Always Read the Label

November 22, 2011

After a night of restless sleep, I got up at 6:40am in hopes to catch the 7:47AM bus so I could stop at the ATM in Portswood. Unfortunately there is a high correlation for me in the hours of sleep experienced vs. time it takes me to get ready in the morning. Missing the 7:47AM bus, I ended up getting the next bus that got me to class early, though I wasn’t able to stop in Portswood.

On the way back from lectures my plans consisted on getting some money from the ATM since I didn’t this morning, making myself a cup of tea, and getting some work done. Getting off the bus in Portswood, I discovered that the ATM machine was out of order, I guess it was for the best that I had missed the earlier bus, otherwise I would have been stuck there for 10 minutes without anything to do. Being the afternoon though, I was able to look through some of the shops as I waited for the next U6H to arrive, in the meantime getting some Christmas shopping done. 

Back in my flat, I was ready to make a cup of some new tea that I was looking forward to try. 

Last week I had stopped at an oriental grocery store on my way back from the library and spotted a box of chrysanthemum tea! At least I thought it was chrysanthemum tea, but it was hard to tell since the little paper indicating the item on the shelves was not really legible. The box itself was labeled: “Fitnè, Herbal Infusion”. Going on the error of optimism I decided it must be chrysanthemum tea. I was thrilled because I have been on the lookout for it since I discovered chrysanthemum tea at a phở restaurant that I went to last spring.

At the register, I asked the girl at the counter if the tea was chrysanthemum tea or something different. The poor girl tried to tell me what it was but her English wasn’t so good. She said that it was a ‘health’ tea, a ‘diet’ tea, and then asked if I still wanted to buy it. Figuring that it was something like ‘diet’ as in ‘diet coke’, I thought as long as it tastes good how bad could this herbal tea be? My response was something along the lines of “Sure! I don’t mind giving it a try”. Then the girl asked me again, ‘are you really sure? It is for fitness; diet tea’. I was trying to figure out why she was making such a big deal over a tea that could improve your health. ‘Yes, I am sure’, I replied. 

The box has since sat in my cupboard being a mystery to me. The fact that she looked almost desperate when she was explaining what it was made me both tempted to try it as well as question what was in it. 

Putting a pot of water on the stove, I inspected the box. There was little to no description of what the tea was though it was in six or eight different languages. What information that I drew from it was that you are supposed to only have one cup of tea a day, two cups maximum. Maximum cups of tea? I never heard of there being a maximum for how many cups of tea you can enjoy in the day! The other thing I read was that it contains some ingredient called senna, and it had that word again on the side of the box in tiny print sennosides.

The water was starting to steam, but I hesitated to insert the herbal teabag. The clerk’s reaction for some weird reason came into my mind. I ran to my room and googled ‘sennosides’ and up came a description: “Sennosides are hydroxyanthracene glycosides derived from Senna leaves. They have been used as natural, safe time-tested laxatives in traditional as well as modern systems of medicine”. Right below that was, “USE OF SENNA/SENNOSIDES AS LAXATIVE. How much is usually taken? It's best to follow the instructions on the label of over-the-counter senna products. ...”.  

Laxative?!?!?! Whoa, that is not what I had in mind!

No wonder the clerk was so insistent on making sure that I knew what she meant.

I quickly switched for the traditional black tea; poured in a little bit of milk, plopped the tea bag in, and poured near boiling water into my brightly colored mug. Et Voila, the perfect cup of tea without the use of laxatives!

Lesson learned: when a clerk is explaining what something is and almost seems like they don’t want to sell it to you, listen to the clerk and question the ingredients or you’ll be in for a surprise.