The English And Their Cup Of Tea

By Tang Wai-Lin

PEOPLE always laugh at the English and their cup of tea; in fact, English tea does not only taste different, it is quite a fascinating thing to watch them making it.

The Japanese take an hour-long ceremony over tea-making, yet no body thinks it is crazy, maybe be cause they know that the Japanese do not make tea that way every time they want a ‘cuppa’; as for the English, making a cup of tea the proper way is as important as drink ing it.

When I first went to England, which was quite a number of years ago, a neighbour called me in ‘to have a cuppa’. I followed her to her streamlined kitchen where 1 saw a dozen or more of various sizes of pots and pans hanging on the wall. A glass-fronted cupboard displayed at least four sets of fine decorative cups and saucers. Eight mugs of various designs hung on hooks beneath the cupboard.

She filled the kettle with water, then switched on the wall-plug. She put out the blue set of cups and saucers for two, two sandwich-plates and a small coffee cake on to a cake

plate which were of the same de sign.

“Why don’t you use mugs, it saves a lot of washing up?” 1 asked.

“The mugs are for Ovaltine only, besides there’s nowhere to put the teaspoon.”

“Oh . . . What do you use those enormous cups for?” pointing at the glass-fronted cupboard.

“Those are breakfast cups.”

At this moment, the kettle was call ing out for attention.

She took a teapot from the shelf and filled it with boiling water.

She held the teapot with both palms and shook it lightly. Mean while the kettle was in an uproar but she took no notice of it.

“Shall I turn off the kettle?”

“No, I must have the water very hot.”

“Why are you shaking the teapot with the hot water inside?”

“To make the teapot warm and the tea will taste better.”

Now she emptied the teapot in the sink then quick as a flash, she put three teaspoonsful of tea in it, turned off the kettle, lifted it up and poured the boiling water in the teapot from

six inches away. She used the same teaspoon, stirred the teapot four times then put the lid on and covered it up with a tea-cosy. After all that she was now able to come and sit down beside me while the tea was left brewing for two minutes. We each had a cup of really nice English tea.

“Didn’t you put rather a lot of tea in for only two persons?” I asked.

“Not at all,” she said. “You put in one spoon for each person and one for the pot,”

“How often do you drink tea?”

“Three, four times a day, it depends on whether I fancy one.”

“And you always make it like you did just now?”

“Oh yes, why?”

She was not even conscious of how much trouble she had taken over her cup of tea, and it would never have occurred to her that I was actually taking note of the whole thing.

To the English the long tiring pro cess of tea-making is their way of life and there is no other way. I have been to many parts of the world east and west, and I must confess tha I have never tasted a cup of tea nice than that one in the United Kingdom