Proppa British Brew-up

[Miss sofia]

Very well put Sir.

 

[Miss Sis]

It's a funny thing that you mention tea making as a ritual that is prevalent in parts of the old Empire, Smithy.

I grew up in a tea-free household, as my parents are both confirmed coffee drinkers. (Dad, Dutch, Mum, a Kiwi) but my dear Nana, ah, she was another matter. She introduced me to the pleasures of drinking tea when I was about 8 or 9 and staying with her for the school holidays one year, much to my Mother's fury. She seems to think tea is some sort of poison. lol

It is true there is a comforting familiarity to 'brewing up' and sitting down for a good old chat and biccie, no matter what has happened.

 

[YesterdayGirl]

It is true there is a comforting familiarity to 'brewing up' and sitting down for a good old chat and biccie, no matter what has happened.

It is funny that on tv,especially in soaps, whenever something bad has happened, it has become a kind of joke that people will call out 'put the kettle on and get the poor love a cuppa' and then you know that everything is going to be alright. But it's true! It is very comforting.

My first job was making tea in a barbers on a Saturday for customers. I soon became an expert. I remember when one gent told me that I made tea better than his mum

 

[Danny Ocean]

Actually i just gave the condensed milk cuppa a whirl. I boiled some water in an enamel boiler on the stove, added the tea leaves, (some Sainsburys own brand), boiled it up for a few minutes, until the tea looked nice and strong, strained and served with the condensed milk in an enamel cup.

Results = If that was all that was available for a brew up, then actually it was more than adequate, (although my teeth were screaming and i could hear my dentists hands rubbing his hands together somewhere in the distance)! Aside from that, although too sweet and milky for my tastes, it would have been more than welcome i would have thought, to get a steaming hot cup of that given to you with a nice Woodbine to help wash it down with!

Mmmm, I have to say the (my) Jury's out on this one still Miss Sofia, however I do have to admire your trials with the condensed milk, well done!

Personally, I prefer my "Rosie", brewed from Twining's finest Ceylon, with the obligatory "dead fly" dunker. However, as you say, if that was all that was available......

Danny O

 

[MPicciotto]

Can anyone here comment on Samovars and their use? It's my understanding the tea is made very strong and then you dispense some into a cup along with some hot water to make your cuppa. I've seen pictures of Russian troops during the war around a samovar getting their tea.

Matt

 

[Miss sofia]

Hello there, strangely i have been to Russia and been served tea from a Samovar but i couldn't tell you the workings of a Russian one, although my persian friend has one, which looks pretty similar.

The tap at the bottom provides the hot water, hers is electric, with a pipe inside, although i think the principle is the same for solid fuel. There is a bit at the top, which functions like the teapot, it's detachable, so you put the leaves in or bags, then fill it using the tap, you can leave it to brew for as long as you like, it keeps warm from the hot water pipe inside, so you can keep adding hot water and leaves and have nice hot tea on tap!

We just gave it a whirl and used standard english breakfast tea bags and it was great, we liked a nice strong cuppa, so we left it to brew, removed the bags, had a cup of tea and there was still a decent ammount of tea left being kept nice and hot, genius.

 

[Miss sofia]

Sorry M. Picciotto, i forgot to say, we only used it in the manner of making English tea if you like, so i'm not sure how it would have been used traditionally, as you said, perhaps they kept the tea brewing all the time and used leaves so it would be very strong and then served it topped up with hot water from the tap to dilute it a bit to taste.

 

[Baggers]

A correction...

Miss Sofia, You might try making your tea with evaporated milk instead of condensed. It's not near as thick and sweet as the condensed variety, and is much closer to what was actually used by soldiers in the field as tinned evaporated milk was supplied to them as part of their daily rations. I imagine a whole 5 oz. tin was added to the communal pot when they brewed up, but you may just add enough to taste when making your own.

I have edited my original post to correct this. I was going from memory when I first wrote it, but have since checked my sources and realized my error.

BTW, another trick used to make the leaves settle before pouring was to drop a small stick or twig into the brew instead of tapping the sides of the flimsy with a spoon. I have no earthly idea whether it actually works, but I recall reading it in more than one personal account from the war.

Cheers!

 

[Smithy]

Miss Sofia, You might try making your tea with evaporated milk instead of condensed. It's not near as thick and sweet as the condensed variety, and is much closer to what was actually used by soldiers in the field as tinned evaporated milk was supplied to them as part of their daily rations.

Both evaporated and condensed milk were available in army stores. I do know that the NZ 2EF in North Africa were sometimes issued condensed milk (Nestlé I believe) as one of my great uncles mentioned it. And the Aussie rations usually included condensed.

Swinging the billy around was another very popular way to settle the leaves.

 

[Miss sofia]

Thanks Baggers, it was just a bit of fun anyway in the interests of science and provided an impromptu history lesson for my son who was there at the time. (And who coincidentally had a hike later on that evening with the Scouts, so he certainly went out with some lead in his pencil so to speak!).

Actually i can well believe both types of tinned milk were used being that they were larder staples anyway at that time. Actually my Grandad was in North Africa just before the war, then posted to the Eastern front, so i will have to ask my Dad if there is any pictorial evidence of tea-making as we have albums full of photos of that time, as my Grandad was quite prolific in keeping records of his exploits.

 

[/|\]

Another tin cup question

I bought a couple of the white tin cups from WPG. I was so busy last weekend, I couldn't settle down for a nice cuppa (well, pot) of tea. Weekdays are impossible. So I'll use one this weekend. Anyway...

Were these cups made in a larger size? Like about twice as large? There's a spot where buskers play between a couple flights of escalators going down to the bus station. I often see one guy in particular who plays guitar and sells bamboo flutes he makes. (There seems to be some sort of rotation, as there is only one busker at a time at the spot.) His battered tips cup was a double-sized version of the white tin cup. The metal was bent into a little spout at the front, indicating it was not a 'cup' but a small serving vessel. He said he'd got it from his grandmother, but I didn't have time to ask where she was from. He looked in his 40s, so his grandmother was probably of an age where she could have bought the cup/pitcher/dispenser during the war years. It's too big for a drinking cup, and it was obviously designed for pouring. It seems too large for a creamer, since I usually think of creamers as being smaller than the cups. It seems to small for a 'teapot', since it would only fill about two of the drinking cups.

So was this thing part of a set of enamelware that included the tin cups? Or is it something that was just made in that style? And what is its intended use?

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

I have two of those larger enamel cups, but mine came with lids and were (apparently) for soup and were a civilian item and not military.

 

[Miss sofia]

I bought a couple of the white tin cups from WPG. I was so busy last weekend, I couldn't settle down for a nice cuppa (well, pot) of tea. Weekdays are impossible. So I'll use one this weekend. Anyway...

Were these cups made in a larger size? Like about twice as large? There's a spot where buskers play between a couple flights of escalators going down to the bus station. I often see one guy in particular who plays guitar and sells bamboo flutes he makes. (There seems to be some sort of rotation, as there is only one busker at a time at the spot.) His battered tips cup was a double-sized version of the white tin cup. The metal was bent into a little spout at the front, indicating it was not a 'cup' but a small serving vessel. He said he'd got it from his grandmother, but I didn't have time to ask where she was from. He looked in his 40s, so his grandmother was probably of an age where she could have bought the cup/pitcher/dispenser during the war years. It's too big for a drinking cup, and it was obviously designed for pouring. It seems too large for a creamer, since I usually think of creamers as being smaller than the cups. It seems to small for a 'teapot', since it would only fill about two of the drinking cups.

So was this thing part of a set of enamelware that included the tin cups? Or is it something that was just made in that style? And what is its intended use?

I have a collection of enamelware, most of it was my grandma's and was like Kitty said intended for civilian use. The larger cups with a lid i assumed were for soup too, although i do have a couple like you mentioned with a lip for pouring, one with a handle which i was told was for heating milk and one i bought in France which the seller told me was also for heating milk or re-warming coffee.

 

[FRASER_NASH]

Absolutely agree with all these sentiments. Warms the codjules when the chips are down!

QUOTE=PADDY;1094640]"I'm PADDY, and I'm a coffee-holic!" (Just love my cuppa Java!).

*(ON TOPIC)...BUTTTT....the times that I 'did' enjoy tea and found it warming and lifted my spirits 'no end..' was when I was dog-tired, physically and mentally exhausted, often cold and soaking, but still needed to dig deep to assess and decision make, was on Exercise (military) or Ops. A hot, steamy, wet cuppa with double doses of sugar, out on the ground, was just H-E-A-V-E-N.
Plus in other climates where the sun was beating down and the sweat rolling off my forehead like Angel Falls, ironically...it was a HOT cuppa that made it 'all' feel alright [huh]

So maybe, just MAYBE, the Boston Tea Party in December 16, 1773 was (with hindsight) a good strategic military strike by the (then) Brit-American Paramilitaries/Colonists, to undermine the British ("If you strike at his Tea Reserves boys then you strike at the heart of the Englishman!!")

It's IMPORTANT STUFF..!!

[/QUOTE]