Still counting down - Random fact #5
african vanielje on Nov 08 2007 at 2:30 pm | Filed under: meme
When Belinda from What’s cooking in a Southern Kitchen tagged me for a 7 random things meme, I panicked. My mind went completely blank and I could barely think of 1 random thing. But ever creative I decided to post one a day. It just hasn’t turned out to be consecutive days - I am only up (or down as I’m counting backwards) to number 5.
I like to drink my tea out of vintage cups and I collect vintage teacups, cake plates and glasses.
Tea has always been a ceremony in our house. It was, I think, the first thing I learned to make in the kitchen, and with my mother’s fine palate being very demanding it was essential that we cut no corners. The kettle had to be emptied, filled with fresh water, and brought just to the boil. The pot had to be warmed then tea leaves carefully measured. My mother always used to blend several different teas, a trick I have never quite mastered, but she would change it every few months, experimenting until she found her perfect balance. I asked her why once, and she told me she could taste when a particular brand started selling a new harvest as there were always subtle changes and she would have to re-jig things until they tasted right. I doubt I will ever be that advanced, but I can tell you one thing, my mother’s tea always tastes delicious.
While the tea steeped, a tray was laid, often with a vintage hand stitched linen tray cloth. Cups and saucers were chosen and fresh milk was poured into a jug, usually from a fresh bottle of milk ( I still do this today). The cups and saucers came from various bone china sets my mom had inherited from her mother, her grandmother and her mother-in-law. We all had our favourites and even with full sets we used to mix and match. As the years went by cups got broken and sets got broken up when my mother doled special pieces out to the various girls in the family. When odd cups started appearing in little antique dealers my dad started replacing cups for her. For our wedding gift my parents bought Rory and I two exquisite antique settings of cup and saucer, and cake plate. Symbolic really of being grown up and starting our own traditions and ceremonies.
Well, we have not so much started our own as carried on those that I grew up with. The first person to be up (in my house or my mom’s) makes the tea and brings everyone else a cup in bed. When my husband leaves at 5.00am he still does this and I drink my delicious brew half asleep, kiss him goodbye and am comatose again by the time he closes the door behind him.
Because we are all so fussy about tea we generally drink coffee all day at work or whilst out. I have yet to taste a drinkable cup of tea in a restaurant or office. Once home again it is back to tea with ‘a last cup’ always being the pre-cursor to going to bed.
Every time I am tempted to bung a teabag in a mug I see my mother’s face, and I know it’s just not going to taste right unless I go through the whole ceremony. Warming the pot, laying the tray, choosing the cups, all keep me close to her on a daily basis, and it’s a ritual that I am currently passing on to my daughter. She doesn’t drink tea, but she loves to make it for her dad, and there is always a cup of hot milk and honey or a glass of fresh juice on the tray for her so that she is part of one of our most entrenched family rituals.
Lovely post. It makes me want to start drinking tea like that.
Sadly, I like a good old tea bag…
What a lovely post. My parents always used to drink tea out of their Rooibos from a proper teapot over the weekends, but sadly since leaving home, I never have
I’m not sure I even OWN a teapot and if I do, it’s in storage with Stuttafords… But I am very keen to get a few unmatched teacups as I have always thought this would be a lovely way to have make a ceremony out of tea. I envy you your lovely rituals!
I learned to make tea in a pot for my parents as a girl and I remember the smell of the tea caddy and the different look of the Indian tea for breakfast to the china tea for afternoon tea. I’m afraid I haven’t carried on the tradition though and am now a rooibos drinker and usually use a teabag …though it tastes a whole lot better when you get a good loose tea …maybe I’ll have to start a rooibos teapot tradition.
This could be an entry for Apples & Thyme! I love your stories, memories and your mom.
xo
Thanks Mrs W. I don’t think it really matters what your ritual is, as long as you take the time to make it exactly as you like it rather than just making do. I think my mother’s whole point was take the time to treat yourself as though you’re worth it, as well as those you love. So if the teabag does it for you…noones going to argue.
Jeanne, I have come to realise just how many rituals have been passed on to me by my parents. I always thought of us as gypseys because we moved so often and even when we weren’t moving we were rearranging furniture and repainting etc. I now know that the courage and need to constantly change my environment only came from being so safe and secure in my family that external surroundings were just a new challenge. All the little rituals that have become so entrenched were just my mothers way of instilling a sense of family and roots in us, wherever we chose to wander.
Kit, one thing I have realised is that the teapot is as important as the teacup to the final taste of your brew. My mom’s teapot is sacrosanct and no one is allowed to make rooibos or any herbal tea in it, or to wash it with dishwashing liquid. She always washes it out with boiling water only as she can taste anything else that’s been in it. She kept the same teapot for several years after it’s lid got broken, because try as she might, she couldn’t find a new one that made nice tea. Gospel. I think she finally found her perfect pot at a kitchen equipment wholesalers somewhere in Salt River. I wonder where my fussiness comes from?
Thanks Jeni, I think all my posts drag my mother in, whether she is willing or not. When you start to think about it, you realise just how much you have been influenced, even though my parents always brought us up to be independant.
So would it surprise you to find that we do the same, with the vintage tea cups….
My kids love to sit down to tea in the afternoon. We read aloud, or listen to music, or look at an art book, or chat..and my children have learned to make good tea and to love the ritual of it all.
I created a custom flavored blend when I created our custom roast coffee..
Jasmine long leaf base with blackberry, lemon and rose..It smells like heaven.
Doesn’t surprise me at all, Marye, and my mom grew up in Northern Rhodesia crawling in and out of tea crates, still redolent with their Far Eastern adventures, so the rituals mean even more to her.
Your special tea blend sounds simply divine. My mom had a special coffee blend too, for her restaurant, which the coffee merchant blended with her over a period of months when she first opened her restaurant. When she was finally atisfied it became our exclusive house blend, but towards the end of her 20 year stint, her unmistakable-tasting coffee began appearing all over Cape TOwn. I guess it just got too good to keep to ourselves.
What a lovely story! I am also a collector of old teacups and enjoy using them mix and match. They hang on a dresser and when having friends over, I’ll ask someone to go and choose 6 cups to their liking…they usually enjoy the “picking”.
And there is just no comparison to enjoying a tea, steeped in a pot! Love your post.
Ronell
Winderful post! I also have a number of antique teacups left to my by my grandmother. I’m afraid I seldom take them down from the top shelf, though. I have, lately, thought about using them to serve sweets, like bread pudding.
ronell, that sounds gorgeous. I have open shelves in my narrow kitchen but have always yearned for a fabulous old farmhouse kitchen dresser to stack my crockery on.
Ann, I often use the saucers or cake plates but have never used the cups for anything. Probabely because I’ve got my mom’s thing for not tainting the cups. i do use coffee cups or espresso cups for things like my espresso choc mousse though
We have gotten in the habit of tea (which is rare, for Americans) At the end of our day, before evening, I make a proper pot of tea and we relax, with a bit of something sweet…we use mugs, though…I’m afraid I can’t get enough in those lovely China cups.
I do use tea bags…but only for my green tea whilst at the computer
Lovely post!
I’m afraid I have turned into a tea bag dipper or bunger. I have some wonderful antique tea cups and small individual serving tea pots, but save the large tea pot and the “mashed” tea for company.
Katie and Valli, thanks for visiting. As I said to Mrs W, it’s not about what your ritual is, just that you have one means that you’re taking the time to say ‘I’m worth it’ (sorry L’Oreal). My mom always said this was the important thing, because if you don’t love and appreciate yourself, how can you have any frame of reference to love and appreciate others. I still always use a teapot, but I also use teabags, only occasionally venturing into a leaf mix. I love the sound of little individual serving teapots. I could use that for my different herbal teas.