Tag: tea

Tea: World No 1 Beverage

1001 - Global Granary List Blogs Did you know? Etiquette

Tea cups, at Fortnum & Mason, photo by JMorton

 

If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited, it will calm you.
– William Gladstone
British Prime Minister (1809-1898)

Where there’s tea, there’s hope.
– Sir Arthur Wing Pinero

Tea, Char, Chai

teaTEA which is said to have been introduced into China by Djarma, a native of India, about A.D. 500, was not familiar in Europe until the end of the sixteenth century. And it was not until 1657, when Garraway opened a tea-house in Exchange Alley, that Londoners began tea-drinking as an experiment.

In 1662 Pepys writes—
“Home, and there find my wife making of tea”—two years before, he called it “tee (a China drink)”—“a drink which Mr. Pelling the Pothicary tells her is good for her cold and defluxions.”

Tea drinking is a culture.  It is psychologically settling, it cures maladies and ailments and it promotes social cohesion.

Where there’s tea there’s hope.
– Sir Arthur Wing Pinero

Tea is not like vodka, which you can drink a lot of.
– Russian Saying

Superstitions connected with TEA:

Look into your cup/mug, apparently, if you see bubbles, money is coming your way… soon.

Long ago, it was believed that throwing away tea leaves was a way of encouraging poverty.  The advice was to burn the used tea leaves for prosperity.

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A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
– Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

DID YOU KNOW?

Tea is the second most popular beverage in the world, next to the water.

Green tea of Japan and its tea ceremony is central to Zen Buddhism. Green tea is also used to flavour ice-cream.

China is the greatest producer of tea.

Green tea has the lowest level of caffeine. Further studies are being conducted as to the health-giving properties of green tea.

21 May had been adopted by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as International Tea Day to help promote and celebrate sustainable production of tea around globally and bring attention to hunger and poverty.

Good Cup, Bad Cup of Tea

Food Preparation & Recipe Tips

various 1049

THE GOLDEN RULES

Five Golden Rules for proper tea making.

1. Use good tea
The high-quality blend we issue produces better tea and yields
more cups to the pound.

2. Use freshly drawn, freshly boiled water
Water easily goes “stale” if allowed to stand, and water that has
been previously boiled should never be used for tea-making.
Again, water that has not come to the boil or has been overboiled
causes tea to be flat and insipid. Therefore, use water
that has just reached the stage of bubbling fiercely. If there
is any doubt about whether your hot water apparatus is working
at maximum efficiency, use kettles for first infusion.

3. Warm the pot
This rule is in the “old and true” category. Teapots should always
be warmed or rinsed thoroughly with boiling water before
putting in the dry leaf. The reason for doing this is to keep up the
temperature of the infusion. If water is poured into a cold pot it
will be off the boil and thus defeat Golden Rule No. 2.

4. The short pourTo get the full benefit the water should reach the tea leaves as
near boiling point as possible. If kettles are being used the rule
is: take teapot to kettle, and NOT kettle to teapot. If, as is more
likely, it is a question of boilers, then make sure the teapots are
brought right up to the boiling water outlet. Always infuse the tea
first with fresh boiling, bubbling water.

5. Tea should be brewed, not stewedThe time to be allowed for infusion should be between four and
six minutes, depending upon the size of the pot and the softness
of the water. The larger the pot, the longer the time for infusion:
natural soft water infuses tea more readily than hard.
Finally, almost qualifying for inclusion in the above basic list is
the rule that whatever method of making tea is adopted, the tea
and the milk should come together at the last possible moment.

Jean's Iphone 131

Bedford, Bunyan and Home of Afternoon Tea

Did you know? GLOBAL HISTORY Origin

tea

Bedford, Bunyan and Home of Afternoon Tea

 Bedford is not far from where we live and we hope to vist in the spring. It is home to the John Bunyan museum.  Bunyan wrote the famous novel Pilgrims Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come (Full title) A narrative of persecuted Christian pilgrims travelling from England to The New World (America) becoming among the first settlers there. 

There is perhaps nothing considered more quintessentially English that drinking tea; indeed tea drinking has influenced much of what is regarded throughout the world as British culture and features strongly in nursery rhymes, fairytales and folklore.
 Source: http://www.visitbedford.co.uk

Yet as a nation we were relative late arrivals to the proverbial tea party; the drink becoming popular in mid-1700s when the East India Company began trading in tea. Clipper ships like the Cutty Sark, which could travel at an incredible 18 knots, as fast as a modern cruise ship, were designed to halve the transport time from Asia. Heavy taxation inevitably led to tea smuggling but did nothing to dent its popularity, indeed its importance led to the growth in the other industries such as pottery manufacturing where names like Wedgwood and Royal Doulton became synonymous with fine tea ware. It was a prized commodity and often it was only the lady of the house that held the key to the tea store.

Tea drinking even led to changes in social etiquette with the opening of tea gardens and tea shops, since these were places where an unchaperoned woman could meet her friends and socialise without harming her reputation. But the single most lasting of these traditions is without question the invention of afternoon tea and here Bedfordshire can stake its claim to being the home of afternoon tea.

Fortnum & Mason

Festivals & Celebrations REVIEW & RECOMMENDATION

Iconic Department Store

Fortnum & Mason

Today as it is my Birthday, My husband treated me to shopping/day out at Fortnum & Mason and a lovely meal at their Fountain Restaurant, before that we had Piccolo latte coffee and strudel at the coffee bar.  Fortnum & Mason is a quintessentially very English top store, where there is still uniformed doorman greet you and helps you in and out. F&M is world-famous for being purveyors of quality foodstuff. It is known mainly for its variety of tea in-store. this is only right as F&M is as old as the habit of  English tea-drinking since the Far East opened up its western trade in the 1700s. The English planted their own tea plants. F&M was present sourcing and refined tea and offered it to the public. It was in 1707 th Hugh Mason & William Fortnum set up business to become grocers and tea merchants.

We had a wonderful day browsing around, my husband found and bought me an Anya Hindmarch purse that has ‘Happy Birthday’ embossed on it with the ribbon logo.

After our lunch we bought  a hamper of goodies we selected  such as F&M  tea, jams, preserves and biscuits.