A Solution To The Tea Bag Problem
In Rochester High Street, I had a very nice cup of tea in a cafe called Dot Cafe. What a good name for a cafe with good internet and wi-fi.
As you can see milk was served alongside in a small wider jug, which was an ideal place to put the teabag. The lady in charge said that was what you did!
A simple idea that solves a messy problem! Perhaps you could put some words on the jug like “Milk – After The Teabag”
South West Trains Messy Tea
The picture says it all.
South West Trains Messy Tea
If I was the boss of ATOC, I’d offer a prize for the design of a tea system that was simple for the staff and customers alike, but didn’t leave any mess.
The Cable Car Was Busy
The Emirates Air Line has been criticised for low usage lately.
The Cable Car Was Busy
However, this picture shows that the sun brings out the punters.
Later, I was able to have my first outdoor cup of tea.
My First Outdoor Drink Of 2014
In fact, the only problem was the breeze made it difficult to control the bills.
Change After Forty Years
My middle son, who is in his forties came round for supper last night.
For the first time ever, he had a cup of tea. Normally, he drinks coffee!
Should We Buy Tea Shares?
The Times today makes a joke on the business pages about builders in wet February and freezing March, sitting around in huts drinking tea.
I must admit my consumption, has been very high in recent months.
So should we put our money where our mouth sups and invest in tea shares?
I Drunk A Lot Yesterday And Feel Much Better Today
Yesterday, I drunk more than I have for some time. I had three mugs of tea before I left home, two cups of tea with my lunch in Carluccio’s and then perhaps another four mugs of tea during the afternoon and another one late at night. I also had a pint of Aspall Cyder down the pub during the presentation.
So I probably drunk about two and a half litres yesterday.
As a child, my mother was always getting me to drink more and often the only drink I had during the day, was the third of a pint bottle of milk and perhaps a small cup of tea. It was very difficult to get me to drink water and if I did drink anything else it was squash or her home made lemon drink, made to a Mrs. Beeton recipe.
From the time, I started drinking alcohol, I’ve generally been a pint of real ale man, although for years, I followed my father’s lead and drunk small bottles of Guinness. Incidentally, those small bottles, which are unobtainable now, were low in gluten.
I think when I went gluten-free, I started to get the odd stiffness in my legs and breathing difficulties at this time of year. I used to think, I needed to have a cup of coffee before tennis to get myself going. But could it be that I had cut down on my liquid intake, by avoiding pints of beer. And also in those days a few years ago, decent cider, like Aspall wasn’t available in pubs.
I came out of hospital after the stroke feeling pretty rough and I don’t think I was drinking much inside. Basically, I’ve never been a great water drinker. I need something stronger, like tea, milk or lemonade.
I think I will keep up the high level of drinking.
As I’ve been drinking hard for the past month or so and having a deep bath every day, it does seem, that the stiffness in my lower legs has eased.
Strangely, my rhinitis isn’t too bad this morning either and my toe nails seem not to be their usual mess.
So perhaps the two most important women in my life, my mother and C, were right all along, in saying I should drink more. C of course was always making me cups of tea, when she was at home, as she was a serious coffee and water drinker.
So perhaps we had mutually beneficial habits. I think too, my son is another heavy drinker of the non-alcoholic kind.
But why is it, that things seem to always get worse for my body in the first few months of the year? I had a GP once, who said I might suffer from SAD or seasonal affected disorder. It did get better soon after that diagnosis, but C and I were taking at least a week’s holiday in the sun.
Educating The Germans
I’ve just read this piece on the BBC’s web site called “Affection for Britain brews in Germany”. Part is about the Germans new-found love of tea and the author, Stephen Evans, says this.
The office of one of the Green MPs in the Bundestag, you see, has made a collective decision to switch from coffee to tea.
So when I was there the other day, I was relentlessly quizzed about brewing times – they seemed to want the correct answer to the very second – and which tea to use.
I was not much help, except to say, “Make sure it’s a strong, black tea, probably Indian.”
They had made a bad start, offering me a cup of insipid weak Darjeeling, which would have shamed a gnat. They had not made sure the water was boiling.
It is definitely a piece worth reading.
What everybody forgets is that the Great British Breakfast is actually the Great German Breakfast, as in the Victorian age, everywhere had their German delicatessen which introduced bacon and sausage to many in the UK. The Germans had to leave, when there was a bit of trouble with the Kaiser in 1914.
Why Am I Drinking So Much?
Yesterday, I drank heavily all day.
I had three mugs of tea before I left home to do my shopping and then another cup of tea in Carluccio’s with my breakfast.
Before I left for the football, I had a large glass of milk and then I had a tea on the train going to Ipswich.
I didn’t drink anything in the ground, but I did have a small bottle of water coming home, to wash down my Warfarin.
With my supper, I then had two 330 ml. bottles of Celia lager, to wash down the Marks and Spencer’s curry.
A couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to drink that amount of fluid, as my throat was rather dry. But just as my gut seems to have improved, it now seems to be the turn of my throat.
Thinking through the last two years since my stroke, I don’t seem to have been able to drink like this. In fact some doctors have told me to limit my fluid intake.
In some ways though, this drinking behaviour has happened before. In the early 1970s, I was working as a consultant at Time Sharing in Great Portland Street and was getting most of my fluid in the Mason’s Arms next door. I remember then thinking, I was drinking too much, so I switched from coffee to tea at home and started to drink masses of the stuff. I felt a lot better.
Then sometime about 1985 or so, I gave up coffee again and started drinking tea, after I thought I’d got a serious mouth infection. I actually, stopped drinking coffee this time, a couple of months ago, as I thought I’d got a similar infection.
So it’s all very strange. At least drinking lots of tea, with one drink a day, isn’t going to do me any harm.
One side effect of my health and possibly all of the drinking, is that for the first time in a year or so, wine now seems to taste like wine again.
To Southgate For a Cup Of Tea
This morning, I took the Piccadilly line to Southgate to try out one of the new Tesco-financed coffee-shops called Harris and Hoole.
The tea was excellent and properly served in a pot. Note the triple-barrelled tea timer, which could time your tea to exactly 3, 4 or 5 minutes. If they’d sold them in the shop, I’d have bought one, but they don’t at present. But they are available on-line from here!
The staff were attentive and if they can replicate this style, the company may have created something like an updated traditional coffee shop, that you still see occasionally in places like Harrogate. It certainly has a better ambience than Starbucks and is laid out with quite a bit of space.
At present, they don’t have any gluten-free offerings, but apparently, they’re working on it. They do though have EatNakd bars.
Overall it’s a good concept and I wish them well, despite the Tesco connection. My allergy to the supermarket chain stems from a business run-in years ago and where there are alternatives I go elsewhere.
In the 1950s and 1960s, when I was at Minchenden Grammar School just up the road, the only coffee bar was the Mayfair a few doors towards Cockfosters from where Harris and Hoole is now. That place was beloved of teddy-boys and served coffee in those shallow Pyrex cups. It was off-limits during school hours!
Breakfast At Leon
I left home to do some photography without having any breakfast, so in the end I went to Leon in the depths of Canary Wharf to have one of their poached egg pots and a cup of tea.
A Proper Mug Of Tea
How often have you had tea in a fast food restaurant in a proper china mug, that was virtually full-up? Especially, when the two items cost just £3.75 together. I took a picture of the poached egg pot in this post.
The Anonymous Widower 