Tea Time Or Time For Tea

[Eamonn]

Hailing from England's green and pleasant land, I take a fair amount of very good natured leg pulling about tea.

While I can't find anything to back me up, I think that I read somewhere that the Irish drink more tea than the Brits.

As a child growing up with Irish parents I know that tea was the beverage of choice in our house. Fizzy drinks were a very special treat and I can't remember adults ever drinking them unless they were mixed with something a little stronger.

I have been trying to count how many cups of tea a day my Mother drank and I'm coming up with about 18 cups a day. At home we used real loose tea, teabags were never welcome.

Sad to say when I moved over to this side of the pond, I found the tea so bad I just stopped drinking it and prefer coffee any day of the week.

Tea time can be whenever you stop for tea. However, it has different meanings in the UK.

Working class and the lower classes had a big meal at lunch time. Lunch even in factory canteens was normally a two or three course meal. This was served at around noon. When people got home they didn't cook a big meal (Even school lunch was a two course meal: Meat, Potatoes, two vegetables and dessert.) So the meal at about five or six o'clock was a light meal.

The higher classes didn't eat Supper until eight o'clock, so they had tea at around four or five. This was a very light meal with tea and maybe just a slice of cake or cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

Some restaurants served High Tea, which was a bigger meal.

Eamonn.

[le Voyageur]

You're right, finding good tea in this country is like the search for the Holy Grail. Thankfully, there is now the internet....

 

As for High Tea....well, for me that's an anytime break on the river just to enjoy a good hot brew, a slab of Hudson Bay bread, and some serious sloth....simple and pure heaven

 

 

[acco40]

Much has been written in the press lately about the health benefits of tea - especially green tea.

 

However, read the following:

A 52-year-old suburban St. Louis woman with a stiff spine and aching back had already been to several doctors. Most told her she had disc disease. But Dr. Michael P. Whyte, a bone specialist at Shriners Hospital for Children and at Washington University, discovered the real problem.

 

She had a disease that afflicts people in remote regions of Tibet, Mongolia and China. Skeletal fluorosis, it was called.

 

Skeletal fluorosis happens when people are exposed to high levels of fluoride for long periods, causing the chemical to creep into bones and replace calcium. The bones become dense, weak and brittle. Sometimes the disease causes ligaments to harden and changes bone structure, causing pain and crippling.

 

In countries where the disease is endemic, water drawn from wells is often contaminated with fluoride from surrounding rocks. In the United States, where drinking water is filtered, low levels of fluoride is added to prevent tooth decay. But that's not enough fluoride to produce disease.

 

Whyte set out to find the source of the fluoride in his patient's painful bones. He reported a study of her case in the January issue of the American Journal of Medicine.

 

The woman, who declined to be interviewed, used toothpaste and mouthwash with added fluoride, but didn't swallow the substances. Whyte ruled them out. She rarely used Teflon-coated pans. That ruled out another potential source of fluoride exposure. Pesticides, chewing tobacco, wine and some sparkling mineral waters also may contain fluoride, but the woman didn't have much exposure to those either.

 

The unfiltered well water at the woman's suburban home contained 2.8 parts of fluoride per million parts of water, higher than recommended, and probably enough to cause mild disease over decades. But the level was not high enough to account for the excessive amount of fluoride in the woman's urine, Whyte said.

 

And then the woman mentioned an unusual habit. She drank one to two gallons of double-strength instant tea every day of her adult life, she told the doctor.

 

Studies of people in Tibet and other areas where people drink large amounts of "brick tea" have shown that the beverage can be a significant source of fluoride, even leading to skeletal fluorosis. Brick tea contains mature leaves, berries and twigs of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. Those parts of the plant often contain high levels of fluoride that tea plants absorb from the soil, Whyte said. Instant tea is often made from brick tea.

 

Whyte tested the woman's tea and found that her beverage of choice added 26 milligrams to 52 milligrams of fluoride to her diet each day. She drank a total of 37 milligrams to 74 milligrams of fluoride every day by Whyte's calculations.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency allows up to 4 parts of fluoride per million parts of drinking water, based on the calculation that it takes at least 20 milligrams of fluoride per day every day for 20 years to produce crippling skeletal fluorosis. The Food and Drug Administration permits only 2.4 parts of fluoride per million parts of bottled water.

 

The World Health Organization sets the optimal level of fluoride in drinking water at 1 part of fluoride per million parts of drinking water (equal to 1 milligram per liter of water), to 1.2 parts of fluoride per million parts of water. It sanctions an upper limit of 1.5 parts of fluoride per million parts of water. The U.S. Public Health Service says the concentration of fluoride in drinking water should not exceed 1.2 parts of fluoride per million parts of water.

 

Whyte and his colleagues bought several jars of instant tea from a local supermarket and sent them to two independent laboratories in St. Louis for testing. The teas contained between 1 part of fluoride per million parts of water and 6.5 parts of fluoride per million parts of water, some that exceed levels considered safe by government agencies.

 

Consumers shouldn't be alarmed by the results of the study, Whyte said. The amount of fluoride in tea fluctuates from batch to batch even from the same manufacturer, he said. The fluoride levels reported in the study are a snapshot of the range of concentrations that may be found on a grocery shelf and should not be generalized, he cautioned.

 

"This is one look in one city at one shelf at one time," Whyte said.

 

The woman's symptoms improved over a five-year period once she switched to lemonade, Whyte said.

 

Most tea drinkers have nothing to fear, said Dr. Michael Kleerekoper, a professor of medicine at Wayne State University in Detroit. Drinking tea within normal limits will probably not cause any health problems, he said.

[anarchist]

teabags???I think that's what they do with the horse apples I toss out back...put it in bags!

Tea is only good if it is cut with captain morgans water.

 

LeVoyageur...is your hudson bay bread my Bannock??? iron pan produced???

[le Voyageur]

Nope, Hudson Bay bread is not Bannock...here's a site with a few recipes...

 

 

http://www.holry.org/baybread.html

 

I like to tweak mine with lots of pecans...makes for one yummy meal.

 

 

[Proud Eagle]

I have never had tea outside the US, except in Canada. In that case I made the mistake of asking for iced tea and got some chalky, cloudy stuff made from a powder. That was bad.

 

Most American tea is pretty simple, basic stuff. Not real great, but palitable when you are thirsty. (Unlike that crud I had in Canada.) Most of it is probably really best if made into iced tea and served with lemon and sugar.

 

For hot tea (I don't like coffee, but I do like tea) I discovered several rather good varieties a number of years ago. There are some good fruity herbal teas.

 

Then I discovered some tea from a British company sold in a variety pack with some common British teas in it. Earl Grey and English breakfast tea are two that I found that I like.

 

So, if I am buying tea, I usually look for Earl Grey. I noticed that what I have been drinking lately came from Sri Lanka. It is good for both hot and iced tea. It goes well with food or just as a drink. I do usually add some sugar (honey would be better), but I keep the lemon out of the hot tea.

 

That is my take on tea.

 

How you managed to switch from tea to coffee I will never know. That terrible stuff in Canada was only a bit worse than most coffee.

[OldGreyEagle]

I love a glass of ice cold strong tea on a hot day, made the mistake of ordering such in a little ol' diner in south carolina. I took a huge swallow and then realized I had genuine boil the sugar in the water until the spoon stands upright sweet tea, almost broke my throat if thats possible.

 

Man, I learned to say unsweet anytime I get tea south of the Mason-Dixon line, unless of course its FLorida which really isnt the "south"

[Eamonn]

COLD TEA!! Yuck!!

Her That Must Be Obeyed does ruin tea this way and is able to drink the foul brew.

OJ will spend my hard earned cash on some stuff in a bottle.

I have never got used to the amount of ice that people put in drinks. I like mine shaken and up!!

Eamonn

[OldGreyEagle]

Shaken, not stirred? It figures...

 

I love iced tea, unsweet, of course,. On a nice frigid morning, and we have had a few of those lately, I love a cup of hot tea as well, does that make me bad?

[Eamonn]

OGE -Bad? Never!!

Add a dash of whole milk and a spoon of sugar and I would join you.

Eamonn

[crgholthus]

Eamonn,if your close to Nebraska,I will give you some "PG Tips,or Tetley.(Imported from UK,of course,but what about marmite?

You can have that stuff. p.s. looks like my "brit for a Yank"

plan is going to work,thanks,Craig