less cooked than this, and I love lox, I told myself.

The next step was seared garlic skipjack tuna and seared salmon toro. Only the edges were seared, the center was raw and oh. Oh yes. The garlic flavor, the buttery chewy textures! Suddenly I understood when people told me how there's a different "bite" to the different kinds of fish. It feels different between the teeth and over the tongue from tuna to salmon.

And finally, garlic ponzu salmon. It was completely raw with only ponzu sauce and green onion on top. It was glorious. I sat with my eyes closed, savoring, as my friend exclaimed and pointed at my bliss face.

I like sushi. I like raw sushi.

Not all raw sushi. Right now, the nigiris without sauce or garlic don't really do anything for me, but even then I am no longer revolted by the texture.

I hear angry questions in my head, crowding around my claim that this was a gift from God. How do you know it wasn't just you? Adjusting your taste? Timing's awfully funny. It's not impossible that it was just me, but as I see it, it's just as likely he led me to the right lady who knew what I needed to like tea, and helped me shift just enough to adapt to the sushi around this time.

Why this? Why you? Why this pointless thing when there is (extreme suffering here)? An old, bitter comedy song about thanking God for healed cataracts when there are children starving in Africa comes to mind.

I don't have answers for all of it. I do know that giving me sushi and tea does not diminish His ability to give good gifts to other people. It isn't a zero sum game, where gifts given to me diminish some limited pile. His attention isn't so consumed by me that he forgets someone else who is suffering a great deal. That's how we limited humans work, but not Him.

I know that He loves me. Like, me, specifically and in particular, with my wants and desires and foibles that need work. He doesn't give me everything I ask for, but I have seen Him give me many small, good gifts that bring me delight. And now, I get to go to Japan--the land of tea and raw fish--able to enjoy tea and raw fish.

And it makes me want to dance.