Reading some books by Kazuo Ishiguro lately, I noticed a great "fuss" about the tea and it's way to be served. I don't understand that at all. As I understand, the "orthodox" English way is to serve (and take, of course) tea always with milk. Well, esp. in the afternoon I presume there is mostly a decent Earl Grey or Darjeeling been drunk. Preferring a nice blend of FTGFOP1 Darjeeling First Flush (and an Earl Grey from time to time) by myself, I can't imagine drinking those with milk! So, I hope someone here can enlighten me about the English way of drinking tea ;-).
Regards, Dieter
P.S.: Does anybody know something about Ishiguro's tea habits?
Although my father always drank Russian tea (that is, tea with lemon), I did my formative tea drinking in England and now always take black teas with milk. Earl Grey, Assam, Lapsang Souchong, whatever, all with milk. I rather like the taste. I gather you don't. Fortunately, I am not bound by your taste.
If you look at the English tea set, you will see- six cups and saucers, One tea pot, one milk pot and one sugar pot. I guess English way to drink tea is- drinking tea with a tea set. That means- brewed tea with milk and sugar.
Tea culture in U.K. & South Asia:
When S. Asia was British colony- the English people started the tea cultivation around this region because to take some control on Chinese tea trades. But the tea seed was from Mainland China. However, in south Asia English tea style is still the elegant way to serve tea. If you ever been to South Asia you will see- when you go to a house or in a office, first they will ask you-do you want a cup of tea? If yes then you also have a choice to say- you want ginger tea or lemon tea etc. But if you just say yes, that means milk tea. The way tea is presents here also represent the specific family's or company's classy taste. Sort of Japan-tea presentation indicates the style. The true English way is- Brewed tea pot covered with a (nice, hand woven) tea cozy. cups and saucers numbers depend on the guests numbers. Full sugar pot(sugars quality also represent the style & status).A full milk pot with different kinds of snacks(again the quality and amount represent the style and status)LOL. But no one will ask you like in US-"Do you want milk 2% milk (I had hard time in US about this 2%(Low fat milk or full cream milk option LOL). English way milk means-full cream milk but again not creamer. I had the same experience in UK- tea with a whole tea set.
Well, about different blends and different teas- When people drink Darjeeling, a lot of people drink straight even some people put some milk or lemon etc. I think more then a billion tea drinkers live in south Asia but few people still know about the SFTGFOP1 grading system, I guess also in US and UK. But majority people still like full body, strong tea. That's why TG tips, Marks & Spencer are the most popular tea in UK. In south Asia Assam CTC dominates the tea cups. But Masala Cha or Chai Masala is not a UK culture, it's totally a South Asian tea culture. Though South Asian "Chicken Tikka"(Grilled chicken) is very popular in UK and as far as I know Masala Cha's popularity is also growing there in UK.
"English Breakfast"(EB) Blend:- Most of the time it is Chinese Keemun but sometimes EB can be also only Ceylon OP, example- Sir Tomas Lipton's EB Blend. Even EB can be a combination of Keemun and Ceylon OP. Anyway the result is EB blend is a strong blend so some milk and sugar go fine with it. I never heard any EB has Darjeeling, which is more kind of a light ,delicate tea. By the way, I had English breakfast tea in US as Bond Street Blend which was a combination of Assam and Ceylon.
Irish & Scottish breakfast Blend: Most of the time entirely Assam sometimes can be combination of Assam, Bangladeshi CTC or Ceylon. But mostly Assam I guess. Irish breakfast blend is mostly made from CTC tea.
So you can see most of the English ways of teas are strong that's why it comes with milk and sugar.
Actually I can write a whole book about English way of tea LOL. I always love to talk and drink about EB blend or any blend. Because English way of drinking tea is also our way of drinking tea. It is an art to have a good cup of tea.
K. Ishiguro is a Japanese-English writer(though both of her parents were Japanese) but I have no idea about his tea habits, sorry.
"Russian tea" is an English term. My father's father, who was born in Russia and lived most of his live there, drank his tea with jam, or sometimes with rock sugar held between his teeth.
Hm, yes, maybe ... I can't imagine drinking my Darjeeling with milk, because it's flavour is too fragile. Maybe your blends are more strongly (esp. according to the remarks of Ripon). So, e.g. also Earl Grey here on the continent is mostly a blend of fine Darjeeling or a blend of fine Ceylon and Darjeeling teas, all from leaf teas (TGFOP or FTGFOP). The only tea strong enough to drink with milk I know is Ostfriesentee (East Friesian Tea), that is mostly a mixture of Assam & Darjeeling TGFOP teas or (the stronger variety) a blend of Assam and Java or Assam and Ceylon BOP teas. In East Friesia the latter is an every day tea, the fist is a tea for sundays and special occasions (Sonntagstee). Sometime you can find the Sonntagstee flavoured with pieces of bourbon vanilla. But these teas are drunk with real cream, not with milk (and you don't stir the tea after adding the cream! ... well, see by yourself, if you like:
btw, the two "rocks" in the cup in the first picture is sugar, called Kluntje). So, maybe it's a question of the "right" blend, to drink tea the English way?! So, the question has to be, what are typical English blends for Darjeeling, Earl Grey etc. and which ones are the preferred?
Yes, I think invernting the low fat and even fat reduced milk was a crime. It is nearly impossible now to buy milk with natural, not reduced and not technically modified fat!
Yes, and I've mentioned it before (in my answer to david, that it's maybe a question of the blends. Maybe the English way of drinking tea depends on an English tea blend, even if you drink an Earl Grey or Darjeeling. So, if the English tea blends are quite stronger than the ones on the contnent, it's only natural to drink all teas with milk (and sugar).
Well, I would buy the book ;-) ... I'm very interested in the English tea tradition.
So, maybe he drinks litres of green tea per day or he's drinking loads of coffee (and beer) ;-) ...
I stick my head out for a bet that most English people do not know the term Darjeeling, same as with most Germans. Nothing wrong with that, if I am correct. I always found it not easy, to say the least, to find Darjeeling tea, or loose tea generally apart from the Twinings and similar mass product teas. Single estate teas are a rarity to find in England, although they exist. Most people, as far as I can tell, have tea bag teas with milk and/or sugar. Earl Grey is common as well, then without milk.
Because a thing is so now does not mean it was ever thus. Teas also change with time. Going back 40 years or so the UK was the major importer of Darjeeling tea much of which went into the hugely successful Maison Lyons blend, universally drunk with milk in the English way. However it was not the Darjeeling tea that you would now recognise as such; it was a truly black fermented tea with an orange liquor - properly oxidised, much like a rains Darjeeling is nowadays when hard withers cannot be achieved (these rains Darjeelings are sold domestically in India - not exported as). Then one day Lyons switched their house blend away from Darjeeling - whose producers had quickly to find another market. North Europe was targeted but required a lighter cup that would drink in the European way - without milk. And so the nearly green, hard withered, Darjeeling tea was developed and became universally recognised as "the" Darjeeling. But how will it be forty years hence? Nigel at Teacraft
Nigel at snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com12/23/03
04: snipped-for-privacy@teacraft.com
Nigel, that's extraordinary. Thanks for sharing it. It had never occurred to me that the Darjeelings I drink might be so new a style. I especially enjoy Darjeelings prepared in the "oolong" way, as developed for example at the Gopaldhara gardens. Perhaps, the wave of the future. Who knows.
Also, your explanation might begin to explain a puzzlement: Why Darjeelings so often classified as "black" tea, when in fact -- currently, as you point out -- they are not.
Did anyone see the 1999 National spelling bee documentary on one of the premium show channels recently where the American raised Indian kid almost got tripped up over the word Darjeeling?
Fascinating! I've heard that much of the best Darjeeling now goes to Japan. If this is true, the switch from black to near-green would presumably only have helped.
With all due respect, I find that a little bit hard to believe. That's because during a recent trip to Sri Lanka, all the teas I could find from the highest growing area (Nuwara Eliya, 2.000 meter above sea level) were "greenish blacks", similiar to Darjeelings (yet also quite different). I also had a couple of teas of the same type from the Uva district, which I supposed were from the highest parts of the district (which goes from mid to high level). And it's clear that both Sri Lanka's internal tea market and export market prefers *black* teas, mainly of broken grades. So for this reason I have thought that tea from the highest growing areas simply do not get fermented to the same degree as teas produced in other areas.
Jon
"Nigel at Teacraft" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...
I had the mixed fortune of living in the UK for several years, and would like to share two "English ways" now sadly declining.
One is the honorific given whomever is pouring. In an early James Bond film (IIRC), there's a scene where someone invites, "Will you be mother?" Most of the theatre audience looked confused or just missed the comment. (Likewise when Q, fitting Bond for a magic suit, asks on which side he dresses.)
The other is the eminently civilised practice of putting out a pot of very strong tea and another of boiling water. People can then mix to preferred strength. Since I prefer tea that looks like coffee (and coffee that looks like bitumen), and others a milder dilution, it seems a very polite treatment.
THE English way is: "What is Darjeeling? I only know some grocery store brands with Earl Grey tea bags, Tetley and PG Tips, and I always take the cheapest!"
THE English way to prepare and drink tea is:
Throw a tea bag in a mug
Add hot boiling water
Take a spoon, stir, and squeeze the bag, do this for one minute or so
I'm surprised that I seem to be the only Brit-resident Brit around here. Still, that's not a bad description of the current state of British tea drinking 8-)
British tea is drunk in several styles these days; Locally they're known as Builders', Anarchist, Lesbian and Posh. (I do happen to know a posh anarchist lesbian carpenter, and they generally drink builder's).
Builder's Tea is the typical drink of the masses. It's made as Matthias describes - bag in the mug, milk added later. The tea is cheap nameless dross from the supermarket, but it's usually based on Assam, to give a strong brew in no time. Real builders will add the regulation four sugars, but most people don't take it.
Despite its proletarian origins, this is a decent brew. It's made (unlike American tea) with boiling water and most of our mass-market tea (PG, or especially Taylors) is quite drinkable. Happy Shopper brands and Tetleys (arguably) border on the undrinkable.
Builder's Tea is easily ruined by adding the milk to the mug first, then trying to brew it with the resultant luke-warm fatty water.
True Builder's Tea (amongst builders) exists as a guild ritual as much as a drink. The labour of preparing it is performed by the most junior apprentice, who has also had to walk to the nearest garage (where the British now shop for groceries) to buy milk. Whether the Gaffer reimburses them for this, and how generously, is a mark of the apprentice's status and performance - effectively a variable pay bonus. The Guild Initiates themselves reinforce the mutual bonds by sharing the single Teaspoon of Brotherhood amongst them. Other guilds, such as the Lodge of Mechanics may favour other implements, such as the traditional ring spanner (the perfect stirrer and teabag lifter).
Anarchist tea takes its name from The Proudhon Shop-Lifting Tea Joke. It's the brew of Grauniad readers - basically Builder's Tea made in the mug, but the tea is a better grade and usually FairTrade these days. Milk is semi-skimmed and it's not sugared.
Lesbian tea (sometime Vegetarian Tea) is a derisory term for any tea-like infusion without tea in it. The fruit infusions that are so popular in Germany are also popular in the UK, but with a smaller sector of the population. Don't offer it to people who don't want it - it's just not thought of as "tea".
Posh Tea is the only one brewed in a pot. It's also the only one where the ritual still dominates over the beverage - posh tea is as much an activity as a drink - _really_ posh tea (like what The Queen drinks) is as complex and stylised as anything in Japan.
Post tea requires utensils, and often the new girlfriend's mother. It's served on a tray, and perhaps a tablecloth. Although Anarchist tea can cheerfully be slurped in a reclined positon on the sofa, Posh Tea must only be drunk whilst seated erect, at a table. You face the vessel and talk over it, never talking or being distracted whilst you place the tea down to one side. Surprisingly, proper tea may be served in a mug (so long as it's brewed in a pot) although it's the only place where you're still likely to find a teacup or saucer in use. A milk jug is essential. Serving milk from the bottle used to be accepted (with some tutting) from bohemians in their early twenties, but cartons no longer cut it. Similarly for sugar from a storage jar rather than a bowl, but never the packet.
The tea is chosen for the quality of its label, its distinction from everyday Assam, yet its reaassuring familiarity. So Darjeeling is popular, as is the entirely inappropriate Earl Grey. The tea itself may also be quite disgusting. The different strength of Darjeeling leaf compared to dust Assam may confuse inexperienced brewers, so it's sometimes stewed and of excessive strength, to try and colour match the familiar. An affectation for the rituals of Posh does not signify any understanding of the culinary aspect.
Biscuits are common, although these will be from a packet (displayed). More elevated forms serve the biscuits from a storage jar (hiding the packet to preserve a pretence of home-baking) or offer cake. Individual biscuits offered on the saucer are ridiculous though, and seen as a serious failing in understanding the boundaries of good taste.
There's also Irish Tea. Ireland is the last outpost of traditional (1950s) English tea-drinking. It's made in a pot, it's usually assam-based, it's unfeasibly strong and it's drunk with full-fat milk and probably sugar too.
Non-family members will be forced to eat cake with it (the rituals of competitive cake-offering potlach outside the tribe could fill a book). Not regularly home-baking is a major social gaffe. Even elderly bachelor uncles will be delivered with regular parcels of home-baked cake, not for their own consumption, but so they can be offered to passing vets and farm inspectors without provoking comment on offering "a poor spread".
-- Congrats to STBL on his elevation from TLA to ETLA
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