About tea….

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

**LINK**

Eagle

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Stovepipe on 26/04/2016 21:00:47:

PROPER workshop tea strength has the spoon (or equivalent) standing vertically with absolutely no visible means of support

Dennis

The spoon will actually slowly subside as it dissolves if you've got the strength right

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

Posted by Mike on 26/04/2016 15:53:04:

I've never been in HM Forces, but a pal who did his national service in the Rhodesian army in the early 60s told me that their tea was laced with copper sulphate, which was supposed to have the same effect as bromide. Reading all the above has made me so thirsty I'm off to the kitchen to brew a mug of Twinings Earl Grey – without milk or sugar, of course…

During my national service in the South African Defence Force rumours were rife that the tea was laced with copper sulphate in order to control "urges". A few weeks on mess duty where one of my duties was making the tea proved otherwise, besides which copper sulphate is actually rather toxic.

In reality, the extremely strenuous physical activity, there was no walking only running from 6am to 6pm during our basic training, ensured that by the time we went to bed at around 9pm, we were all far too exhausted to think of anything but sleep.

Clive

[Peter KroghParticipant @peterkrogh76576]

Well, I've been able to locate Typhoo QT on Amazon as well as some PG Tips loose leaf, and have ordered some. I also discovered we have some Earl Grey, in bags, so brewed up a mug. One bag in the mug. I'd forgotten we had the stuff as it was buried in the back of the cupboard. Steeped it for the recommended 4 minutes. It was kinda weak. Tomorrow I'll try two bags per mug.

Did some reading on varieties and it would seem that plain black tea is what I want. Assam sound close but I'm not sure about the description of the tanin properties. I'll have to order some and try it. Lapsang Souchong sounds like a good candidate also.

Scottish Breakfast tea or Irish Breakfast tea sound good also and I've found an on-line source for those as well.

So, the adventure continues and I thank you for your insights. Please continue!

Pete

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Heres a tail ender about tea, when I was young and posted to Donnington Workshops in Shropshire I soon found the main canteen. All the office typists would come for a mid morning break. I got to know some of them as I inspected and repaired typewriters. The story goes that the customers were complaining of the taste of the tea and they investigated and found a Rat's body totally boiled out in the hot water urn. The daily visit to the canteen dropped off very quickly after that.

Clive

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

My tea drinking local scrappy aquaintance claims to love the tea I make for him.. and reckons that's more down to the water from our borehole than any skill on my part (toss a teabag into a cup fr less than a minute and give it a serious squeeze before removal)

..perhaps i should sell tea-making bottled water…

[JAParticipant @ja]

"I view the tea-drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frome, an engender of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth and and a maker of misery for old age" – William Cobbett

JA – a coffee drinker

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 26/04/2016 21:30:36:

Posted by Michael Poole on 26/04/2016 17:06:20:

It seems Premier Brands was taken over by Premier Foods and then Typhoo were sold on. Typhoo are a long established tea producer in the Uk and India. The instant tea product is available as QT and would appear to be available in the USA via Amazon. Hope it's what you are looking for.

"Quite Tasteless"

Also avoid Lipton's Yellow Label (found only outside the UK) and the small pouches of sawdust found in dusty bowls on the dressing table in B&Bs.

Ketan will be along in a minute to tell us what real tea tastes like!

Neil

Neil,

Murrays original comments on China visits just about sum it up for me. I drink many types of tea from all over the place. Green, black (normal), flower, fruit, herbal, etc…what ever is going.

Most of the Buddhist temples in China have a restaurant where they serve the normal milky tea. I used to carry all the stuff like Murray does on his China visits. But now happy to go with the flow of different green teas and flower teas when in China, or if I have to take instant tea, I get this and add water. Its on Amazon. Just don't get anything which says it has 'masala' in it. If it just has cardamom in it, that is fine.

If JS comes along on the Chinese visits, coffee is the norm.

Tea bags: Yorkshire tea suits me fine in the U.K..

Loose Tea: Saturdays on my days off, loose tea from India, 'meshing' in the old fashioned way. The process is a bit of a ritual. I get this.

Pete: good luck with your tea journey.

Ketan at ARC.

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

This stuff for instant tea is nice too – normal tea with elaichi (Cardamom) or lemon grass. Page takes some time to load because of the background images on it. Dont like the masala or ginger one from them. Made in Leicester. … Cant find it on Amazon. They only seem to have the masala one which will be too strong.

Ketan at ARC.

[Peter KroghParticipant @peterkrogh76576]

Ketan, those teas look very interesting. I'm going to go over to Seattle in a couple of weeks and will make a point of visiting a couple of Indian stores to find those teas!

Thanks,

Pete

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

The thing about stuff like tea and taste and thirst is it varies so much with the rest of the system namely yourself.

The best cup of tea I ever had as a youth was from a van in a plastic cup. The recipe was :-

Walk the Snowdon Horseshoe all day.

Get back to the van on the Pen-Y-Pass and buy tea.

Drink.

Wonderful.

Martin

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Reading pgk pgk post re: borehole water I can understand. Our tap water makes naff tea. Solution? Brew up using supermarket economy 2 litre still water. Tesco's "value" used to be superior but these days its not so good. The Morrisons "Savers" variety is what I use at present. The difference between my tea made using tap water and bottled water is very noticeable – much improved.

While on the subject of "rosy", some years ago I brewed a pot of tea made with loose leaf PG tips instead of the usual tea bags – I found that I prefer the taste of my usual tea bag in a mug job.

Also, I read somewhere a while ago that a tea taster working for one of the big companies mixes his tea leaves in cold water before tasting – he claims that boiling water destroys the true taste of the leaf. I suppose he must be right if they give him amounts of cash to reward his skill.

Rik

[john fletcher 1Participant @johnfletcher1]

Now when I was in the tea plantations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala you got the real stuff, even better still from the Cha Walla on Light House beach. He was brewing up using a bucket of water on a Primus stove, he had a large linen bag full of tea leaves (about the size of a football) he dunk the bag in and out of the water until the colour was right, then he pored in lots of milk and sugar. Along side was another stove with another bucket of boiling oil in which he was making banana balls, these were banana covered in batter, then deep fried. Both were delicious, over the other side of the wall wash his washing up bucket, the contents lasted all day, so you can imagine how it looked at the end of the day. We spent 17 day wonderful days wandering around Southern India, eating with the locals and never got Deli belly.John

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