of all the quintessential elements of the English way of doing thing few can be so precious as tea, look you see. we take our tea quite seriously. how seriously exactly? very. or so i thought.
for some reason we, as a nation, have allowed interference with our tea. meddling and fiddling, if you like. whilst we have set standards in place for what is expected of tea, time and again we allow ourselves to be subjected to variations where no variations are solicited or, in fact, required.
examples of this have come my way of late. in order that you may not have to, or otherwise do so in a more informed way, i have elected to try them. may my comments on these interfered with tea be of benefit to someone, otherwise i have sacrificed proper tea drinking opportunities for little reason.
yes, quite a double whammy as you can see. in addition to this being that "green tea" business, which is acceptable for healing certain ailments, it has had certain elements added to it. or blended, i suppose, for "blended" seems to remain quite the "buzz" terminology for branding and advertising. elements which, in all honesty, many would consider unnatural in respect of tea.
so as this may be of a general level of interest i shall, in passing, look at the types of tea which are commonly accepted as being agreeable under the mandate of the English way of doing things. we, if you join me, shall look also at those who would lead our nation. the most important function of a leader is surely, indeed after all, to preserve the English way of doing things and that means to be a defender of a tea.
which poses a problem with the incumbent, and i use this in the dictionary defined capacity only, leader of our nation. indeed, the UK. as she, the wicked and spiteful Theresa May, loathes and detests the English (probably all UK) people, it would not be a shock to me to learn that she finds tea to be revolting. nothing, after all, seems to please her.
except, maybe, Italians. the above was taken during her celebrated (by Theresa May) 'Florence Speech'. whereas no one was particularly interested (except her) in what she said, there was a quaint moment in the "question and answer" section after it. during that she pledged to protect the interests of Italian nationals in the UK, post-Brexit. her motivation for this was along the lines of that she believed some of them lived in her constituency, and that she had met one or two, and found them to be "frightfully pleasant".
this she does, of course, whilst refusing to safeguard or protect the interests of British nationals living in the UK. i know this as fact because, as i have mentioned before, my family is at risk of being torn apart due to 25% of it being non-British and non-EU. this risk is less of a risk and more of a very direct and personal threat from Theresa May. for it was she what brought in such Draconian laws that care not a single calorie of concern for the wellbeing, happiness or way of life of British citizens who may be affected by it.
i digress some, only no i do not. the exciting thing about writing this now, some two weeks before it will go "live" on this blog, is that Theresa May (and blessed be this day) might not be Prime Minister by the time anyone but me reads this. apparently there is a perpetual threat that sees every chance she will be ousted, thrown out and disposed of. i really quite like to think this makes her miserable, depressed, scared and sad. that's exactly how she has made people like me and my family feel with her treatment of us.
so, anyway, tea. before we get on to the tricky business of looking at what these two fiddled with ones are like, let us now consider what is fit and proper tea under the terms of the English way of doing things. first and foremost of these is this.
ladies and gentlemen, behold the crown jewels, the jewel in the crown, the most excellent of tea available, Yorkshire Tea.
how is it known that this is the very finest of tea available? quite simple, really - it has Yorkshire written on it. a universal truth accepted in this world and beyond, in this lifetime and those to come, is that Yorkshire represents nothing short of the best and finest of everything. any who choose to argue with this must do so internally, for they have elected to do this out of pure jealousy and thus no one wishes to learn of their bitter resentment.
quite why i would drink anything else isn't really a mystery, i suppose. i was presented with alternate, other, lesser tea for free. to not drink it would be a shame, and rob me of something to write here.
on that note, then, let us proceed to the first of these tea types which i reluctantly tried. a promise, though - later on we shall come to the other perfectly acceptable type of tea one may consume under the warrant of the English way of doing things, despite it not being of Yorkshire.
an initial concern, to be honest, was that this might get all sticky. what if, i postulated, they had elected to take an approach, them manufacturer types at Twinings, of ensuring the product "did what it said on the box" and had placed actual salted caramel within this rudimentary teabag holding, smooth and partially shining packaging?
they had done no such thing, i am pleased if not particularly delighted to confirm. no, as we shall see quite shortly (at least if you continue to read and observe this), it was more that the green tea, or tea of green, was infused or otherwise "blended" with scent of what it is to be salted caramel, rather than adding actual, full tilt salted caramel to the teabag. this is true of the business end of the teabag and all secondary concerns, such as that quaint little string and the tag on it. but, at this stage you would rather probably wish to just see the image promised rather than read my somewhat lacking description of it all. so bet it.
indeed, as you can see, in many respects this is just a quiet, normal, ordinary teabag on a string with a tag. except for not being Yorkshire tea, or the other which i shall get to, there is nothing wrong with it as such at this particular stage.
what will happen if, ha ha ha sorry, no, when Theresa May falls from power? speculation suggests that the party she represents, even though like a lot of us they for the most part do not seem to particularly care for her, the Conservatives, will clutch at and cling to their ruling role. as for who may be their new leader, it seems a choice between a posh buffoon called Boris Johnson or a posh intellectual type called Jacob Rees Mogg. if i were a gambler, my money would be on the latter, as for some inexplicable reason he is quite popular and not nearly as rude to the Chinese or others.
the most important thing Lord Jacob, son of William, will need to do as new leader of the recently restored or rechristened British Empire is to determine the direction of tea. wholeheartedly believe, or in my imagination think, that he will insist on a restoration of the class system.
under Jacob's brutal but we are told to say it is fair rule i have every confidence that "posh" tea, such as that which is both green and infused with the aroma of salted caramel, shall be the preserve of the wealthy, the elite, the landed gentry and select members of the ruling class, the latter subject to which school they attended. it would, to Jacob, to be insulting to expect the ignorant, peasant like and deeply uneducated ("none of them speak Latin") working classes to be able to understand, comprehend or appreciate the finer nuances of the more splendid tea.
for the most part, under his excellency Emperor Jacob, unless you are quite posh the likes of you and i shall be expected to toil the land, so that the elite of our nation may have the finest of crops on which they may feast. but in his wisdom Jacob shall be kind and generous. on four instances of each year - the days which commemorate the birth of Jesus, the birth of our reigning Monarch, the birth of his excellency Jacob Rees Mogg and the day which celebrates the coming to power of Jacob Rees Mogg - the peasant lower classes shall be permitted to drink 1 (one) cup of tea to mark the instance.
this shall of course be coarse, low standard quality tea, made for the most part of sweepings from the floors of the factories in which the more talented of the proletariat shall be set to work to make finer tea for the upper classes. but this shall be tea all the same.
whilst i know many of you are now distracted, being all excited about what having Jacob as a ruler shall be like for us all, perhaps i should get back to the subject of salted caramel green tea. to wit, i wonder, perhaps you are wondering of it is any good or not.
happily i shall confess that the aroma, the scent or if you like the smell of it is a most splendid thing. very pleasant it is, carrying with it, as you may well expect, the strong sense of salted caramel. for gluttonous types such as i this is a very lovely thing indeed to have trouble your nose.
this, alas, does not translate into quite so tranquil a consumption experience. one must always remember that the benefit of green tea is medicinal, and by some inexplicable law all medicinal consumption must be harsh. brutal, even. whilst the first sip is somewhat nice the aftertaste is, i am afraid, quite like all green tea. decidedly unpleasant, and leaving one with a sense that they have just willingly taken into their mouth water which has been blended with cheap recycled paper.
oh, undoubtedly i have drank worst tea in my life, and with a degree of certainty i would say that it has been green tea, or some other variation of medicinal based tea. for the life of me, though, i cannot recall a specific instance.
now let us go on to the other form of tea which is not from Yorkshire but is perfectly acceptable to drink under the remit of the English way of doing things.
quite exquisite. splendidly sensational, if i may so boldly be slightly Australian in expressing my admiration for the above. of course, many you would have anticipated this when i speculated on a non Yorkshire Tea that would be acceptable to consume. this is, but of course, tea by Fortnum & Mason. which makes it decidedly more lavish and superior to all others, except Yorkshire.
one should really always keep a steadfast supply of Fortnum & Mason tea in their home. this provision may be most useful should a member of the nobility, a viscount or other such royal concern happen to drop by. serving such guests might give them notions or ideas that are decidedly below their station by birth, and could disrupt if not corrupt our social order.
at least this was my most sincere and earnest of hopes before i proceeded. there was the fear, of course, that they might have tried to cram an actual cherry bakewell into the teabag which housed the ostensibly green tea. such an action is not one i would put beyond the remit of barbaric branding and marketing executives, for they would do absolutely anything which they believed would draw large sums of money in their direction, allowing them to perpetuate a life full of horn rimmed spectacles, "power" shaded braces, flashy ties and an overt reliance on illegal narcotics imported from the relevant nation or nations which form the magnificent continent of South America.
phew. no. i am delighted to confirm - visually, as point of fact, just now - that my initial assumption was of course correct. normally my assumptions are proved such, and i should really learn to embrace this more. upon opening up the teabag packaging - lavish as it is - the evidence made clear that it was an "infused scent" of cherry bakewell that was present, and not an actual cherry bakewell. something of a bittersweet revelation, in truth, for i was somewhat peckish at the time.
here in the above you may freely observe the unbrewed, if you like naked, cherry bakewell green tea teabag. inhibitions are all lost, to be sure, with the safeguarding, glossy packaging now well and truly behind it.
my first reaction to this was that the scent is not so strong or pronounced as was the case with the salted caramel. a secondary reaction would be that it had a sense more akin to vanilla that it did cherry. my (considerably) half speculated that this might be the case, and i take every delight in confirming, once again with such a matter, she was correct.
what if the fall of Theresa May is so catastrophic that we have yet another election? many say that this is most likely, and many of the many who speak such are confident that Jeremy Corbyn will take his Labour party into power.
how will Jeremy Corbyn react to the challenge of being national protector of tea?
there will be many changes under Jeremy Corbyn. some of them will make his rise to power all worthwhile and interesting. for a start, i suspect his first move will be to remove the term "Prime Minister" as it sounds too superior. instead he will encourage all to call him "Chairman" instead, reflecting how he is the most equal of all the Comrades. the UK shall be renamed the British Union, but when some social media equality warrior points out that this is racist he shall, for the sake of ease of reference, declare the new name to be the Soviet Union.
under the rule of Chairman Jeremy the workers, or if you like the proletariat, will be free to drink tea. in the interests of equality, fairness and the good of the Union, however, this tea will be streamlined. only the most superior of tea - the fruits of our hardworking nation - shall be made available for the people to consume in their happiness.
bourgeois concerns such as cherry bakewell anything, never mind flavoured tea, will be banned. such opulent luxuries will be viewed with contempt, dismissed as mere weapons of the class system to suppress the masses. reluctantly, of course, his supreme excellency equal Chairman Jeremy shall find it necessary to keep certain reserves of prohibited luxuries. this will be to appease the industrial elite, to entertain filthy foreign dignitaries and to provide sustenance to the politburo during meetings. they must taste these things so as to confirm that they are bad and not suitable for the people.
is there anything wrong with me? lots of things, i suppose, but nothing that i would think green tea would fix. no, i am instead drinking this - or rather have drank this - all because it was given to me gratis, and so as i may write of the experiences here.
on, then, to brewing the cherry bakewell green tea. all things considered it struck me as wise to do this prior to any change in leadership here.
the scent whilst this tea, if i may call it tea, brewed remained decidedly vanilla. not vanilla in the colloquially used term to mean plain, but actual vanilla. real vanilla, if you like. my suspicion was that there was a mix up at the plant where they made this, and the packaging was supposed to have "vanilla" on it, not cherry bakewell.
on drinking this particular variation of interference i learned that it, mostly, had the same effect as the other one, that salted caramel one. there was, however, a rather feint, almost lucid sense of the taste of cherry mixed into it. so perhaps it is right that this is labelled cherry bakewell. although cherry may have been the more appropriate name, for there were none of the other elements one would expect with a cherry bakewell. depending on how much vanilla you usually have in your cherry bakewell items.
well, anyway, i think that is all i can say on the subject. certainly, to be sure, i suspect that there is only so much you would want to read. hopefully someone somewhere has found this approach to an aspect of the English way of doing things to be if not interesting then at least suitable to pass some time.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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