Red Bush Tea

I was visiting a minister of the gospel not so long back when he passed me a cup of tea. “You’ll like it”, said he, “it comes all the way from South Africa and is called Red Bush.”

The first mouthful was truly foul. I believe in the perseverance of the saints, so I drank a little more. Equally foul it was, noxious, even. I wondered if he was not playing a trick upon me, and was giving me the boiled contents of an ash tray.

Red Bush ("Rid Bosh") tea, like other South African imports, is dry and overbearing. I have not eaten fag ash before, but if ever I did, this is what it would taste like. I could not finish the accursed cup and handed it back, vowing to never let such horrid liquid touch my lips again. I even requested water that I might wash away the residue of its taste. It makes Green Tea the very elixir of life by comparison. Interestingly, Colin Berry argues in the Encyclopedia of Entomology that the aspalathus linearis plant from which Red Bush tea derives is pollinated by wasps rather than bees, which figures well.

Psalm 113:7 declares:

He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap.

Ashes were a symbol of mourning and woe in the ancient world, and were tipped over the head when one wished to express deepest grief. Ash is yesterday’s fuel, spent and worthless; it is grubby and dirty, bespoiling all with which it comes into contact. There will be no Red Bush Tea in heaven, I trust, and certainly no grief, pain, mourning or ashes.