VERY STRONG TEA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20982, 19 September 1931, Page 19

VERY STRONG TEA.

BY A TRAVELLER. Something friendly hovers in the steam of a cup of tea, and a traveller often carries with him memories of strange teadrinkings. In France tea is not appreciated, so when I was to spend a fortnight in a small farmhouse in Brittany I took my own tea. I explained carefully to my landlady the mysteries of tea-making, and told her she would find a packet of tea in my suitcase. Later, she triumphantly appeared with a pot of boiling tea. It smelt horribly. One mouthful was more than enough. She had used a packet of my tobacco by mistake! During a walking tour in the Austrian Tyrol I was surprised to see "Real English Tea" written over the door of a.little rest-house on the forest-covered slopes. The flavour of that tea was most unusual, yet it was unexpectedly stimulating to a tired wayfarer. I asked the host whore he had learned his "Real English" recipe. He said an English tourist had given it to his great-grand-father in 1820, and his family had dispensed it ever since. The tea was liberally laced with brandy! Russia has changed in most things, but the bubbling, steaming samovar remains. A near relative dies, your wife elopes, you kill somebody, you are ruined —you arc merely bored; a spoonful of jam and a slice of lemon in a glass of tea is the antidote for all ills! With a Japanese family I was once privileged to take part in the Cha-no-yu, the tea-drinking ceremony. We guests assembled in a waiting room where we were provided with bowls of water to wash our hands and rinse our mouths. We passed down a stone-flagged path in a beautiful miniature garden, crawled in semblance of humility under the customary 3ft. entrance, and seated ourselves on the floor of the tea chamber. Fresh straw matting, walls of costly coloured woods, one artistic ornament in a brightly lacquered alcove, and a total lack of furniture formed an aesthetic setting. Water was boiling in a richly-chased iron flettle on a charcoal brazier. After solemnly bowing on his knees to the kettle my host poured boiling water over the leaves of green tea in a coloured porcelain bowl and placed it before me. I had been coached in the ritual beforehand. .After eating a sweet, I made obeisance to my tea bowl, touched it to my forehead, then drank three sips and made a final sucking noise, to show my appreciation. Politely 1 gazed at the tea dregs, striving to think snblirne thoughts. The tea bowl was afterwards rinsed and treated with the same solemnity by each other guest. In China the people never seem to stop drinking tea, except when they sleep. The Chinese coolie, said to be the world's best worker, appears mainly to live oi; it. At times it is the only liquid obtainable. I shall never forget that, cold dawn in a Chinese railway train when I shaved in hot tea for lack of water.