Remembering Food at End of Heat: A Fond Reminiscence of Early Summer Afternoons

Now that End of Heat has arrived, I begin to recall the early summer season; even though the weather was not yet hot like a tiger bursting out of its cage,
it had already long since made people break into a sudden sweat under the blazing sun.
When I was little, Mom always loved to keep a big pitcher of refreshing cold drink in the fridge.
Only, it was not the cider, 7 Up or Coke Zero we know well today, but pitcher after pitcher of sometimes golden, sometimes greenish, and sometimes even colors so strange that even now I find them hard to compliment.
Of course, most of the time they leaned toward earthy tones.
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At this point, some people might think that Gai Xiaorui's mother could be a chemistry teacher or a pharmacist,
or else someone working in nutrition or a food-related industry?
Only then could she have concocted all those dazzlingly colorful, even gorgeously multicolored shades that made people stop in their tracks.

Actually that was not the case; our mother was just a traditional woman who kept to her duties. Perhaps she was not highly educated, but she worked hard to seek out famous remedies and family folk prescriptions, hoping that within limited financial means she could not only keep the whole family fed but also make them strong and healthy.
( Just look at how Gai Xiaorui is now hopelessly overnourished, and you can get a glimpse of my mother's efforts. )
Thus homemade drinks also appeared according to the changing seasons.

For example, when spring warmed and flowers bloomed, since allergies were common, she often used red date and goji berry tea, or home-ground whole-grain almond tea with bits and sediment from both northern and southern apricot kernels, to prevent and treat them;
when autumn yellowed the hills, there were chrysanthemum dew or job's tears dew to moisten the lungs and beautify the complexion;
when winter cold pierced the bones, there was red bean and dried tangerine peel soup to warm the body and nourish qi and blood.
All of the above, perhaps now it is uncertain whether they truly had such effects, but every drop came from a mother's love, and was precious beyond measure.
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Among the four seasons, what I liked most were the summer drinks.
Perhaps because times were hard then and supplies were scarce, young little brats like me often craved those frozen ice shards, and loved most to hold chunk after chunk of icy cold in our mouths until it forced a piercing headache,
( It seems the occasional migraines now are probably what I deserved. )
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Among all those dark green or deep brown drinks such as grass jelly tea and all sorts of other varieties, what I liked most were the two summer teas my mother brewed with her own hands:
freshly harvested Pingtung coconut kernel tea and Guanmiao pineapple black tea.
Some people may find this strange, (especially people from central or northern Taiwan, China?)

Besides both being sweet and rich, the two teas each had a special aroma. The freshly harvested coconut kernel tea carried a fragrance like the pure, refined scent of lotus flowers, entirely different from the rich, heady tropical charm of the pineapple black tea.
At first sip, neither tea may seem particularly special, but after these clear, golden, yellow-brown liquids slide down the throat, the taste buds naturally tell your brain:
something good has entered your body.
The coconut kernel tea, made by slowly simmering fresh coconut meat, somehow tasted surprisingly of lotus root tea,
that faint fragrance with a touch of mystery often made me, as a child, greedily want to forget about sharing and monopolize the entire large copper pot, howling at the sky and drinking it all in one gulp.
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And the flavor of that pineapple black tea was even more marvelous beyond words.
Speaking of eating pineapple as a child, the experience was actually not very good; either it was sour enough to kill, or it made your whole mouth feel unbearably prickly.
But truly, pineapple is a good thing; it not only contains high levels of enzymes, but also so much fiber that it can keep you running to the toilet and keep things smooth;
when pineapples were in abundance, our mother either used them to pickle pineapple douchi (SORRY, for the moment I cannot spell out the character for (douchi), and I am too lazy to look it up…)
or used them to make candied pineapple fruit strips or preserves.

Then, what about the core in the middle?
Surely you cannot just let this golden cylinder go to waste?
Naturally, it was used to boil with black tea, so that not only could waste be reused, but the fragrance of the black tea could also be raised to another extraordinary level.
Every time during the simmering process, the whole kitchen, and even the whole house, would be filled with this warm aroma.
"Fragrance is the deepest memory that can remain in a person's mind."
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As I write this, my nose seems to smell that passionate, rich scent again.
And I also remember those summer years, when I could always drink these little sweetnesses cooked by our mother's own hands.
This cup of pineapple black tea, reproduced this afternoon in the measure of memory, is for you whom I miss,
saying softly, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival.