The other time I exhibited an almost preternatural wisdom was just after arriving at Gatwick Airport on my first trip to London. It had just turned noon as I walked into the restaurant, 7 a.m. to my body. When I asked the server if they were still serving breakfast, she turned away and walked into the kitchen, to inquire I presumed. She did not come back for ten minutes. Then she returned with a full English breakfast: an egg over easy, two pieces of toast, already buttered, and standing smartly in the slots of what looked like a mail sorter, a small piece of ham (what they call bacon), a grilled half-tomato, pork-and-beans, some sautéed mushrooms, and what appeared to be a thick sausage link made from a reasonable facsimile of papier mâché. It was all wonderful. It was the famous Standard English Full Breakfast. But, she brought no glass of water.
I asked for one. She begged my pardon. I asked again. She said she did not think the restaurant had that. I raised my eyebrows. She returned to the kitchen. She didn’t seem to be foreign.
When she came back to my table she said, no, the chef did not know how to make it.
“Water!” I said. I took out a pen and pulled a piece of paper from my pocket notebook. I spelled it as I wrote it, “W-A-T-E-R.” Of course, what I actually said in my American accent was “Wahder,” maybe with two or three hard r’s on the end.
“Oh, wohteh,” she said. “Of course.”
From that point I carefully said “wohteh” when I wanted water.
She came back with a glass of water. No ice. I guess if I had asked for that she might have said it was against restaurant policy or something.
Then she said, “Tea?”
Why not. I’m in Merry Olde. I had never taken to tea. All I had ever experienced was a Lipton tea bag left much too long in a cup. The water was lukewarm and the tea was bitter, what little I could taste of it.
She returned with a tray: Tea brewing in a pot, lemon, a tiny pitcher of milk, sugar lumps, a very small spoon, a cup, and a saucer. It is amazing that in the United States tea is served as an empty cup, a small pitcher of very hot water, and no saucer. Where are you supposed to put the tea bag, the spoon?
“May I pour for you?”
“Certainly. Thank you.”
She did and then reached for the lemon pieces. “You take lemon.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Do you take [I realized at that moment that they did not say “use”] lemon in your tea?”
“Of course not, sir. But you’re a Yank.”
Overlooking the mild slander, I asked her to make me a cup of tea the way she or any other English person would.
She ignored the lemon, poured milk (what looked to me to be way too much) into the cup, and asked,”One lump or two?”
“What would you take?”
“Two.” She dropped them into the cup with the milk and then poured the cup full of hot tea.
“Thank you.”
She nodded and walked away.
The tea was ambrosia. The milk mellowed the bitterness. It was wonderfully sweet without being cloying. It had an aroma I had never before noticed with tea. It was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done to ask her to make the tea in the English manner.
Very few days have passed in all the years since that I have not enjoyed tea made in this way. The only things I can add is that the tea should steep (about one heaping tablespoon per pot) in the almost boiling water for between three and three minutes thirty seconds. No more; bitterness ensues. And, my favorite is Ceylon black tea. Oh, and the thing in which you heat the water is called a tea kettle; the container in which you brew and from which you pour the tea is called a teapot. And the tea spoon used with tea is one-third the size of a teaspoon.
I’m enjoying tea as I write this. Wonderful.
Addendum: There is a serious answer to the MIF debate (Milk In First). Apparently, in Victorian times the custom was to pour the milk in first in order to help blunt the shock of the hot tea against the expensive china cup. Today, it is settled as Milk In Last after you have tasted the tea and determined how much milk would be required to balance the bitterness of the natural tannins in the tea. Of course, when I drink a tea with which I am familiar, I know how much milk to put in first, and I do.
I finished reading the Book of Psalms today with Psalm 150 and will begin anew with Psalm 1 tomorrow. I also finished reading Hosea and will begin the wonderful book of Isaiah tomorrow. I am going to shift from Morning Prayer to Evening Prayer for the winter months, with the Phos Hilaron and the seasonal prayer but then going right into the day’s Psalms and other Scripture reading, silent meditation, the Magnificat, the daily intercessions and my prayer list, the day’s concluding prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, and the closing words.