Cocoa Tea

[ Roud - ; trad.]

Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne sang Cocoa Tea on his 2024 album of English Folk Song in the Caribbean and Black America, Play Up the Music!. He noted:

One of the best-loved songs from Barbados, and another contribution from Marshall, McGeary and Thompson’s Folk Songs of Barbados. The compilers speculate that the song may come from the late 1800s or early 1900s and add that while the story expanded in this song is probably not true, stories of love potions and poisoning are common in Bajan folklore.

Lyrics

Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne sings Cocoa Tea

I was once engaged to a lady,
Her love was all for me.
No matter the distance she did live
It was no trouble to me.
But another girl she did love me
She took me away from she,
And the only thing that bring me back
Was a cup of that cocoa tea.

Chorus (after each verse):
That cocoa tea is a poison to me,
Every time I drink it,
I don’t know where I’ll be.
And if you want to find me
You gotta look for me,
For she got my head upsided-down
With a cup of that cocoa tea.

So then I went to the doctor
To see what’s the matter with me,
He had me well-examined
And then he said to me,
“Did you ever live with a woman?
My man, never hide it from me,
For the woman had a mixture made up
And called it cocoa tea.”

“So then, my dear good doctor,
No good can become of me?”
“Why did you keep so far away
And didn’t come to me?
In the end you’ll reach the graveyard,
Prepare what the hour it’ll be.
So give all men the caution:
Beware of cocoa tea.”