I am of the firm opinion that if you need milk and sugar in your tea you are not drinking the right tea. However, if this piece of design by a fellow finn Tanja Sipilä was on the table, I might just make an exception. It is called the Newton because it uses the force of gravity to keep the sugar bowl in place when you pour you milk. It is available from Huset.com
Friday, 10 April 2009
Milk and Sugar?
I am of the firm opinion that if you need milk and sugar in your tea you are not drinking the right tea. However, if this piece of design by a fellow finn Tanja Sipilä was on the table, I might just make an exception. It is called the Newton because it uses the force of gravity to keep the sugar bowl in place when you pour you milk. It is available from Huset.com
Monday, 6 April 2009
African Tea - Pictures
I have some important work to do tonight - so i'm procrastinating. Here are some more pics from Burkina Faso and Mali.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
African Tea
Needing to get my yearly Africa fix, some friends and I organised a trip to Burkina Faso and Mali. The FESPACO film festival was being held in Ouagadougou and we thought it would be the perfect time to see something of West Africa. I was left speechless with admiration for these beautiful countries, especially Burkina Faso which I would return to in a heartbeat. The south in particular is delightful with glorious countryside, very special people, and a capital city to lose your heart in. The only downside is the women are so beautiful and so exquisitely dressed that we, red-faced and in sweaty tee-shirts, were left rather beaten about the ego.
Of the two, Mali is the tea drinking country. Straddling the Sahara desert, the Sahel and in the south, sub-tropical grasslands, Mali has palpable Berber and Tuareg influences. The country is also very Muslim and all this is reflected in their tea drinking - a tradition familiar to anyone who has visited North Africa. The only difference is in Mali they do not add bushels of fresh mint.
You feel these influences immediately as you cross the border. While Burkina Faso had a few roadside kiosks selling cups of Liptons and Nescafe, Malians were always brewing up fresh pots of morning, mid-morning, lunchtime, post-lunch and evening tea outside their shops and stalls.
Unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of this Malian brew. Strong
and very sweet, I appreciated the experience of drinking it by the banks of the River Bani with friends and Mopti's curio sellers than the tea itself. Made with cheap China green tea, it is boiled up for about 20 minutes over little braziers and then decanted into a teapot and well sugared. The brew is then repeatedly poured from a great height into small glasses to foam up the tea. I never managed to master this technique, even with the shouted encouragement of my travel companions.
"You've got to pour it from higher up! Higher! HIGHER"
The teapot and glass is then placed on a tray (by now wet and sticky from having poured the tea over my hand and tray rather than into the glass) and offered around. Only one or two glasses is ever needed since the tea is shared. The skill comes into foaming up the tea adequately and then being able to measure it out so that everyone gets to have a sip.
Every time we were invited to tea we would be told of a Dogon/Fulani/Bambara saying that goes "the sip is bitter like death, the second is mild like life and the third as sweet as love". After hearing the same saying from almost everyone we met, it lost its romance. I took down the Dogon version but looking back on my notes, I suspect that my transliteration will one day embarrass me so I won't repeat it.
After two weeks I did start to long for a cup of something special and I was glad we bookended our trip with time in Paris where good tea may be found if you know where to look - I urge you to make a beeline for La Maison des Trois Thés on Rue Gracieuse (no.33).
Of the two, Mali is the tea drinking country. Straddling the Sahara desert, the Sahel and in the south, sub-tropical grasslands, Mali has palpable Berber and Tuareg influences. The country is also very Muslim and all this is reflected in their tea drinking - a tradition familiar to anyone who has visited North Africa. The only difference is in Mali they do not add bushels of fresh mint.You feel these influences immediately as you cross the border. While Burkina Faso had a few roadside kiosks selling cups of Liptons and Nescafe, Malians were always brewing up fresh pots of morning, mid-morning, lunchtime, post-lunch and evening tea outside their shops and stalls.
Unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of this Malian brew. Strong
and very sweet, I appreciated the experience of drinking it by the banks of the River Bani with friends and Mopti's curio sellers than the tea itself. Made with cheap China green tea, it is boiled up for about 20 minutes over little braziers and then decanted into a teapot and well sugared. The brew is then repeatedly poured from a great height into small glasses to foam up the tea. I never managed to master this technique, even with the shouted encouragement of my travel companions."You've got to pour it from higher up! Higher! HIGHER"
The teapot and glass is then placed on a tray (by now wet and sticky from having poured the tea over my hand and tray rather than into the glass) and offered around. Only one or two glasses is ever needed since the tea is shared. The skill comes into foaming up the tea adequately and then being able to measure it out so that everyone gets to have a sip.Every time we were invited to tea we would be told of a Dogon/Fulani/Bambara saying that goes "the sip is bitter like death, the second is mild like life and the third as sweet as love". After hearing the same saying from almost everyone we met, it lost its romance. I took down the Dogon version but looking back on my notes, I suspect that my transliteration will one day embarrass me so I won't repeat it.
After two weeks I did start to long for a cup of something special and I was glad we bookended our trip with time in Paris where good tea may be found if you know where to look - I urge you to make a beeline for La Maison des Trois Thés on Rue Gracieuse (no.33).
Friday, 27 February 2009
English Tea
Living as I do in London, it is not uncommon for me to have to defend my position about tea. Whenever I profess to enjoy a cuppa, before I can say Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, I am asked if I like Liptons or Tetleys best. Or, worse, where I would suggest to find some really good chamomile. One doesn't want to be rude, but a short, sharp smack in the face usually works wonders - though does little to enlighten.
Gilles Brochard made the pointed comment that the English are not so passionate about tea as they are of milk. Ah yes. This is even more true with the advent of Starbucks and their crimes against coffee. No coffee should be served with half a litre of milk and froth and any tea needing the addition of milk to make it drinkable is certainly made from inferior leaves (not that you could tell since the leaves have been ground into dust - open an ordinary teabag, go on, it's eye-opening).
George Orwell, a man I hold in very high esteem, wrote a piece for the Evening Standard in 1946 called A Nice Cup of Tea in which he describes the how, in his view, one ought to make a pot of tea. It's a wonderful article full of vigorous opinion and he brings up the usual British tea controversies such as milk in first/last, warming the pot, teabags, sweetener etc... all of which are completely beyond my conception of tea drinking.
While I feel personally affronted when he states, "Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter", I feel physical pain when I read the advice in point six:
"One should take the teapot to the kettle, and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours"
This is a good idea only if you want to destroy every flavour compound in your tea and release into it a superabundance of tannins. This advice is propagated at every turn, and I've noticed modern kettles now stay on the boil for several long seconds before switching off. I can only assume it is on the mistaken assumption that tea ought to be scaled to get the best out of it.
I would dearly love to meet Mr. Orwell, mostly to compare our bookselling experiences and discuss the rise of Fascism in Europe, but I would firmly take issue with his article and perhaps treat him to some serious tea experiences. What he describes in the essay is what the English hold most dear, but everybody else finds very odd about English tea.
Also published in 1946 was George Mikes book How to be an Alien. He offers a very different take on English tea.
"The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made a complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit. They suggested that if you do not drink it clear, or with lemon or rum and sugar, but pour a few drops of cold milk into it, and no sugar at all, the desired object is achieved. Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland - still retaining, indeed usurping, the high sounding title of tea."
The erudite Half-Dipper recently wrote a post about drinking tea in London. It is here.
*You can find the article in Orwell's Collected Essays published by Random House's Everyman Library (ISBN: 9781857152425). It's a wonderfully obese volume full of treasures that is well worth investing in if you have any interest in Europe between the wars and English social history. The essay itself is also available online.
*Gilles Brochard's latest book is Le Thé Dans L'Encrier (The Tea in the Inkwell). It is wonderful book about the relationship between tea and literature and includes a guide for serving tea to your favourite author. According to him, Amelie Nothomb, a writer of dark complex emotions with a distinct Gothic sensibility should be offered nothing less than a 20 year old Pu'erh.
Gilles Brochard made the pointed comment that the English are not so passionate about tea as they are of milk. Ah yes. This is even more true with the advent of Starbucks and their crimes against coffee. No coffee should be served with half a litre of milk and froth and any tea needing the addition of milk to make it drinkable is certainly made from inferior leaves (not that you could tell since the leaves have been ground into dust - open an ordinary teabag, go on, it's eye-opening).
George Orwell, a man I hold in very high esteem, wrote a piece for the Evening Standard in 1946 called A Nice Cup of Tea in which he describes the how, in his view, one ought to make a pot of tea. It's a wonderful article full of vigorous opinion and he brings up the usual British tea controversies such as milk in first/last, warming the pot, teabags, sweetener etc... all of which are completely beyond my conception of tea drinking.
While I feel personally affronted when he states, "Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter", I feel physical pain when I read the advice in point six:
"One should take the teapot to the kettle, and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours"
This is a good idea only if you want to destroy every flavour compound in your tea and release into it a superabundance of tannins. This advice is propagated at every turn, and I've noticed modern kettles now stay on the boil for several long seconds before switching off. I can only assume it is on the mistaken assumption that tea ought to be scaled to get the best out of it.
I would dearly love to meet Mr. Orwell, mostly to compare our bookselling experiences and discuss the rise of Fascism in Europe, but I would firmly take issue with his article and perhaps treat him to some serious tea experiences. What he describes in the essay is what the English hold most dear, but everybody else finds very odd about English tea.Also published in 1946 was George Mikes book How to be an Alien. He offers a very different take on English tea.
"The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made a complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit. They suggested that if you do not drink it clear, or with lemon or rum and sugar, but pour a few drops of cold milk into it, and no sugar at all, the desired object is achieved. Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland - still retaining, indeed usurping, the high sounding title of tea."
The erudite Half-Dipper recently wrote a post about drinking tea in London. It is here.
*You can find the article in Orwell's Collected Essays published by Random House's Everyman Library (ISBN: 9781857152425). It's a wonderfully obese volume full of treasures that is well worth investing in if you have any interest in Europe between the wars and English social history. The essay itself is also available online.
*Gilles Brochard's latest book is Le Thé Dans L'Encrier (The Tea in the Inkwell). It is wonderful book about the relationship between tea and literature and includes a guide for serving tea to your favourite author. According to him, Amelie Nothomb, a writer of dark complex emotions with a distinct Gothic sensibility should be offered nothing less than a 20 year old Pu'erh.
Monday, 16 February 2009
Driving away the Droops
I love the Victoria and Albert Museum and I've been going there since I was knee high to a teaplant. Their recent China Now exhibition was eye-opening and featured work by Chinese artist and ceramicist Lin Jing (on the left, lounging on one of her "Long Island" chairs)
The V&A shop is currently selling some of her limited edition teapots by that were featured in the exhibition. I particularly favour the Qiqi teapot (on the right) just because of it wonderful shape.
They also stock a fantastic tea towel that makes me smile everytime I see it.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Tea Palace
Walking down Kensington Park Road today on my way to work today, the sun was bright and crisp and the air fresh. This made a change from the relentless drizzle and snowy slush of the past month. What caused me to drop to my knees and curse the sky on this beautiful day was finding out that the Tea Palace is closing.
Not going forever fortunately, but moving to a undisclosed central London location. Reopening in spring 09, I know that Tea Palace Mark II will be a wonderful oasis and continue to serve delicious teas with style and knowledge.
But I can't help but feel sore-hearted that my favourite place to recharge batteries, have plate of eggs Benedict on payday, or buy up tea presents for friends (it'll be tea or books - deal with it) is moving out of reach of my immediate clutches.
Not going forever fortunately, but moving to a undisclosed central London location. Reopening in spring 09, I know that Tea Palace Mark II will be a wonderful oasis and continue to serve delicious teas with style and knowledge.
But I can't help but feel sore-hearted that my favourite place to recharge batteries, have plate of eggs Benedict on payday, or buy up tea presents for friends (it'll be tea or books - deal with it) is moving out of reach of my immediate clutches.
Saturday, 7 February 2009
Take a Young Raven from the Nest.....
This post is a little off-message since i'll be writing about a book of smells rather than a book about tea. But bear with me, because you'll love it.
Anyone interested in smells will find "If There Ever Was" fascinating. Subtitled "A Book of Extinct and Impossible Smells", the book was conceived to accompany an exhibition collecting a number of odours whose context has vanished (end of political era, extinction of plant components), or whose smells can only be imagined, such as the surface of the sun - mostly hydrogen, helium and copper.
The book, printed using a press, is a work of art in itself. Collecting together fourteen smells on scratch-n-sniff cards, each scent or odour is accompanied by a description of how it was imagined.
So, putting together the olfactory components that made up the scent of a medieval plague shield included "vinegar as this was the purifying base used at the time . We reconstituted rose leaves using rose oil and true raspberry leaves. We added different elements commonly used at the time to try preventing the settling of the Yersinia pestis (plague) bacteria, such as beeswax, angelica, orange peel, and clove. Also present in the plague shield is a smoky feeling because many fires of aromatic wood were lit at the time to try and fend off the polluted air."
Rub the scented page opposite and that's what you smell. A visceral historical experience as well as lesson in contemplation and in privileging our 'lesser sense'.
A proper review can be found here. One of the contributors Maki Ueda has a blog which can be found here. It's a delight.
Copies can be found at the ICA bookshop or online. (ISBN: 9780955747809)
Anyone interested in smells will find "If There Ever Was" fascinating. Subtitled "A Book of Extinct and Impossible Smells", the book was conceived to accompany an exhibition collecting a number of odours whose context has vanished (end of political era, extinction of plant components), or whose smells can only be imagined, such as the surface of the sun - mostly hydrogen, helium and copper.
The book, printed using a press, is a work of art in itself. Collecting together fourteen smells on scratch-n-sniff cards, each scent or odour is accompanied by a description of how it was imagined.So, putting together the olfactory components that made up the scent of a medieval plague shield included "vinegar as this was the purifying base used at the time . We reconstituted rose leaves using rose oil and true raspberry leaves. We added different elements commonly used at the time to try preventing the settling of the Yersinia pestis (plague) bacteria, such as beeswax, angelica, orange peel, and clove. Also present in the plague shield is a smoky feeling because many fires of aromatic wood were lit at the time to try and fend off the polluted air."
Rub the scented page opposite and that's what you smell. A visceral historical experience as well as lesson in contemplation and in privileging our 'lesser sense'.
A proper review can be found here. One of the contributors Maki Ueda has a blog which can be found here. It's a delight.
Copies can be found at the ICA bookshop or online. (ISBN: 9780955747809)
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