Yep, you read that right. Today’s blog post is on something totally bizarre.
To give you a little bit of backstory on how this thought plagued my mind: I was driving to fetch my mom from work. During the 10-minute drive there, I was blasting my pop-punk-divorced-dad ahh playlist when Thnks fr th Mmrs by Fall Out Boy started playing. The lyrics “He tastes like you, only sweeter” caught my attention, then I got to thinking about people with synesthesia. That thought spiralled into “What would my name taste like?” and here we are.
Okay, so here’s what I think.
When I close my eyes and try to “synthesise” the taste of my name, I think Anushiya would taste like that one drink from Old Town White Coffee. The iced honey lemon ginger tea with grass jelly.
Other than the fact that that specific drink is one of my absolute favourite drinks ever, I have a few reasons for thinking this.
It’s an acquired taste.
If I had 1 sen for every time people mispronounce or misspell my name, I’d be able to afford a month-long trip to Europe. Yeah, my parents could have given me the typical variant of my name (Anusha) or something easier like Priya or Divya. But since they were trying something ✨quirky✨, I got stuck with this name.
Ginger in itself is an acquired taste. A lot of people I know can’t stand it. Personally, I love it, but I get that not everyone would be comfortable with the way it tastes. The same goes for people’s perception of my name. I understand when people get shifty at the sight of my name, often trying to shorten it to “Anu” (which I never go by)*. Like I said, it’s an acquired taste, one that even I took some time warming up to.
*I don’t think that I fit the nickname Anu (or any other nickname tbh) because it just doesn’t sound like me to me.
It’s exotic.
When I attended Japanese classes, my teacher thought that I had a Japanese sounding name. It was quite easy learning to write my name. Whenever people hear my name, they seem to think I’m somewhat exotic (I have had people actually tell me that). I guess it’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I have my dad to thank for customising my name.
Likewise, the mixture of ginger tea, lemon, and grass jelly slices make the drink somewhat exotic. I don’t think we can get cincau anywhere other than Southeast Asia. But I could be wrong. The yellow colour of the beverage also gives it an exotic flair.
It’s full of flavour (just like me).
My name uses 3 out of the 5 vowels (a, i, u) and makes distinct sounds at every syllable. If I were to picture someone “eating” words, I feel like the more the mouth movement involved, the tastier the word or sentence is. With 8 words, 4 syllables, and a rhythmic sound to it, I think my name would be delicious.
Okay, this is an unbiased opinion. The combination of tea, honey, lemon, ginger, and grass jelly really marries a range of flavours together. Love it or hate it, you have to admit that. And that’s exactly how I see my name too.
So these are a few reasons why I’d say that my name would taste like iced honey lemon ginger tea with grass jelly, specifically the one from Old Town White Coffee. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to the nearest Old Town.