UK: Put the Kettle On????
Nov 6th, 2014, 03:17 AM
#301
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For those of us who have always been tea drinkers, there is nothing so irritating in a cafe as being stuck behind someone ordering 4 different coffees. All I want is a teabag and some water, but I have to wait 10 minutes while things are ground, bashed, frothed and sprinkled. We should have our own self service queues, like the quick tills in Tesco.
For those of us who have always been tea drinkers, there is nothing so irritating in a cafe as being stuck behind someone ordering 4 different coffees. All I want is a teabag and some water, but I have to wait 10 minutes while things are ground, bashed, frothed and sprinkled. We should have our own self service queues, like the quick tills in Tesco.
Nov 6th, 2014, 03:46 AM
#302
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"We should have our own self service queues, like the quick tills in Tesco."
They should simply charge non-discriminatory prices. These places' two main costs are staff and space: the narcissists demand at least ten times more staff time, and the damn queues they create take up half the whole establishment's space. Never mind the space those syrup bottles take up.
Treble the cost of their raspberry-flavoured triple lattes, and charge us the real cost of our tea. Equal rights for tea drinkers.
They should simply charge non-discriminatory prices. These places' two main costs are staff and space: the narcissists demand at least ten times more staff time, and the damn queues they create take up half the whole establishment's space. Never mind the space those syrup bottles take up.
Treble the cost of their raspberry-flavoured triple lattes, and charge us the real cost of our tea. Equal rights for tea drinkers.
Nov 6th, 2014, 04:57 AM
#303
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it's more like a universal panacea - someone died? have a cup of tea. Been in an accident? have a cup of tea. tired and need a restorative? have a cup of tea.
It gives you something to do - and it's not going to offend anyone
It gives you something to do - and it's not going to offend anyone
Nov 6th, 2014, 05:21 AM
#304
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I was lucky to spend the weekends of a large chunk of my childhood on a tea estate. I still fondly recall the glorious patchwork of beautiful greens like an enormous verdant, sunlit quilt undulating through several hectares of hillside, dotted with tea pickers wearing bright blue smocks, picking the leaves and tossing them over their shoulders into baskets on their backs. From there the leaves were weighed, attributed to the pickers name for payment, and then packed in hessian sacks awaiting the Brooke Bond lorries to come and pick up.
Once I learned to pick tea, you could find small piles of leaves drying in the water heater cupboard in our house, that soon perfumed the dwelling with the soft distinctive scent of tea day and night that drove my mother crazy.
Even as kids, we drank tea throughout the day. It wasn't until we moved to NorthAmerica that we drank more coffee than tea. There were different types of tea for us then: the more refined tips and the everyday variety of the highest quality that made a delicious cup at 4.00pm. A tea strainer was a necessary kitchen tool gift for every newly wed.
Occasionally we'd have the strong builders brew type which, for us, was made from the leaf stems and rejected older leaves, and that was sold and known by the name 'Teakataka' , a take on the Swahili word 'takataka' which means rubbish or refuse.
When I was in Turkey a few years ago, I enjoyed observing how they brew and serve tea using two pots. A small pot containing a concentrated brew of leaves and water which is then placed/fitted like a lid on top of a larger pot containing boiling water, and this pile then placed on direct heat keeping the lower one boiling and the upper one steamed hot. You poured a small amount from the small pot into your glass or cup and diluted it to your preferred strength with water from the other. It reminded me of how we served tea in those younger days also with two pots, the second one containing hot water to adjust the strength, and which I've never seen done here in NA since.
Once I learned to pick tea, you could find small piles of leaves drying in the water heater cupboard in our house, that soon perfumed the dwelling with the soft distinctive scent of tea day and night that drove my mother crazy.
Even as kids, we drank tea throughout the day. It wasn't until we moved to NorthAmerica that we drank more coffee than tea. There were different types of tea for us then: the more refined tips and the everyday variety of the highest quality that made a delicious cup at 4.00pm. A tea strainer was a necessary kitchen tool gift for every newly wed.
Occasionally we'd have the strong builders brew type which, for us, was made from the leaf stems and rejected older leaves, and that was sold and known by the name 'Teakataka' , a take on the Swahili word 'takataka' which means rubbish or refuse.
When I was in Turkey a few years ago, I enjoyed observing how they brew and serve tea using two pots. A small pot containing a concentrated brew of leaves and water which is then placed/fitted like a lid on top of a larger pot containing boiling water, and this pile then placed on direct heat keeping the lower one boiling and the upper one steamed hot. You poured a small amount from the small pot into your glass or cup and diluted it to your preferred strength with water from the other. It reminded me of how we served tea in those younger days also with two pots, the second one containing hot water to adjust the strength, and which I've never seen done here in NA since.
Nov 6th, 2014, 06:17 AM
#305
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" two pots, the second one containing hot water to adjust the strength, and which I've never seen done here in NA since."
That's the reason tea is often formally served that way in English tearooms. Most of us just pour the water from the jug into nearly-empty pot after a couple of cups to create a second pot. But it's not how the custom started.
Drinking tea weak was, in the 19th century, a sign of refaynment.
That's the reason tea is often formally served that way in English tearooms. Most of us just pour the water from the jug into nearly-empty pot after a couple of cups to create a second pot. But it's not how the custom started.
Drinking tea weak was, in the 19th century, a sign of refaynment.
Nov 6th, 2014, 06:17 AM
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" two pots, the second one containing hot water to adjust the strength, and which I've never seen done here in NA since."
That's the reason tea is often formally served that way in English tearooms. Most of us just pour the water from the jug into nearly-empty pot after a couple of cups to create a second pot. But it's not how the custom started.
Drinking tea weak was, in the 19th century, a sign of refaynment.
That's the reason tea is often formally served that way in English tearooms. Most of us just pour the water from the jug into nearly-empty pot after a couple of cups to create a second pot. But it's not how the custom started.
Drinking tea weak was, in the 19th century, a sign of refaynment.
Nov 6th, 2014, 07:08 AM
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Flanner, coming to think of it, we sometimes did that too. About midway or towards the end of 'tea' someone would pour a bit from the hot water pot into the tea pot. Quite often if too much was poured ("who'd like some more ?") it ended up being too weak to drink.
Nov 6th, 2014, 08:16 AM
#308
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@Patrick--Thanks for explanation. The midlands reference helped, too. I found the "shall yer" in D.H. Lawrence, but couldn't find mash (though I sorted that out in context of this thread). But mash doesn't appear in the OED's historical thesaurus, at all.
If it's not too personal, when your mother was sent north in the war, was it to family or strangers opening their homes?
@Matieu--What an interesting childhood. Sounds lovely. Where were these tea plantations? Did the drying of the tea leaves not happen there? Or were the freshly picked leaves packed in those bags right off and put on the truck for further processing? Do you know how old the tea plants on the plantation were (b/c I understand tea plants can live quite a long time if the pickers are careful and take only the top leaves). I've been reading quite a bit on the tea trade, so would love to hear more.
If it's not too personal, when your mother was sent north in the war, was it to family or strangers opening their homes?
@Matieu--What an interesting childhood. Sounds lovely. Where were these tea plantations? Did the drying of the tea leaves not happen there? Or were the freshly picked leaves packed in those bags right off and put on the truck for further processing? Do you know how old the tea plants on the plantation were (b/c I understand tea plants can live quite a long time if the pickers are careful and take only the top leaves). I've been reading quite a bit on the tea trade, so would love to hear more.
Nov 6th, 2014, 08:59 AM
#309
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"If it's not too personal, when your mother was sent north in the war,"
Wasn't that Patrick? I'm interested too, since pretty well the only people evacuated were school-age children, schoolteachers, pregnant women and mothers of very young evacuees.
Patrick's too old for his mother to have been a schoolgirl. So was she a teacher, or with a sibling of Patrick?
Wasn't that Patrick? I'm interested too, since pretty well the only people evacuated were school-age children, schoolteachers, pregnant women and mothers of very young evacuees.
Patrick's too old for his mother to have been a schoolgirl. So was she a teacher, or with a sibling of Patrick?
Nov 6th, 2014, 10:55 AM
#310
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Curious as to whether green tea - which some folks drink here for presumed health benefits - is the same as drinking tea to Brits - or does it have to be real tea - anyone now switch from regular tea to green tea or would that not be Hoyle?
Or herb teas, etc sans caffeine. Here I know tea lovers who have switched largely to herbal teas.
Or does put the kettle on only mean for real tea?
Or herb teas, etc sans caffeine. Here I know tea lovers who have switched largely to herbal teas.
Or does put the kettle on only mean for real tea?
Nov 6th, 2014, 11:14 AM
#311
Pal - it's definitely "proper" black tea that we're talking about. In fact all tea [apart from that herbal muck] comes from the chinese camellia [camellia sinensis] and whether it's green or black, or orange pekoe or earl grey or PG tips, depends on when happens after it's picked. [though some teas are specially picked, orange pekoe being one of them, I think].
if you are talking about "putting the kettle on" or mashing the tea, or "the cup that cheers", you're talking about black tea.
BTW, my aforementioned grandparents who lived in rural Warwickshire took in 2 evacuees from London during WW2. one of them was called Stella, I can't remember the name of the other. I think that they stayed for a couple of years. I never met them of course, but I heard a lot about them. I'm not sure that Warwickshire was that much safer than London - the factory in Rugby where my father was an apprentice was making aircraft, and Coventry was only a few miles away. I also recall that mothers and babies who were evacuated to a nursing home in rural Kent, near the village that we used to live in, were all wiped out in a raid one night.
it wasn't all cakes and ale.
if you are talking about "putting the kettle on" or mashing the tea, or "the cup that cheers", you're talking about black tea.
BTW, my aforementioned grandparents who lived in rural Warwickshire took in 2 evacuees from London during WW2. one of them was called Stella, I can't remember the name of the other. I think that they stayed for a couple of years. I never met them of course, but I heard a lot about them. I'm not sure that Warwickshire was that much safer than London - the factory in Rugby where my father was an apprentice was making aircraft, and Coventry was only a few miles away. I also recall that mothers and babies who were evacuated to a nursing home in rural Kent, near the village that we used to live in, were all wiped out in a raid one night.
it wasn't all cakes and ale.
Nov 6th, 2014, 12:09 PM
#313
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If you ask for, or are offered, tea you expect black tea of a decent strength. Anything else will be qualified as green tea, herbal, earl grey, etc. Decaf is an abomination. If you don't want caffeine, drink something else. It's like watering down wine with lemonade or fizzy water. Just don't. Ever.
Nov 6th, 2014, 02:14 PM
#315
