For proper tea, I managed to wean my English girlfriend from her PG Tips and switched her to (American Blender) Harney & Son's loose leaf teas. Now "Eight at the Fort" is served for tea time at our house.

Great tea at tea shops - popping up all over the US.

Does anyone remember travelling British Rail in the 50s ? When the puffa train stopped you could hop off into the station buffet, grab a cuppa and take it back on the train, that is if the train was still there. This tea was always in thick white cups which were ubiquitous the length and breadth of the UK rail network. I often used to wonder where all the cups ended up.

ditto, Starrsville. The Old Windsor tea shop in Mt. Dora, FL, is a lot of fun and run by a family from Essex (they bought it from the previous owners late last year). Pictures of royals all over the place--except Camilla, she's hidden in the kitchen--apparently still too controversial.
And, of course, the afternoon tea at the Four Seasons in Philly. Elegant and serene.

Yes PatrickLondon, I too get really fed up of being told what to do by London Underground. It's as if no-one has any common sense any more :-S

A lot of people don't have common sense any more because their brains got flabby from governments & companies forced into warning people not to use electrical appliances near water, coffee is hot so don't spill it on yourself, etc., etc.

I personally think Starbucks coffee is pretty decent. However, we were introduced to French press coffee about 10 years ago by our California friend who sent us a Bodum press. We have several good coffee bean roasters in town so always buy fresh whole beans. We have a "cozy" wrap for the Bodum to keep it warm longer, but found a great insulated French press coffee pot by Nissan that works like a charm and keeps the coffee warm for several hours. You can find it on line.

We use a Braun burr grinder that allows you to change the grind for the type of coffeemaker used. For French press, we use the highest number setting, to get the beans ground fine, so more flavor is extracted. For a drip coffeemaker, we grind at a lower setting.

For the best coffee or tea flavor extraction, I've heard that one heats the water to just before boiling. For both the French press and the tea (loose or bag,) let the water steep over the ground coffee or tea leaves for 3-5 minutes, no more, or the final product will be bitter.

I like my tea with milk and sugar, not with cream. No artificial sweeteners in the tea, since they lose flavor within about 10 minutes. I like coffee strong and black.

After experiencing a tea ceremony in Japan, I realized how uncivilized British tea really is.

Barbara - I remember that ditty from some time in the 60's - unsure if it was on the radio or if my mum used to sing it.

gertie3751 - I remember those thick white cups that you got a cup of tea in from the 50's at the railway station.

Any one else use a tea cozy? I usually pick them up when I am back in the UK.

shorebrau - hadn't thought about getting a cozy for our French Press but it makes perfect sense.

Interesting thread.

Sandy

I've got nothing in particular against Starbucks' coffee and in fact I was glad to find the occasional outlet in China, where a coffee of any description is hard to come by. We'll probably use them when we next visit the US too, where otherwise it can be hard to find a decent coffee in many places.

What I object to is their serviceless assembly-line process, a la McDonalds, complete with throwaway plastic everything, which they manage to combine with high prices. I can go to any of hundreds of cafes in my small city and receive mostly friendly and efficient table service and good coffee with real china cups and saucers. They all know the meaning of macchiato, even if most can't pronounce 'bruschetta'. They're fully owned by local businessmen/women, and most charge less. No contest.

Neil Oz:

You're being unfair. I had the pleasure of sitting through a presentation the other day from a Starbucks Corporate Social Responsibility spokeswoman (whom they'd clearly recruited from a Stepford Wives casting session).

She took immense pride in their most revolutionary new idea: they've recently begun to introduce a cup of which a staggering 10% is recycled. So, in some outlets, the bottom tenth of your cup isn't throw away.

Doesn't that make you feel better about the planet?

"Any one else use a tea cozy? I usually pick them up when I am back in the UK."

I use one daily. The funniest tea accessory I found on my last London trip is a Ladybug tea drip catcher. Looks like a ladybug & you put it on the spout of the teapot so you don't dribble tea on the tablecloth.

Not a coffee drinker at all but I heard that Starbuck's gladly gives their coffee grounds to gardeners who ask for them for their compost heaps.

flanneruk/Neil

No question that forestry use shouldn't exceed the ability of forests to renew themselves. However, forests can, at least at a finite rate, renew themselves, which is not the case for the fuel used to generate power in many countries. I've never done the math, but the capital energy costs of producing 100 paper cups, compared to the capital energy cost of producing a china cup with 100 uses - plus the operational energy cost of washing same, needs to be fairly done before conclusions are jumped to here.

But let's suppose that the forestry industry is completely evil (very convenient for residents of the UK, which for all intents and purposes doesn't have one) and industries related to computer use, including finance, law, administration, etc. is completely benign, environmentally speaking. (Again, folks in areas where these industries predominate can feel smug, or like to feel they can.)

Now let's consider that the rate of people wanting cups of coffee per hour is x: the occupancy rate of seats available per hour in the coffee shop is y. Cost of real estate in London, New York, or most other cities burgeoning in size makes those seats pretty pricey, such that to make y = x would mean increasing the cost of that cup of coffee considerably higher than it is now.

So, providing takeout cups increases the amount of virtual coffee shop space, at a cost likely less than the cost of increasing that space using real estate (not to mention that shops must be heated and lit, which also uses energy. Whereas office space, to which those takeout cups are frequently taken, is already being heated and lit.)

This problem has to be addressed, if one wants to get rid of takeout cups entirely.

So far, the great unwashed masses in both UK and NA seem to be voting with their feet, and their cash.

Not to mention that coffee isn't locally grown, as I've already pointed out. That incurs a huge energy imbalance right off the top (although I don't expect the countries whose economy depends heavily on coffee and tea exports to exactly start jumping up and down horrified at this news.)

Sue:

I more or less agree. And to be honest I've yet to find anyone produce a truly convincing calculus on any of this sustainability stuff.

Does it use more energy to bring a piece of beef to a British table from Southern Africa than from Scotland? Probably. Does the process of beef production in Southern Africa use less non-renewable energy than the same process in Scotland? Most certainly. What's the net? No-one ever tries to do the sum. Whatever the net, do the jobs created in Southern Africa matter more than in northern Europe? Absolutely certainly. Can the lives wasted by poverty in Southern Africa if we don't have a bias to creating jobs there ever be recreated? Certainly not.

In the case of recycling paper, I've yet to see any evidence all that toing and froing to recycle wood makes any net sense, except to make local authorities feel virtuous.

However, Starbucks don't agree with my (and I suspect your) honest intellectual doubt. They claimed in the Stepford Wives presentation they were committed to recyclable cups. They're just far from straightforward in explaining why, if it matters that much, they're doing so little about it

We're pretty enthusiastic about recycling in California. Part of the reason is that it means we're putting a lot less stuff into landfills.

They won't get rid of takeout cups simply because most people who buy drinks at Starbucks want to take their drink with them. Starbucks used to have large mugs for people who did sit in to drink their coffee, but now have only paper cups.

<<Starbucks used to have large mugs for people who did sit in to drink their coffee, but now have only paper cups.<<


<b>WHY</b> would they discontinue this perfectly sensible practice?

&gt;WHY would they discontinue this perfectly sensible practice?&lt;

Washing up.

Some places allow people to buy a proprietary mug and then just bring it daily to be filled up. That's a good compromise; no &quot;disposable&quot; cups, and the patron does the washing up.

Years ago our local coffe shop had mugs for all their regulars. Our names were on them. We had our coffee every morning in our own mug, the restaurant washed them and hung them back up on the pegs. So sensible. I haven't seen that anywhere for quite awhile. I hate coffee in a paper cup and personally I do not like the coffee at Starbucks. The one time I ordered an espresso I couldn't even drink it..nasty tasting lol.