:: The Wendy House ::

One recent Sunday afternoon the neighbours, local Reading celebrities,  and a gal from West Sussex dropped by to warm the wendy house over lashings of tea and cake.  A jolly civilised affiar with a little bit of dribbling.  During the goings-on I discovered many useful facts including:

-  a local granny can climb the walls to escape from a locked cemetry after dusk.

-  the Wendy House was converted from a garage in 1968 partly explaining the dangerous staircase.

-  my nieghbours have lived all over the world - Kenya, Italy, India, Edinburgh before settling in Reading.  Excellent company.

-  the Readibus preferred gift to welcome a newcomer is a bottle of wine.

- the bath works best for a person under 5ft 2 (as do the stairs).

- house numbers evolve.  One person’s home had evolved from without number to  number 4 then number 2… 

I suspect I missed some real news treats while in the Kitchen warming the pots,  I wonder what other goodies these people are going to share with us in the upcoming years….

forty-eighth, and last, in the weekly series of posts collating all sorts of frivolous information about taking tea.

Thursday Tiffin #48: International tea day (not today)

Since 2005 December 15th is international tea day:

International Tea Day to draw attention of governments and citizens on the impacts of tea trade on workers, small growers consumers and the industry. In India, stakeholders including tea related trade unions and small producers recognise international tea day as the event to declare their rights pertaining to wages, livelihood and living conditions. 

Mark your calendars now, because if you’re like me you’ll forget….  

forty-seventh in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea English style.

Thursday Tiffin #47: practical session

Use the knowledge you’ve gained from the last 46 posts to make yourself a nice relaxing cup of tea.  You know it makes sense.

forty-sixth in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea English style.

Thursday Tiffin #46: Tea is an attitude

The mission statement on the Blog “Nice cup of Tea and a sit down” captures the attitude exquisitly.  I was particularly taken with their fruitcake serving suggestion developed during their Suffolk cycling tour,  especially since I haven’t

• had any fruitcake for at least a year. 
• been to Suffolk for 7 years.

Oh deary me, that needs fixing.

Nice cup of Tea and a sit down blog Mission statement:

Our Mission Statement

Well I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and some biscuits, nice ones mind you. Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely.

forty-fifth in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea English style.

Thursday Tiffin #45: Tea is a meal

At my parents home my family had 3 meals a day:

• Breakfast:  Toast and cereal with milk around 8am before school
• Dinner: meat and two vegetables between 12 and 1pm
• Tea: a selection of cheese and cold-meats Smorgesbord style to make Danish style sandwiches with several pots of tea shared after the BBC 6 o’clock news had finished.  This is not necessarily an English way of taking tea,  it’s a mix of my Yorkshire Mum and Finnish Dads food preferences.  On Thursdays the timing could seriously interfere with watching ‘Top of the Pops’. 

forty-fourth in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea English style.

Thursday Tiffin #44: into the harbour

BBC America recommends that local US natives use subtitles (US = cc, closed captioning) to get the full benefit of programs such as Murphy’s Law because of their lack of familiarity with the British accents stemming from wrecklessly having dumped some tea in the Boston harbour.

forty-third in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea,  or not taking it in this case,  English style.

Thursday Tiffin #43: withdrawal

It is highly likely that I haven’t had a cup of tea for days by now because I’m on HOLIDAY in SPAIN where its probably too HOT for proper tea. 

When I know for sure where I am and what I’m doing and whether it involves tea or not I’ll write a comment on this post about withdrawal symptons.    I can’t really be sure what’s happening because I wrote this blog entry before I left for SPAIN and used that automatic post-it widget doobry to post it now. 

Gosh,  I hope I’m alright

forty-second in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea English style, and beyond….

Thursday Tiffin #42:  Tasseography

Reading futures from the patterns made by tea-leaves swirled around the edge of a drunken cup of Tea.  There are even websites that provide a step-by-step guides on how to read tea leaves  this one suggests a step process then provides many details of each step:

1. Make the tea correctly.
2. Have the subject drink the tea properly.
3. Learn the symbols
4. Predict when something’s going to happen
5. Determine each symbol’s importance

The advice is strikingly similar to that given by my crazy aunt Mazie. 

forty-first in a series of posts explaining the gruesome truth behind the bone china recipe for taking tea English style.

Thursday Tiffin #41: dead bovine crockery

Excerpt:

The use of bone ash had been known from the middle ages, when it was first used in cupels for the assaying of metals. Interest in it as a tableware ingredient emerged about 1750 and in the succeeding fifty years several experimental formulations were tried. However, these were ’soft-paste’ porcelains with the inclusion of bone ash. Whereas what we now know as bone china is a true porcelain of china clay and Cornish stone with 45%-50% calcined bone.

Who would have guessed that those cunningly clever rock rocking Cornish were supplying the stone to make bone china,  I wonder who supplied the bone.  Ethical vegetarians should probably give bone china a wide berth*.

How do you know if your china is bone china?  It’s partially translucent you should be able to hold it up to the light and see the shadow of anything placed between it and the light.  It makes a very distinctive sound when tapped,  you can learn to identify it by gently tapping it and listening to the ring. 

* Convenient sea room; sufficient room to maneuver under way or to swing at anchor

fortieth in a series of posts explaining taking tea English style then before flying the concept to new places.

Thursday Tiffin #40: 73% Post-Consumer Novelty

Exploring the songs on this website kept me giggling and jiggling for literally minutes.  Excellent stuff,  try the increadibly earnest “baby its time to vote“.  Here’s what the website says about the “Mad Tea Party”’s CD “73% Post-Consumer Novelty“:

“73% Post-Consumer Novelty” captures the Mad Tea Party’s post-modern parlor music era. Recorded during the band’s duo phase, it features members Ami Worthen (ukulele, vocals) and Jason Krekel (guitar, fiddle, tenor banjo, kazoo, slide whistle, horns, drums). Guests on the album are Joe Edel (sousaphone), Sean Foley (accordion) and Reese Gray (saw, piano). Produced by Mad Tea Party. Recorded and mixed by Chris Rosser at Hollow Reed Studio in Asheville. Mastered by Seva.

thirty-ninth in a series of posts explaining the complexities of tea taken English style.

Thursday Tiffin #39: room for more tea rooms

As we’ve seen, the US is beginning to pick-up tea as a fad.  The clues are the burgeoning brands and boxes,  the promises of healthy outcomes,  and new team rooms.  “Taste the moment” in Redmond is a new tea room.  The excellent service and food is not cheap,  but I would go again for a special occasion with friends who like well presented food to try out the more substantive items on the menu.   Even though it should carry a warning about the rose infested decor. 

I dropped in on a Friday afternoon at 3.30pm for afternoon tea wearing jeans with my hair scrapped back and a sloppy jumper hanging off my shoulder.  Given my aversion to decoration that includes roses and pink,  I had to force myself into this place.  It definitely looks like it’s touting for the custom of the Red Hat Society or rich Redmond Wives and Girlfriends.  I am not a part of either group.

I was the only customer and clearly not dressed for the venue.  The well-dressed lady with a foreign accent that greated me and made me feel at home was wonderful.  She found a magazine for me to read and explained that the Chef had just popped out so she would be preparing my order herself.  She did a fabulous job.  I had the signature tea for $15.95 - Tea pot, fresh fruit,  pancakes, scone,  croissant,  sponge-cake craime-fresh and jam.  Yummy.   It was presented as if it was being entered in a beauty competition,  in stark contrast to my self-presentation.

As you can imagine, I was very impressed by the lack of roses on the teacups,  teapot and table-clothes.  An outstanding achievement.  I was baffled by the lack of Darjeeling,  Assam or Ceylon on the tea menu.  But with the other USA standard mixes like ‘English Breakfast’ and “Earl Grey’ providing comforting safe options for an unadventurous moody,  grumpy grouch such as myself,  I left the place a happy bunny

thirty-eighth in a series of posts about the elixia properTTTTTT’s of  tea.

Thursday Tiffin #38: drink yourself slimmer

Web MD cites research reported in the American journal of clinical nutrition (2005) of 35 Japanese males with similar weights drinking tea with controlled (to be equivalent) diets.  They suggest this research as demonstrates that drinking Oolong tea with extract of green tea,  rather than just drinking Oolong tea,  resulted in faster burning of calories and lower LDL cholesterol.  The participants drank themselves slimmer! 

The researchers theorise that in green tea the higher level “catechins may trigger weight loss by stimulating the body to burn calories and decreasing body fat”.  It is unclear whether there was a significant difference in the participants diets before the study or if this research on males’ can be generalised to females. 

Green tea cannot account for my relative lack of eating disorderliness or bulk because I’ve only ever had 2 cups of green tea.  I better avoid it lest I waiste away…..

thirty-seven in a series of posts about the prolific world wide practice of taking tea.

Thursday Tiffin #37:  most prolific form of flavouring water

According the the United States Department of Agriculture research: ”Tea is the most-consumed beverage worldwide next to water“.  This is not news in the wendy house.  Here all water is diluted with a liberal dose of tea and no ice.

thirty-six in a series of posts explaining the taxing complexities of taking tea.

Thursday Tiffin #36:  tea taxonomy revisited

According to the USDA there are “three major classes of teas known as green, black, and oolong“.   This classification matches manufacturers labeling and is easier to follow than one based on colour.  The USDA classification system is based on the relative time that harvested leaves are fermented in the air rather than being attributable to plant genus, brew colour,  geography, or the maturity of the leaves when picked. 

“manufacturers carefully control whether, and for how long, tea leaves are exposed to air, a process called fermentation. When fermentation is completely arrested, the tea stays “green” or yellowish brown. When fermentation time is long, the leaves darken and become “black” tea. Somewhere in between these two extremes, “oolong” tea is created“

thirty-five in a series of posts about taking tiffin with tea on a sunny day in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #35: Sun Tea

An English girl,  in England,  raised before global warming,  has not normally heard of sun tea.  Friends from sunnier-climes bought this cunningly economic practice to my attention.  The Wendy House is currently suffering from a surfeit of sunshine making sun tea a distinct possibility.

yesterday several people dropped by :: the Wendy House ::  for tea on the way to, or from, cycle rides,  wedding anniversaries, de-salinated dudes, and other more unmentionable doings. 

People bought things as conversation pieces and talked about them and talked about sailing,  fables. cuckoo clocks and the French. Urgghhhh, I realised 30 seconds before people other than  LaCroix arrived,  maybe the Bonzo Dog Doodah band wasn’t right musical accompanyment for an afternoon of tea and conversation with North Americans.   LaCroix saved the afternoon…  

Tea was consumed by the pot-load,  green, white and a red (Rooibos, not really tea).  Subtle (white) through to strong (Assam),  with and without biscuits,  dunkakable.   I had a fabulous time.  I must remember to ensure that my guest have a fabulous time too.  Ooops.  When the tea flows I’m accustomed to leaving enjoyment to fate…  

Thankyou guestipoos,  you know who you are, you were wonderful and frighteningly well turned-out too 

thirty-four in a series of posts about trade-marked tiffin with extract of  tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #34: Tea with extract of Tea

Performance tea? Perform what?  Not perform regularly because it states ‘No laxatives’.  Perfrom weight loss.  Super skinny?  Anorexic.  Anorexic but not laxative.   Laxative isn’t trademarked.  It’s all very confusing,  for example,  is Ultra Chai the same as performance tea?  

I suspect this tea is being marketed to wealthy anorexics with the squits.  

Not me.

I didn’t buy it.

thirty-third in a series of posts about not accidentally miss-identifying tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #33: not tea

This is not,  I repeat,  NOT a cup of Tea. 

It is quite nice nonetheless.  

Not to be recklessly sniffed-at. 

Breath deeply and enjoy the view.

thirty-second in a series of posts about all the essential accessories for taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #32: dunking the biscuit

Normally tea is accompanied by a biscuit or two.  In England there are 4 very popular types manufactured by multiple different companies:

• Digestives.  Named after the erroneous belief that the bicarbonate of soda they contained would aid digestion.
• custard creams. Which do not have custard in them.
• Rich Tea biscuits.  Which are not particularly rich and do not have any tea in them
• HobNobs.  Might be made on a hob,  I don’t think they include nobs.

There are cookie secitions in US shops that include some biscuits that look a bit like the generic biscuit types listed above.  The biscuits are not categorised by this typology which makes them a tad more difficult to find in the US. 

There are other distinctive well known biscuits (Garibaldi,  Gingernut, Shortcake) that I’m not covering here.  Most English homes will have at least 2 of the 4 biscuit types.  The quality of the biscuit will vary depending on the manufacturer,  brand.  As a student I found very cheap custard creams and would even make my Hobnobs. 

These digestives are the most tricky to dunk,  almost as soon as they touch the tea they start to disintegrate.  Only very experienced dunkers can work with these.  Mumzie keeps a stock of these in the house.  They were ‘invented’ in Scotland.  These biscuits were originally a McVities brand.  

Digestive Dunking Skill level:  Expert

Wonderful for dunking in your tea when your mum isn’t looking.  This is an excellent starter biscuit if you are planning to take-up dunking as part of your tea drinking ceremony. 

The custard cream has similar liquid soaking properties to the American brand Nabisco Oreo.  The texture is similar,  I consider the Oreo as a subset of the custard-cream category.  

Custard Cream Dunking skill level:  Novice

The Rich tea is large and often simply does not fit in the tea-cup,  its difficult to dunk.  Not as difficult to dunk as the digestive,  but difficult none-the-less.  If you loose focus for a few seconds it can absorb more liquid than it’s structure can support.  If you are me, a large part of the biscuit falls off into your cup of tea.  This is a bit icky.  You should  practice dunking rich tea biscuits in private before doing it in public,  you need a technique that is biscuit specific.

Rich Tea Dunking skill level:  Advanced

The Hobnob is an excellent dunker.  You have to be particularly inept for this biscuit to collapse into your cuppa.  The addictive effect of the Hobnob,  especially chocolate hobnobs,  along with a cup of tea cannot be underestimated.   Wikipedia cites the origin of the name as “The name comes from an earlier phrase, to hob or nob, meaning “to drink together, taking turns toasting one another,” probably from Middle English habbe “to have” and nabbe, a contraction of ne + habbe, “to have not,” hence, “to have and have not, to give and take“  McVities Hobnobs are considered exceptional,  thier advertising campaigns in the late 1980s and market domination are impressive.  The name is almost becoming synonymous with the McVities product.

Hobnob Dunking skill level:  Beginner

thirty-first in a series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #31: externally

Tea is an ingredient in some skin-care products.  It is such an important ingredient that it warrants capitol letters in the ingredients list.  It’s not clear what colour the tea is,  maybe all types are good.  Certainly I remember learning that one way to ‘treat’  ‘puffy eyes’ was to place warm teabags over them for 15 minutes. 

thirtieth in a series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #30: cream tea

conversation with an American:

American:  would you like cream in your tea?

Wendy:  I’d prefer milk if you have it.

American:  I know about how the British drink their tea with cream,  my mother was British,  she taught me about cream teas.

Wendy:  Oh

Occassionally there appears to be a smidgen of confusion where some people raised in countries outside of the common wealth think that the cream in cream tea refers to cream poured into the tea.  Actually a cream tea refers to the combination of black tea served with English scones and Devonshire clotted cream. 

twenty-nineth in a series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA Sweden.

Thursday Tiffin #29: tea drinking correlates with low ovarian cancer rates in Sweden

It’s disappointing that the BBC report implies that a correlation could be a causal link.  Drinking tea in Sweden may also correlate with some other factor,  e.g. drinking milk, that is actually causing the reduced ovarian cancer rates measured in tea drinkers.  While the numbers of  women (60,000) tracked in the longitudinal (1987 to 1990) research are impressive shere numbers alone cannot influnce whether it is possible to determine a causal link between ovarian cancer and tea drinking. In a correlational research design your cannot conclude causality.  Full stop.  Period. 

twenty-eighth in a series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA .

Thursday Tiffin #28: The bitterest pill (I ever had to swallow)

For those people that do not like to take their tea wet,  in water, infused,  my local Fridge supplies a dried, pill format.  It made me wonder how people ‘wash down’ the pill,  with a swig of water?  On the rare occassions I have to swallow something dry I normally wash it down with a mug of Tea.

twenty-seventh in a healthy series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #27: tea is better than water

An allegedly independent study funded by the UK Tea Council concludes that tea is better than water,  it does not dehydrate,  it includes anti-oxidants and flouride and is good for your heart.  I bet that a Tea promotional organisation funded research project finds this positive effect of tea was an astounding suprise to you,  my oh-so-clever readers

The BBC reports the research in an uncritical way that lacks details of how it was conducted thus hiding our ability to assess its virtue.  Here are some excerpts from the report:

Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers, UK nutritionists found…   …Dr Ruxton said: Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water. Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so it’s got two things going for it. … …Tea drinking is most common in older people, the 40 plus age range. In older people, tea sometimes made up about 70% of fluid intake so it is a really important contributor,”

twenty-sixth in a fluffy series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #26: hair it is

According to a recent BBC report,  Turkish researchers studied 21 women with unusually high testosterone levels. The   women drank 2 cups of spearmint tea a day over 5 days following which their blood testosterone levels were re-checked.  Researchers concluded that “Drinking the tea twice a day, reduced levels of male sex hormones“. 

No wonder the US tea rooms are all so full of women,  they’re all trying to reduce their testosterone levels.  Why might women want to reduce their testosterone levels?  Reduced testosterone levels correlate with reduced body-hair (face & chest),  hirsutism. 

Are the women in US tea-rooms reducing their waxing costs and increasing their girliness quotients?  Clever.  IF you buy into the patriarchially determined fiction that women who remove their hair, waxing, shaving etc are more beautiful,  desirable,  valuable etc,  which of course is only true to the extent that people actually impose this discourse of hairlessness upon us.  This discouse is much more oppressive here in the US than in Europe or the UK.  It’s pretty bad in the UK as illustrated by this doctors statement within the BBC article:

“Professor Richard Sharpe…   ….warned that women suffering from hirsutism… …needed proper medical treatment.”

Apparantly hair is a MEDICAL problem not a social value-set. 

Sigh.  

twenty-fifth in a clean series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #25: char people

I have not heard the phrase char lady or any politically correct variation thereof, such as char people, in the NW USA.  The BBC has used it to refer to an Amercian and a contemporary website has it advertised as a job-type.  At my place of work there are char people.  They do not wear beautifully tied headscarfs, bring a tea trolley passed your office at 3.30pm,  have cigarettes hanging out of the side of their mouth or provide snippits of wisdom disguised in a subversively surly, morose, wrapping.  This wrapping isn’t widely available in NW USA workplaces.   Sigh. 

Two of the definitions of char from Allwords.com 

1. To do paid cleaning work in someone’s house, an office, etc. (noun);  Etymology:  Anglo-Saxon cierran.

2. Slang for Tea (noun); Etymology: from chinese cha (20th century)

twenty-fourth in a rosey series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #24: almost there; bar the roses

Elizabeth and Alexanders is where I first encountered The Red Hat Society having an ‘event’ on a busy Saturday morning.  The tea rooms bustled as the serve staff quickly moved between customers and the kitchen.  Thank goodness that the cackle in the red hats were ushered into a separate room.   Elizabeth and Alexanders is closer to my experience of standard tea rooms in the UK though still overdosing on ‘pink’ and ‘roses’ with an all female clientelle.  

I ordered a “Ploughmans Lunch“  that arrived without cheese,  chutney, ham or bap.  Uh?  Way too girly for any self-respecting ploughman,  tasty nonetheless.  The server had an English accent and found it appropriate to be way more tactile than I’m accustomed to in the US:

Wendy; I’d like the 6 cup pot of….
Server:  Assam? (touching my shoulder)
Wendy: Yes  (smiles)
Server:  With milk (smiles and rubs my arm)
Wendy:  Yes, please!

This is an ideal unpretentious place to stop by with a friend or two for peaceful conversation over a good cuppa (and get your arm felt-up).

 All examples here use a teabag in a mug with hotwater poured onto the bag.  The first photograph is in the kithcen of a Portsmouth home.  Using a pint of semi-skimmed milk from Asda and a mug featuring St Georges cross in front of a glass electric kettle.

 This is on a beach in Cornwall near Cawsand.  3 mugs of tea and two mugs of chocolate for the short people.  An inovative water-boiling-on-the-beach contraption helped ensure the water was the right temperature for tea brewing.  Once the tea had brewed sausage sandwiches were made then we finished off with another cup of tea.  The perfect way to start and wrap-up a hike to the beach.

 This is from home in Bristol.  It’s the pre-breakfast table at 7am,  my first, second and third cuppa of the day normally come from this productive little pot.  That is cup number 2 and I’m about to refill the pot with fresh tea for the biddies as they start to wake up and potter about.

twenty-fourth in a pumped-up series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA Bath UK.

Thursday Tiffin #24: Bath pump rooms

Outstanding tea experience without a sniff of a rose on the table,  table-cloth, wall-decorations or wait-staff.  Live music from the grand Piano,  quiet conversation.  Scones with real clotted cream.  An extra pot of hot water,  refilled 2 times, 2 extra pots of tea suggested and bought by the wait-staff at no extra cost.  Nothing at all disrupted my first tea-out in the UK.  Built in 1785, Jane Austen lived in Bath and possibly took tea in the pump rooms.

On the way to Cornwall I stopped for Tea and a Pasty on the edge of Dartmoor.  Everything was comfortably as expected.  Pot of hot water,  pot of tea,  milk,  cup without any roses or pink on it,  see:
 

twenty-second in a trendy series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #22: Remedy Teas.

Make sure you memorise the name otherwise you might end-up in the nearby Teapot by accident.   Remedy Tea is the best tea place I’ve visited in Washington State and, as you’ve noticed,  I’m Mrs Fussy McFussy when it comes to tea.

 Attentive knowledgeable service. I ordered Earl Grey tea and the waitress described the different Earl grey options (black, red, green and white)  ‘What’s the difference?’  ‘Caffiene levels’  Now this I understand,  though I’ve forgotten which colour had more.  In the panic of too much choice I opted for the familairty of black Earl Grey.  With over 150 different types of tea on offer their choice was impressive.  The venue had a very modern stlysh ambience, it fitted my stereotype of YUPPY.  There were girls and boys here,  they looked NORMAL not just elderly women in silly hats,  I was probably the oldest person there and the only person in a silly (not red) hat.

Bodum produced glassware with an insulating air layer in the handleless cups.  The experience included digital timers to avoid stewing the tea and tea-lights to keep the unstewed tea warm. Heavenly.  Rows of test-tube containers that you could use to smell each tea before choosing what to purchase lined one wall.  The test-tubes were displayed in a decorative manner,  function and form combined stylishly ….mmmMMMMmmmm…..

We sat outside without coats in January the week after ground snow.  I couldn’t use the traditional method of judging the tea’s temperature “can I hold the cup?” through the insulated cup or use it to warm my hands. ‘Cold finger!’.  After two cups we went inside. More wussy customers wore scarves and coats on inside and were dressed in a stylish shade of black.

As standard in the US they didn’t offer milk.  I forgot to ask.  FORGOT.  I think I’m getting Americanized…..  oh my…  …need my trip back to the UK NOW*…  

Remedy teas recommended for a quality well delivered experience to people under 60 of all genders wearing black in a modern relaxed environment

*I am actually currently drinking tea with Mumzie and Dadsy at an undisclosed celebrity hide-away in England as I start a rigorous re-English-ification course.