Afternoon tea: a British view
 

Note the tone of surprise (i.e., posh afternoon tea isn't really one of our regular habits):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/ar...812864,00.html

and how to make it yourself:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1812757,00.html

Please, Americans, if you want to make tea, read the bit where they tell you how to do it. I would add the basic rule "take the pot to the kettle and not the kettle to the pot"
I remember somebody on this forum saying that she could easily make tea because she had constant hot running water :-)
I assume that she didn't have constant boiling water

As a great fan of Starbucks I was distressed to come upon these words: "...the Americans have successfully McDonald-ised and infantilised coffee. It is not really coffee any more. It is globally franchised cod-bohemianism in the form of hot, coffee-flavoured milkshake, fed to us in obscene measures in cartons meant for fizzy drinks."

How bloody cruel.

Good grief, Patrick ! Thanks for sharing that with us.

Afternoon tea at "11.30am, 1.30pm, 3.30pm, 5.30pm... 7.30pm" !?!

The 'how to' instructions are a bit misleading : "fill the pot up" only works if you're using exactly the right size pot for the number of cups required - but I supposed that's taken as given ? :-)

Don't you love Hoppy ?

I loved that "hot, coffee-flavoured milkshake" :-)

>"fill the pot up" only works if you're using exactly the right size pot for the number of cups required<

In my house, the number of cups required (and drunk) is a function of the size of the pot (and any supplementary topping up with hot water) rather than the other way around!

I don't see any reason for the Guardian to get all uppity about coffee, or Starbucks for that matter: I can understand Italians or Viennese bemoaning the march of the coffee-shop multinationals. But Britain?? This was the land of Nescafe and (gag) Mellow Birds until all of twenty five minutes ago.

Ah, but it was BRITISH rubbish, Preternat. And you are rather thinking of fifty years ago, rather than twenty-five minutes.

Patrick, you can still get plenty of rubbish coffee in the UK, I've been served it often enough in the last two years; I prefer going to a Costa Coffee if I'm not at a place where I know the coffee is decent. At least at Costa, I know what I'll be getting. Preternat is right, the Guardian writer was in a snit for no good reason. Except, of course, to preserve street cred with his mates by making the de rigeur snide comment about Starbucks/Americans/McDonalds.

Also, MissPrism, some homes DO have separate instant hot water taps that can deliver boiling water, or near to, on demand.

One of the reasons I prefer Starbucks over over chains is that they seem to be the only one that actually do a proper cup of filter coffee. All the others just add hot water to a shot of espresso and call it an "Americano" - watery and bitter and most unsatisfying! Favourite London coffee shop: Monmouth Coffee Company on Monmouth St.

Thanks for that Patrick - I had a really good chuckle! Just yesterday I was mooching around Liberty on my lunchbreak and noticed that their tea-room, all dark and cosy, was almost empty. Perused the menu - full tea is about £16. Ok, it's not the Ritz or Claridges but I'm sure they do a nice scone. Although I am Canadian, living in London, I was brought up in a strict British tea-drinking family. So the rituals are still very well known to me but I STILL refuse to make anyone tea in the office here. How easy it is to mess up a cup of tea! And every Brit has their own way of taking it. I've been educated in the ways of everything from "gnat's piss" to "builder's tea" - I end up with shaking hand at the thought of someone hating the tea I've just made for them. So much harder to make a good cup of tea than a good cup of coffee. Forget it. Even tho my parents (Welsh) have been drinking teabag tea for years, they still leave a little bit of liquid at the bottom of the cup. When I was about 17, I asked why they did this. The answer was because in the old days of loose tea leaves, you would inevitably end up with some at the bottom of your cup - you wouldn't want your last gulp to be full of leaves! And my dad once told me - over a cream tea, of course - that the last bit of scone was always the best because you probably overcompensated on the cream and jam so you would have lots for the last bite!

Patrick, I know what you mean. But the instructions described putting in one spoonful of tea pp etc - but then just said fill the pot with water ! So if you had a massive pot but only wanted 2 cups of tea - you'd carefully measure the tea - and then just fill the pot with water !

BTW I've always understood it should be 1 tsp pp + 1 for the pot, not dsp. Obviously depends on personal taste & the strength of the tea you're using, anyway - likewise how long you leave it to brew for.

Also, MissPrism, some homes DO have separate instant hot water taps that can deliver boiling water, or near to, on demand.

"Or near to" is the word.
To make a decent cuppa, you boil the water in a kettle and get a good rolling boil.

Ah yes, Caroline, I should have read the article more thoroughly. As a devotee of trot-a-mouse/builder's tea myself, I would have to agree on that point.

Does anyone else remember "strangers" in the tea-leaves, and working out when one would come to call? And "reading the cup" (I can't help thinking the Ritz might be missing a trick by not employing a mysterious old lady to come round and tell their customer's fortunes)?

When I was in my green and salad days, I sat for hours with my friends in coffee bars. They were very big in the 50s.
I can still remember the hissing of the machine.
I seem to remember that they always served cappucino although I suppose that you could get espresso if you wanted it.

Also, don't forget that we English and coffee go back centuries.
Lloyds of london started as a coffee house.

(I can't help thinking the Ritz might be missing a trick by not employing a mysterious old lady to come round and tell their customer's fortunes)?

Now that is an idea!
I actually have an antique fortune-telling teacup with little pictures of playing cards. I suppose that you read your fortune by where the leaves settled.
Unfortunately, I haven't got the key to it.

I must be one of the few people in the world never to have entered a Starbucks not even for a "Starbucks Slash".
I have sometimes had a "McPiddle" though.

In light of all these don't-the-barbarians know-about-boiling-water remarks, Americans might respond that the Boston tea party certainly came about as the result of something boiling.

:)

<< Americans might respond that the Boston tea party certainly came about as the result of something boiling. >>

More to do with a bunch of crooks upset at losing their smuggling trade

<<More to do with a bunch of crooks upset at losing their smuggling trade>>

Indeed! As Niall Ferguson has noted, this was one of the rare instances of rioting over the government actually lowering taxes.

35 GBP pp.

Now that's High Tea.

((I))

And while we're at it, "Americano" is a fairly recent concept in largely Italian coffee places. Not to mention the teeth-gratingly time-wasting queue for cappuccinos when all I want is a plain black coffee...

Having been brought up in the 50s and 60s on percolator coffee (no-one seems to do that any more - too messy I suppose), I can remember being surprised at how weak the coffee was in diners and such like on my first visit to the US in the 1980s. And as for the French domestic habit of re-boiling last night's leftover coffee for the breakfast café au lait....

Hi NO,

>I was distressed to come upon these words: "...the Americans have successfully McDonald-ised ..."
How bloody cruel.<

But, unfortunately, true.

We've done the same thing to saloons - chocolate Martinis!!!

((I))

> suppose that you read your fortune by where the leaves settled.
Unfortunately, I haven't got the key to it.<

Shame on you MissPrism! A lady who wrote a three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality should surely realise <whisper> - you make it up!

Diner coffee was (and it) usually weaker than coffee house places because people were/are used to drinking several cups (free refills). Had you gone to the real coffee shops of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia (south Philly in particular), New York, etc., you would have been served excellent coffee at "normal" strength--and then some.

Yes, percolators are now museum pieces.
I have been through upteen ways of making coffee, pouring water onto grounds in a coffee pot as a student, stove-top and electric percolators, an elaborate contraption with a glass jug and globe thingy (each item was replaced at least twice), electric filter coffee.
I now have an espresso machine and a caffetiere. I suppose that I have returned to the beginning.

Patrick
LOL

f Paul Revere galloped about shouting "The British are coming", I'm a monkey's aunt.
The Union between Scotland and England happened in (1 think) 1707.
I bet that no Englishman or Scotsman or colonist would have described himself as British in the late 18th century.

Ira, I'm afraid I do like chocolate martinis - to the extent of having bought white creme de cacao to make them at home !

But I do like pints of beer too, so perhaps that makes it OK ? :-)

MissPrism, here is a link that has scans of pages of the book that came with one design of fortune telling teacup:
http://www.worldoftarot.com/teacup.htm

This pesky site is playing up again!

Talking about Boston Tea Parties and all that, may I semi-revert to an earlier thread.
If Paul Revere galloped about shouting "The British are coming", I'm a monkey's aunt.
The Union between Scotland and England happened in (1 think) 1707.
I bet that no Englishman or Scotsman or colonist would have described himself as British in the late 18th century.

noe847

That's not the one, but what an interesting website

Hi CE,

>Ira, I'm afraid I do like chocolate martinis - to the extent of having bought white creme de cacao to make them at home !<

As long as you are mixing your creme de cacao with vodka, you are safe from the wrath of Bacchus, but PLEASE don't call it a Martini.

You might wish to look up recipes for Black Russian, White Russian, Brandy Alexander, Grasshopper, etc.

((I))

"safe from the wrath of Bacchus" :-)

Should have said I do like proper martinis too ! Having problems with an over-active freezer freezing my vodka & gin solid, though.

Had excellent Negronis everywhere in Naples & Ischia recently.

MissPrism, we are wandering off the point here, but actually there was a conscious attempt throughout the 18th century to create a "British" identity: remember "Rule Britannia"?

But since this particular bit of shouting was done in a poem written long after Paul Revere lived, you might be right. And lo and behold the Wondernet confirms:
http://www.paulreverehouse.org/ride/real.shtml

This seems like the right moment to mention the "nice cup of tea and a sit down" website: http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/

Fun browsing -- and some true devotees of tea and biscuits... :-)

Oh, and I just have to ask: What on earth is "cod-bohemianism"?? Is it just a bit of hip-media-speak?

Miss Prism, while it is completely off-topic, you are correct that the parliamentary union occurred in 1707. However, the term "Great Britain" began in 1603 when James VI of Scotland took over the throne of England upon the death of Elizabeth, becoming James I of Great Britain.

SB, "cod" = imitation or pretend - in this case, the notion that Starbucks is still part of the hip, alternative, Café Nervosa world.

Putdowns of Starbucks and its imitators are so common now, cliches themselves, that to continue to do so in article supposedly about tea makes the writer as much a "cod bohemian" as anyone.