In the second of my tea series, I explore the presence and power of tea in the private realm of the home. Again, having only had limited exposure to these sorts of things, I'm putting in a disclaimer that some of the following may be somewhat inaccurate.
I must admit that despite not being a tea drinker, and the roomie not really being a tea drinker, I have tea in my home. Not only do I have tea, but alongside my cute little strawberry canisters labeled 'coffee' and 'sugar' there is one called 'tea'. Needless to say, it is the one never used, but still it is filled with tea. Apparently you get deported if you don't have tea on hand in case of emergencies. Now, I must admit I don't know what kind of tea fills up the little canister. It used to be Asda brand, but that apparently has been replaced by something fresher, I just don't know what.
So I suppose before delving into the serving of tea at home, I'll discuss the buying of the tea. Much like we have an aisle devoted to salad dressing, the English grocery store has a tea section. While the US grocery store would also have such a section, it seems primarily to be of this size to fit on a maximum number of obscurely flavored teas. While there are still plenty of varieties on offer here, the size of the area seems to be to allow bigger and bigger boxes of tea. The bottom shelf is often of double height and stacked with boxes containing 100 tea bags. It's one of the few products at the grocery store that you can genuinely buy in bulk.
To be honest, I don't know what flavor the generic English tea is. I don't know if it's what we call English breakfast, Earl Grey, Lady Grey or any of that stuff. It's just called tea. And aside from PG tips, which I can easily believe to be England's most popular tea because it's everywhere (I sit next to the filing area, on top of the cabinets one of the storage boxes is a disused PG tips box, it once contained '2 x 1150 one pyramid catering tea bags', whatever that means), you often see a lot of grocery store branded tea bags (hence my old Asda ones). Again, the boxes just say it's tea, so I guess you just sort of roll with it. And it is also very cheap. Although it must be if the people are drinking it like water.
One of my primary failings as a hostess in this land (at least in my mind) is that I have never offered anyone any tea. I offer water, beer, wine, lemonade and all that racket, but never any tea. One time I did manage to have a bit of an epiphany and offered Mark a cup of tea, but it went wrong when I realized I not only didn't really know what I was doing but the tea had apparently passed it's ideal freshness date. After that the Asda tea was retired. So to date, as that cup was not fully consumed, I believe only one glass of tea has been consumed in my house, and that was by Mark's mom. Excuse me, his 'mum'. And having heard of our tea shortcomings, she bought the tea beforehand.
As a guest in the homes of others, I have been offered tea on numerous occasions and occasionally accepted. Again, I never really know what goes on in the making of this tea, but it always comes out tasting and looking the same. It's got the same subtle flavor, and is of what I consider to by an orange-tinted milky brown color. It is the orange tint that makes it recognizable as not being coffee. Again it has sugar in it, but nobody seems to have sugar cubes around (nor are there any in my office), it's just the regular loose variety. I've heard rumors of people who drink tea constantly while at home, where the roommate circle assures that someone is always making some and offering it up to the others. It's something.
The one last component of the home tea experience that I find rather bizarre is the electric kettle. Much like here at work, people don't seem to heat their water up with a regular kettle on the stove. The electric kettle is a standard issue appliance, and it somehow manages to heat your water up much quicker. This can be key when drinking tea like the gallon, but you can then also use it when heating up water for cooking purposes. There is one on my counter right now. And sometimes, I use. But then sometimes I just like to heat up my noodle water the old-fashioned way.
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7 comments:
i would totally admit that i am not a big tea fan and only drink it when offered and really when that happens i only accept to be polite.
it is also true that when people come round it is normal pratice to offer a cup of tea
there are times when a cup of tea is amazing though especially with a digestive biscuit that you dunk in the tea!
basically there have been times in the past when i have been court short without tea to offer and the so called guests go out to buy the tea - hence the tea in the kitchen (although this failed when my mum stayed and had to go out to buy more due to a freshness problem!)
So is the tea usually in bags or in bulk? At work, is each cup made individually? From a tea bag? It seems that it would be efficient to have big pots of tea already made up, like we do with coffee, to save time.
I used to drink only tea, starting when I was about 6 years old, and didn't start drinking coffee until Starbucks started up when I was in my late 30s, and now I only drink GOOD decaf coffee, though I should go back to tea, too, because it is good for you!
The tea is in bags both at home and at work, and each cup is made individually. I'm sure if we were fancier we'd have loose tea at the house but again it's not like we actually drink it!
When I worked in Italy the company used to get English tea shipped over because the Italians don’t do tea very well - like it was similar to drinking hot water! They then gave it to the local bars and restaurants they had contracts with free of charge just so they could get a good cup of tea – bizarre I know! (yes they did then pay for the tea!)
Most teas come in tea bags and these look different. Like pg tips have pyramid (3D) tea bags so the tea can move around etc etc! all just gimmicks!!!
The different flavours are exactly the same as the various coffees you can get - like this morning we were on peets french roast coffee. Most people though just have the generic stuff.
I own an electric kettle. Do more to old-timers disease than anything else. Even if my stove-top has a whistle I'm likely to put on a kettle then become distracted by something shiny and walk away. After melting a couple of stove top kettles I bought the faster-acting (less time to become distracted!) auto-shutoff electric kettle.
I've always thought that offering a "cup o' tea" with the cutesy little lilt was a way to sort of calm things down or make someone feel at ease. For instance, you might see it used in a movie when somebody is agitated or hostile and someone offers them a "cup o' tea", in which case it tends to sound very soothing.
And, yes; count me as a Yorkshire tea fan. Not that I'm a connisseur (there's one of those French words) of teas, but it is my favorite. What Yorkshire has to do with tea, I'll never figure out, though. I doubt there are a lot of tea plantations up that way.
The PG Tips pyramid is nice because it has a leaves an air pocket at the top, so the bag floats and is easier to remove when it's done.
World Cup Coffee and Tea here in Portland serves its tea loose leaf in a french press, so you can just press it down when it's at your desired done-ness.
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