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SWB on a Storm in a Teacup

Sometimes in our weekly convos, Frank Mitchell and I don’t see eye to eye, and our chat this week demonstrated such an impasse. This time, the hot topic concerned making a cup of tea, a matter I hold strong opinions on. It appears that the Gen-Z’ers are at it again. As if their love of matcha and mullets isn’t bad enough, they’ve only gone and taken to making their brew in the microwave: the horror! And Frank’s response?  Fairly ambivalent. He then confessed to not even owning a teapot. Readers, I was scandalised. To make matters worse, he admitted, (with no hint of shame) that he is a dunker of teabags, and that sometimes, should his mood need bolstering, he could finish his hot beverage with no fewer than three bags lurking at the bottom of the mug!

What an abomination! This is more than taking liberties with your Lipton; it’s a crime against tea; a bastardisation of a brew; a plague upon your Punjana.

I mean, the clue is in the name, isn’t it? A brew is something that you, well, brew.  A decent cup has to infuse a while to let all the tea-y flavour emerge in all its delicately piquant goodness. The Mothership takes her tea-making very seriously. Down in the Ballyholme kitchen, there live an assortment of teapots, but only the stainless steel are in use, the ceramics are a mere decoration, as they don’t keep the tea hot enough. When I was growing up she preferred loose tea, but that was bloody awful as I was always forgetting and ended up with a mouthful of leaves. Desperate altogether.

‘Will you like a cup of tea?’ she’ll ask, with seconds of your arrival.

‘Obviously,’ I’ll reply.

‘Who else is taking tea?’ she will enquire, and I will have to secure an answer quickly, because this will dictate which teapot will be employed, and how many teabags are used, as a strict drinker to bag ratio prevails. Should there be more drinkers than tea, another bag could be added, but this is done under duress as apparently it diminishes the quality of one’s cup. On to the hob it goes, and then, you wait, for precisely four minutes. When, and only when the microwave timer has pipped, can your tea be poured. And the milk goes in first, by the way. And the Mothership milks her own tea, always, as she takes barely a whisker and how she hasn’t burnt the oesophagus off herself is anybody’s guess.

I mentioned the ‘m’ word there. Gen Z’ers please note- the microwave timer can be used as a TIMER for for tea, and at a push, to reheat a cup. But never for the whole procedure. That’s a firm no. I’m glad we’ve that settled.

Once my friend Gayle had two Japanese friends visiting and my mum dutifully made them tea and homemade scones and served it up on a tray in her delightfully retro tea set. No joke, they said it was a highlight of their trip, in fact they referred to it as an Irish Tea Ceremony. The Mothership dined out on this for years.

So that’s a brief history of me and tea. I could go on, at length, but I won’t, and shall go now and relax and enjoy a cup. I advise you to do the same.

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