Tea Time

Earlier this month, slate.com posted a piece by Christopher Hitchens on tea (actually he was commenting on Yoko Ono’s tribute to her husband, in which she recalled that they often made tea together).

“Just after World War II, during a period of acute food rationing in England, George Orwell wrote an article on the making of a decent cup of tea that insisted on the observing of 11 different "golden" rules.  Some of these (always use Indian or Ceylonese – i.e., Sri Lankan – tea; make tea only in small quantities; avoid silverware pots) may be considered optional or outmoded.  But the essential ones are easily committed to memory, and they are simple to put into practice.

“If you use a pot at all, make sure it is pre-warmed.  (I would add that you should do the same thing even if you are only using a cup or a mug.)  Stir the tea before letting it steep.  But this above all:  "[O]ne should take the teapot to the kettle, and not the other way about.  The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours."  This isn't hard to do, even if you are using electricity rather than gas, once you have brought all the makings to the same scene of operations right next to the kettle.

“It's not quite over yet.  If you use milk, use the least creamy type or the tea will acquire a sickly taste.  And do not put the milk in the cup first – family feuds have lasted generations over this – because you will almost certainly put in too much.  Add it later, and be very careful when you pour.  Finally, a decent cylindrical mug will preserve the needful heat and flavor for longer than will a shallow and wide-mouthed – how often those attributes seem to go together – teacup.  Orwell thought that sugar overwhelmed the taste, but brown sugar or honey are, I believe, permissible and sometimes necessary.”

This brought back warm memories of my very early years when my parents had tea umpteen times a day (Dad was English; Mum, Canadian. And we had lived in Columbo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the late ‘30s. Dad being an early riser would bring Mum her cup first thing in the morning, in bed. As I recall tea was drunk mid-morning, for lunch, late afternoon before a pre-dinner sherry, in the evening before bed. The tea pot was always pre-warmed, loose tea used (Orange Pecoe and Pecoe, from Ceylon, naturally) - - tea-bags were never tolerated, steeped just so long with a tea-cosy keeping the pot warm, strained, just the right amount of milk and sugar added, thank you. To make a good cuppa was an art.

Many years later, in the hills of Korea while attached to a British Army unit, at a break a large can (someone in the section always had a beat up rather grubby one tied to his small pack) would appear, water brought to boiling, a handful of tea thrown in, a bit more of a boil, then off the fire and a dash of cold water thrown in to settle the leaves, and you had your tea.

Actually, I never liked tea.