Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Let's have a cuppa
“ If you are cold, tea will warm you;
If you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are exhausted it will calm you.”
William Gladstone, (1809- 98), British Statesman,
And I would add, if you’re knackered or ‘out of sorts’, tea will wake you up, perk you up, pick you up and put you on your feet again. I’m sure I can feel all my genes being re-organised and sorted nicely when I drink tea. It sort of puts me together again.
Now that I'm back online and all is going swimmingly well again, I'm ready for a cuppa.
Did you know that not only is tea great-tasting and refreshing, but apparently it also does wonderful things for your body? It is reputed to help prevent cancer, promote a healthy heart, prevent arthritis, aid weight loss; scientific research is increasing the evidence that tea is good for your health in so many ways, study after study.
While we can get a great cuppa from a bag, (Twinnings Afternoon Tea or Earl Grey in the afternoon and Green Tea in the evening for me!) we can also pay up to £52,000 for 500g of Dragon’s Well if it comes from the tea bushes planted by the Chi’en Lung emperor in 1762. Or, how do you fancy a cup of exotic Iron Goddess of Mercy, chic or what?
In Britain we drink 165 million cups of tea a day, three times the population, and given children will not imbibe it, there must be a lot of adults who constantly have a cup on the go, if not a drip-feed.
In the Cassell’s Book of Etiquette (1922): ‘Tea is served to any visitors between four and five o’clock. On an At Home Day, or in answer to an invitation to come to tea, the present custom is to have a table laid either in the drawing room or dining room, with the cups and saucers and the cakes and to let one or more of the maids stand behind it and dispense the tea. This should be done whenever possible from tea pots, not from urns for in the latter the tea becomes overdrawn and contains the undesirable tannic acids. Sandwiches made of potted fish or meat, cucumber or tomato, are almost always included. The favourite cake are those contained in little paper cups as these can be eaten without fear of injuring gloves.’
It’s also recommended to put the milk in first to avoid scalding the milk and tainting the taste.
For me, I just like it plain and hot. No milk or sugar, just the way it comes from the pot, as long as it’s not too strong.
Cheers
Source: Country Life, 15 June, 2006.
