icomefromalanddownunder wrote:I used to hate tea, and still do if it comes with milk and sugar. However, an elegant porcelain cup of Earl G, Orange Pekoe, Green, Rooibos, and a few herbal infusions are very acceptable to me.
I'm noting this, Caroline, prior to your Visit. Elegant porcelain cup...hmm... I'll do my best; morning tea at your bedside be OK?
My mother's tea was rocket-fuel strength leaf PG tips, brewed and stewed in a brown pot and kept hot at the back of the cooker. It was served with gold-top milk, the cream of which rose in globules to the surface. I could never drink it, and she foretold that I would be a social disaster. (Probably right

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Tea at CH was a watery grey solution served from an urn. I grew expert at doing the bit at the top of the table - remember that two handed action with the stacked tea bowls? But I never drank the stuff.
At the age of 19, I still thought I hated tea. Then, at the house of a platonic boy friend, on whom I had a hopeless crush, his mother poured me a cup of tea. Amber, fragrant, fresh, poured from a sparkling clean teapot! I thought I'd be polite and give it a go. Delicious! Reviving! Tactlessly, I went home and told my mother where she'd been going wrong.
She was so thrilled I'd had a cup of tea she rang the crushee's mother to thank her. My wilderness years were over.
Now, every morning, I drink my way down a teapotful, warmed pot, strong, just a splash of milk, currently from a kitten mug which was a leaving present. Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water is nice in this area. It wakes me up to write the day's emails!
Munch
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""