A Cup of Tea.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 992, 6 March 1891, Page 5

A Cup of Tea.

‘ Polly, put the kettle on, and we’ll all take tea.’ But see that the kettle is boiling before making the tea, and see that the water is fresh, and that it boils immediately, before it has parted with its sparkling gases. Do not let it simmer and simmer for hours before it is needed. Some noteable housewives pride themselves as upon a virtue when they net the kettle in the stove the night before, in readiness for the next morning’s breakfast. Tea and coffee or vegetables, prepared with suoh water, will have a flat, vapid taste. Let the teapot, an earthen one, invariably be scalded before putting in the tea, and then allow the tea to steep for five or ten minutes before serving. If the tea i 9 made ia the kitchen, do not allow it to boil; set on the back part of the stove. Of course, with a copper teakettle and crane or ‘5 o’clook tea,’ or a silver spirit lamp at the table, this caution is supererogatory. In cold weather a tastefully made cosey thrown over the teapot adds a touch of brightness. There is nothing like a cup of tea as a nerve tonic. Of course, indulgence in tea drinking can be carried too far, as in wines, chloral, the bromides and other things good in their place. A peculiar property of tea is that it prevents the waste of tissue in severe and protracted physioal and mental exertion. A famous Arctic explorer said in my hearing that his men bore up under the strain they were put to through exposure and severe toil, far better when tea was served out to them than when depending upon coffee or liquor for a stimulant.

And then, what a promoter of sociability is a cup of tea ; what home comforts does it suggesfc, as to Cowper, when he on a winter’s evening draws a cheerful picture of the crackling fire, curtained windows, the hissing urn, and the * cup that cheers, but not iuebriates !’ How often does the author of * Eothen ’ record his testimony to the cheering, sootbiug influence of the steaming cup that Oriental and Englishman could join in liking. In spite of the Country Parson,’ who calls tea a * nerveless and vaporous liquid ’ —he never could have tasted it made in the manner described above : in spite of the slurs Matthew Arnold oasts upon it—he describes a visit to George Sand and tells us that she poured out for him a cup of the insipid and depressing beverage, bisson fade efc melancolique, as Balzac calls it, for which English people are thought abroad to be always thirsting ;’ in spite of all this be it said that a cup of tea, warm and fragrant, and with a delicate bouquet, as they say of wine, possesses an aroma fit for the Gods. De Quincey knew whereof he spoke when he said, * Tea is the beverage of the intellectual.’