Tea-coffee

Updated: Mar 15

Tea fragrant and strong, made from

Five different blends, in cotton bags or legendary

Stockings—tender, all-encompassing, gathering—

Brewed in hot water and poured into a teapot, its taste

Varying subtly with the time in water steeped.

Can that fine art be maintained? Pour the tea

Into a cup of coffee, will the aroma of one

Interfere with, wash out the other? Or will the other

Keep its flavour: foodstalls by the roadside

Streetwise and worldly from its daily stoves

Mixed with a dash of daily gossips and good sense,

Hard-working, a little sloppy . . . An indescribable taste.

Translated by Martha Cheung. This poem appeared in Foodscape, published by Original Photograph Club, 1997. © Betty YY Ng

Recent Posts