May 6, 2011

British Madness and Tea

The sound of the liquid pouring and the steam flushing in your face. The overwhelming aroma, that bitter taste,  the soothing feeling in your throat..ahhhh Tea ::):)
Surely , tea doesn't belong to a specific country. You have the indian "Chai". the morrocan/arabic "ash-shay", the chinese green tea, the japanese jasmin Tea ...etc  I am not go list them.We have wikipedia for a reason.

 I am not going to be talking about tea and British habits. Tea is a great part of the British tradition,  if you want to argue with a British person about tea, make sure you really know what you are talking about before entering an argument about it.

It happened once with me. I was in a tour in Unilever, New Jersey for the food scientists in Cornell.After touring the whole company and R&D, we finally entered the  "Lipton" area.
Yes, Lipton the most famous and most consumed brand in the whole world. We met the tea expert there who tours the world to search for the best tea leaves and buy them from farmers ( or perhaps buy the whole farm, I am not going to enter in the debate of Fair trade now, lets keep it for later).

And so he made us taste the tea he had prepared and then he asked us what is your favorite tea. My friends who were Americans, dont usually drink tea ....Noooo , Ice tea actually doesnt count.
And when my turn came to answer I told him "Earl Grey".. And the reply was far more  than I expected.
He looked at me with furious eyes :"Earl Grey!!! Anyone can put lemon with tea. That is simple. There is no intelligence. no taste in that!!" .
 At that moment, I thought because I didnt know about other tea types, he was mad at me. So , I went and listed for him all kinds of tea from cammomille to green tea. He was still mad.
I realized later, he was mad because Earl Grey is a Russion made tea , and he being British felt the urge to hate that type of tea. That is one hypothesis.Maybe it is true, maybe it is not :)
So, beware of British madness when you talk about Tea!
Stereotypes in food are always common....

Some "Tea" Quotes:


1- A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Eleanor Roosevelt


2- Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.  ~Author Unknown


3-If you are cold, tea will warm you.  If you are too heated, it will cool you.  If you are depressed, it will cheer you.  If you are excited, it will calm you.  ~Gladstone


4-Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.  ~Thich Nat Hahn


English Tea Infographic :




3 comments:

  1. Lubnaniyah fi elsou3odiyahMay 9, 2011 at 10:36 PM

    hahaha!! write about these food incidents :)
    they r funny!

    ReplyDelete
  2. shukran jazeeelan!! I will :D:D

    ReplyDelete