furrfu (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} furrfu) wrote,@ 2009-05-15 22:30:00 |
|
Somebody set up us the tea
I'm waiting for the World of Warcraft 3.1 patches to download, which gives me a couple of hours to kill. So I thought I'd write about some tea experiments I've been conducting, or "teasperiments" as I like to call them. When noone is around, anyway.
So, brace yourself for a rollercoaster story of intrigue! Steeping! Romance! Infusing! They said it couldn't be sipped! (May not contain actual romance.)
Act one, scene one: Peacock's Tearoom, Ely. Our protagonists are minding their own business and a fruit scone when KAPOW, they are BLOWN AWAY by the taste of some rather nice Assam leaf tea. Such was their consternation that jam was spilled onto the tablecloth! Well, more jam, anyway. In fact, the extra jam hardly showed up. If one were to be brutally honest, one could point out that the tablecloth had already, in the intervening steeping period, become the main jam receptacle. Indeed, of all things in the tearoom, few could have been accussed of being more jammy than the cloth 'pon the table; save perhaps for Mrs. Nugent on the next table, who doesn't really exist, but who had just won the lottery and thus was, in a very made-up way, also rather jammy.
Still.
The main character, whose attention had been drifting during the whole jam interlude, returns to the tea in hand (and also in a fine bone china teacup). He wonders: "would there be a way to re-create this authentic taste sensation at home?" And thus, a goal was set, an Undertaking Begun. It was Genesis – not the band with the whiny drummer, but the Genesis... OF TEA.
The acquisition of tea leaves happened soon enough, under the cover of daylight. An unmarked £10 note changed hands, a packet of Assam tea quickly stuffed inside a coat pocket. However, the method of infusion, the modus immersandi, that would take time. The Bodum teapot was rejected for being plasticky and not up to the job. Pah. Amateurs.
So, then was purchased the Whittard tea infusor, a small metal tube, square of cross-section and made of the finest unstain'd steel. Lo, how it glintèd! It lured the unweary buyer with promises of tea, the most honest of brews, suffused with pure moral fibre!
But there lurked evil in its heart. Maybe it had been led astray by a caffetière. Mayhap its noble purpose had been corrupted by a dark influence from Mordor itself. It could happen. Orcs, when making tea, rarely bother to warm the pot. I have it on good authority that Shelob, her heart filled with pure malice, uses UHT milk. Even the most glorious implement would find it hard (positively strenuous, aha, ah, ah) to strain tea effectively under such harsh conditions.
And indeed, it didn't. For the only tea made by this Tool Of Darkness was weak and, ironically, not dark at all. At best one could say it added a faint colouration to the water, possibly removing some of its taste. Bah! Such perfidy! Such disappointment! Woe! Verily, stronger cups of tea have been made by shouting "darjeeling!" loudly at some boiling water.
Thus, the quest continu'd. The protagonist, while wasting time on the internets, was pointed at the Ringtons Teafuser. Which is not only a fantastic name for a supporting character, but also a rather clever device for making tea. It may also be a transformer, solving crimes at night, but let us not go there, for that is a silly line of reasoning. And we are not at home to Mr. Silly.
Truly, it is a most ingenious device, even if it does look like a beer stein. In the bottom is a valve, which is opened by placing the device upon a suitable tea receptacle, for which purpose one might employ a cup or mug. One commences the steeping process by placing inside Fusor the required amount of tea leaves and an equally necessary amount of boiling water. Then, after the perfect length of time (relatively), the resulting broth is drainèd into the drinking vessel, resulting in a perfect cup of tea.
And, as I sit here sipping some Vietnam Yin Mei tea, I can only say the end result is most enjoyable.
(The author wishes to point out that he does not bear a grudge against tea bags, which may appear to have been cruelly ignored in this posting; but there is a time and place for everything. And sometimes one just Has to be posh about tea.)
I'm waiting for the World of Warcraft 3.1 patches to download, which gives me a couple of hours to kill. So I thought I'd write about some tea experiments I've been conducting, or "teasperiments" as I like to call them. When noone is around, anyway.
So, brace yourself for a rollercoaster story of intrigue! Steeping! Romance! Infusing! They said it couldn't be sipped! (May not contain actual romance.)
Act one, scene one: Peacock's Tearoom, Ely. Our protagonists are minding their own business and a fruit scone when KAPOW, they are BLOWN AWAY by the taste of some rather nice Assam leaf tea. Such was their consternation that jam was spilled onto the tablecloth! Well, more jam, anyway. In fact, the extra jam hardly showed up. If one were to be brutally honest, one could point out that the tablecloth had already, in the intervening steeping period, become the main jam receptacle. Indeed, of all things in the tearoom, few could have been accussed of being more jammy than the cloth 'pon the table; save perhaps for Mrs. Nugent on the next table, who doesn't really exist, but who had just won the lottery and thus was, in a very made-up way, also rather jammy.
Still.
The main character, whose attention had been drifting during the whole jam interlude, returns to the tea in hand (and also in a fine bone china teacup). He wonders: "would there be a way to re-create this authentic taste sensation at home?" And thus, a goal was set, an Undertaking Begun. It was Genesis – not the band with the whiny drummer, but the Genesis... OF TEA.
The acquisition of tea leaves happened soon enough, under the cover of daylight. An unmarked £10 note changed hands, a packet of Assam tea quickly stuffed inside a coat pocket. However, the method of infusion, the modus immersandi, that would take time. The Bodum teapot was rejected for being plasticky and not up to the job. Pah. Amateurs.
So, then was purchased the Whittard tea infusor, a small metal tube, square of cross-section and made of the finest unstain'd steel. Lo, how it glintèd! It lured the unweary buyer with promises of tea, the most honest of brews, suffused with pure moral fibre!
But there lurked evil in its heart. Maybe it had been led astray by a caffetière. Mayhap its noble purpose had been corrupted by a dark influence from Mordor itself. It could happen. Orcs, when making tea, rarely bother to warm the pot. I have it on good authority that Shelob, her heart filled with pure malice, uses UHT milk. Even the most glorious implement would find it hard (positively strenuous, aha, ah, ah) to strain tea effectively under such harsh conditions.
And indeed, it didn't. For the only tea made by this Tool Of Darkness was weak and, ironically, not dark at all. At best one could say it added a faint colouration to the water, possibly removing some of its taste. Bah! Such perfidy! Such disappointment! Woe! Verily, stronger cups of tea have been made by shouting "darjeeling!" loudly at some boiling water.
Thus, the quest continu'd. The protagonist, while wasting time on the internets, was pointed at the Ringtons Teafuser. Which is not only a fantastic name for a supporting character, but also a rather clever device for making tea. It may also be a transformer, solving crimes at night, but let us not go there, for that is a silly line of reasoning. And we are not at home to Mr. Silly.
Truly, it is a most ingenious device, even if it does look like a beer stein. In the bottom is a valve, which is opened by placing the device upon a suitable tea receptacle, for which purpose one might employ a cup or mug. One commences the steeping process by placing inside Fusor the required amount of tea leaves and an equally necessary amount of boiling water. Then, after the perfect length of time (relatively), the resulting broth is drainèd into the drinking vessel, resulting in a perfect cup of tea.
And, as I sit here sipping some Vietnam Yin Mei tea, I can only say the end result is most enjoyable.
(The author wishes to point out that he does not bear a grudge against tea bags, which may appear to have been cruelly ignored in this posting; but there is a time and place for everything. And sometimes one just Has to be posh about tea.)
