Can you imagine a life without tea?

I’m a huge tea drinker and drink it by the absolute bucket load, in fact, I’ve got a pot on the go while I’m writing this blog! I must drink at least 10 cups a day and I’d say that’s quite a conservative estimate, if I’m honest! I have, however, cut out caffeine and so it’s decaf all the way for me, not that I think that makes any difference to taste, well, not to me, anyhow.

I really cannot imagine a life without tea. It’s the first thing to pass my lips in the morning and most days the last thing that I drink at night. In fact, I’d rather have a cup of tea than a beer and have even been known to go down the local pub for a night out and have a cup of tea. Sad but true!

You see, I’m originally from the Midlands and I come from a bit of a family of tea drinkers. My dad was probably the biggest tea drinker in my family, closely followed by my sister, Wyd and then me. My mum drinks tea, but I don’t think she’s so consumed by the need for it as the rest of us seem to be. We all like a nice cup of ‘builder’s tea’, or to those of you that don’t know that’s just your bog standard tea, P.G. or Tetley. Whereas my other sister, Tracy, she’s a ‘Lady Grey’ girl, or ‘Pledge’ as I like to call it as to me it tastes like furniture polish smells!

I sometimes wonder how I would cope if I was to relocate to another country ‘cause, as any serious tea drinker will tell you, you just can’t get a decent cup of tea abroad. I remember being on holiday once and ordering a tea with milk and they brought me out a glass of cold water with a teabag suspended in it and a glass of milk! I really did not foresee that one, but I suppose that’s what I asked for!

Us Brits really do love our tea and it’s more than just a drink to us, it’s an entire social experience. We invite people around for ‘a cuppa’ and a chinwag and then we make a lovely pot of tea and set it out on a tray with a jug of milk. You might even get a biscuit to dunk if you’re really lucky. And, if you’re upset what’s the first thing we say? ‘Come and sit down and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea’. It really does help to take the stress out of a situation. And whether you call it a cuppa, a brew or just a plain old cup of tea, it’s all the same to us so long as it’s hot and wet.

A few weeks ago while my wife and I were out we treated ourselves to a cheeky cream tea! If you’ve never had a cream tea it’s a pot of tea, usually for two, served with a fruit scone, a pot of jam and a pot of clotted cream…hmmmmm...now that’s a posh tea but this type carries a few extra calories, only just, though! The more pressing question was whether to put the jam on first or the cream, but that’s a whole other story!

For me the perfect cup of tea is poured from a pot where it has had enough time to ‘diffuse’ but not so long that it’s ‘stewed’, into a mug that already has a little milk in it and it should be poured with enough height so as to create some bubbles on the top of the tea, or ‘money’ as my mum calls it (I have no idea why she calls it that, she just does), and then it has to be drunk while it’s still hot, if it’s gone to warm it’s just not the same, drinkable but, meh, and if it’s gone cold, no way, never!

Anyhow, that’s how I drink mine. A little bit fussy, but, well, I likes what I likes and well, you just don’t compromise on a cup of tea. So, tell me, how do you drink yours?