Courtesy of the Tea Appreciation Society
A look at tea from the other side of the pond
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Monthly Archives: November 2009
Tea needs a soundtrack: Volume 1
Put the kettle on!
Grab your teacup, turn up the volume and listen to these great songs.
For our first music compilation we are starting out a variety of music with Paul McCartney and Youth as The Fireman. Emilíana Torrini shows up from Iceland with her international hit Jungle Drum and Denmark sends The Raveonettes. We are also featuring great songs by Jem, The Kooks, LCD Soundsystem, Bell X1, Duke Spirit, and The Gaslight Anthem. Click through to listen!
If you can’t stand the heat, should you really make tea?
I love tea, I truly do. I never drink coffee, and I don’t see why my fellow people do. Non-the-less my friends love their pungent brown beans, so when we get together, that’s what they drink. That’s fine by me; it inspired the creation of this much finer web site.
Today was another coffee-morning get-together. With my one cup of tea. The company was lovely but the tea was lousy. Same as always of course. Here’s how is usually goes…
We’re at someone’s house. Friends and I all sitting ’round the table. Friends going to have coffee, I’m going to be served ‘tea’. I’m given my cup and the heated kettle – but as yet no tea.
Kettle, cup and I wait, even more time goes by. Friends keep chatting, then hostess remembers my drink. Voila, out comes a tea bag. If I’m lucky it’s not herbal, no grass with water for me. So, bag in cup, we’re still pining for the kettle. Water’s lukewarm by now, no need for an ambulance should it spill.
Finally, poured in my cup, the water turns palest brown. There’s the dark blob of the bag, and some lightly stained aqua. No way will the two really mix. The water’s too cool, the bag never once stood a chance. I let it steep as long as I can, but I don’t like my tea arctic cold. When there’s truly no life in the feeble sack, I abandon it on my plate. I pick up my cup and peer inside. Staring back at me, is the weakest of sickly teas. I should feel sorry for it’s unhappy state, but it’s me I’m thinking about. And I’m the poor sod to drink it. Sip, by hesitant sip. Close my eyes and think of better days.
“How’s the tea today?”
“Absolutely foul my dear, every little drop. Like slurping on cold puddle soup.”
Except you’d never hear me say that. Call me a coward, but I love my friends. Just truly don’t like their tea. Click through to continue reading…
Skodsborg, Denmark
The water is 18 degrees…Celsius. Cold, but the children don’t seem to mind as they charge, splashing into it. Every time they run up and back, their speeding feet fling sand high up into the air. Boredom, leftover from a morning shopping trip in the capitol fuels them. A summer afternoon on the beach is a good way to cure it.
The whitewash on the buildings along the strandvej is bright. The sun makes a good show of itself forcing warmth down through the clouds and onto the Danish coastline. Along the street, noise from a party spilling out of the Villa Rex fills the air with distant shouts and honking car horns. The Queen of Denmark is not in attendance today. Tea and family on the Danish coastline? Keep reading!
Who is buying the tea, you or him?
A man walks into a grocery store to buy some tea. He enters the aisle, coffee first, tea farther down. He’s pleased that the tea section has grown in the last several years. He notes that it’s now as long as the coffee section. A good sign.
He also notices that it is colorful. Pinks, reds, yellows and lots of pale blue. He glances at the coffee section with its dark modern colors and wonders why he was forgotten. The first box of tea he reaches for, green tea…has flowers on it. He puts it back. The one next to it is pale green, but with no flowers. He takes it, reluctantly, and heads out of the aisle.
No wonder men don’t buy tea. He stops and grabs a six-pack of cold beer. At the register he tells himself that the tea is for his girlfriend.