Notea

How happy we are! Those Englishmen enjoy only one family of Tea, that is, that black-tea family. No doubt Black Tea is a Superb Tea, but… would you look to ‘agriao’ and call it ‘vegetable’? I would not. I state this because of my recent reading of George Orwell’s short and funny article “A Nice Cup of Tea”. You can read it by clicking on the very title written on the last sentence.

Eventhough Orwell’s deceased already, I make my stand on discussing with him a few points, being myself a tealover since my kid’s Era:

“Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.”

You can re-read my third sentence in this article to know what I think about this narrow-minded statement. I’m not fond of fruitish and flowerish teas, such as strawberry (nowadays there is even strawberry+chocolate...), chamomille, pekan, etc., but it makes me sad to think that maybe Orwell and Englishmen nowadays know nothing about the marvellous Mate tea, which I am very fond of, or, say, relaxations that come from Peppermint.

That goes to my second point: the Milk.

“Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea”, says Orwell.

I say: should one put any Milk at all? Orwell has much to say about the nonsense of adding sugarcubes on tea, for it ruins the original taste – agreed agreed agreed agreed – but how come Milk does not ruins it also? I think its common, as in for Mate, to put some of it (in my belief, I think it’s manly a Carioca thing, don’t know why), but... gee wiz, I don’t like it at all.

I had a recent teasasterous experience with Milk, for the night I read the article I decided to mix some of it on my Mate. It may sound nonsensical, but it tasted as if a rubber balloon had been melted down and blent to the tea. Much of the herbal and burnt-down taste of the Mate – that is, the teay taste of it – was gone.

And last but not least: I cannot find myself agreeing with all his spiffiness about the pots and instruments. Especially writing this in TeenFood, I believe one should not be restrained to “not making tea without the uses of a ceramic pot”. Go ahead and enjoy your tea as you should and can and would!

That said, I find Orwell’s article most enjoyable. Maybe it is just my problem that I’m not fit for the english-style drinking.