Magic of the Cuppa

When I was growing up in Britain, families were not as dependent on doctors, clinics and hospitals for their everyday health care as they are today. Self-help and self-medication were the standard way of treating all but the most serious illnesses. This meant using medi-cations widely advertised in newspapers and magazines, and stocked by chemists' and corner shops, that were more than likely equivalent to some of the traditional medicines used by Chinese families.

I particularly remember Dr. Doan's Backache Pills and Carter's Little Liver Pills, though I am not sure whether the latter were just tiny pills or only effective in patients with very small livers. The worst concoction was undoubtedly Dr. Fenning's Fever Cure, whose main characteristic was its unbelievably foul taste. It had the interesting effect of making you very loath to complain of illness, knowing that it might lead to a few doses of the stuff. Rather than swallow this so-called cure, children would take off for school suffering the sort of temperatures that today would have them in hospital, with antibiotics tubed into both arms.

Such nasties apart, there was one remedy universally used for almost any problem, be it physical or psychological  "a nice cup of tea", the legendary British "cuppa" (cup of tea), a cure-all which largely prevails to this day despite all the advances in medical science and pharmaceuticals.

Whether you had a mild headache, agonizing abdominal pain, were going into labor, having a heart attack, passing a kidney stone, or had just heard that your whole family had perished at sea, the scenario was the same. Those closest to you would rush to the kitchen, boil the kettle and give you the ultimate panacea of tea. This cuppa was usually made with more than the usual amount of tea so that it was strong and acidic, though it might be neutralized by a splash of milk and almost as much sugar as the laws of physics would allow to dissolve in a cupful of fluid.

Well-meaning though it was, this treatment had its drawbacks. If you needed emergency surgery, all the tea sploshing around in your stomach could cause problems. If you were having problems with high blood sugar, I hate to think what the effect of the extra amount in your cup would be. In most cases, however, I am sure the tea remedy was by-and-large beneficial. In those days in Britain, coffee was very much a special-event drink, and often regarded as a little pretentious.

Tea was consumed at every meal, and often between them. Some older ladies, living alone, were often known as "tea and toasters", for without encouragement to revise their eating habits, they would live entirely on those two staples. When I moved to Canada I noticed that the tea culture in homes there was about the same as in Britain. It was only when I went to live in the United States that I noticed the severe absence of tea. I mean real tea, not iced tea. Probably something to do with the Boston Tea Party.

Tea is not only used in the home. During summer vacations from school and university, I worked on construction sites. As the most junior member of the team I had the special duty of arriving at work 10 minutes before the rest of the crew, and making the tea deemed necessary before anyone would contemplate starting work.

This brew was known as "the bevy", shorthand for beverage, and for me quite an easy task. There was a large jar of the "black and white", a mixture of tea leaves, powdered milk and sugar. I had to put several spoonfuls of this into a large kettle, fill it with water, then let it come to the boil. The approach sounds unconventional, but it was not too different from ordinary tea-making. But it becomes strange at the point where I had to turn down the heat a little, and let the mixture simmer for several minutes. The result was a kind of industrial-strength caffeine-and-tannic acid that made our cheeks pucker and made visits to the dentist for teeth cleaning quite unnecessary.

Most of my on-site workmates had spent much of the previous evening at the pub, arriving at work hung over and dehydrated. A few cups of my health drink had them sober, revived and ready to get working. The effect however was temporary, and for the remainder of the day I had to keep adding more water and "black and white" to the kettle and keep it simmering non-stop. By the end of the shift, one could have used the kettle's contents to pave a driveway, or as waterproofing for a building's foundations. My colleagues never made a complaint. "Good bevy, kid," they would say. That, and my 30 pounds a week pay, made me very happy.

With this background I was both amazed and delighted to see a recent article in a reputable medical journal on the beneficial effects of drinking tea. A recent study has shown that in a group of patients, drinking tea seemed to have a protective effect on their hearts. Patients who drank tea the more the better, it seems had a lessened chance of heart attacks than those who didn't. Perhaps those little old ladies in nursing homes and my burly friends on the site were smarter than I gave then credit for.

I intend speaking to my medical colleagues at Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU) on the subject of tea. And after a gap of many years, if all goes to plan, I may once again add "making the bevy" to my list of duties.

* Dr. Michael J. Moreton is chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at BJU. He received his medical training at the University of Liverpool in England, and McGill University, Canada. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.