But there's one horrifically technically inaccurate piece in the collection that demands correction. I attempted to fix this in my Microscope column in March of 2003 on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.
[msc103: Trouble Brewing][mscop][06 Mar 2003][chb]
Up north where I was born, IT was of course not the proud but battered industry it is today, but a much cherished late afternoon dining occasion that slotted neatly in between dinner (which mealy-mouthed Southerners insist on calling lunch) and supper. The 'igh part of the name meant that the food would probably be hot -- welsh rarebit, perhaps, or poached egg on toast. And the tea part of course defined the accompanying beverage.
Coffee in those days was not unknown, but it was certainly undrinkable, having been traditionally prepared in a device called a percolator, which recycled boiling water ad infinitum over the grounds to extract every last ounce of flavour, caffeine and base bean dross. Because, dammit, there was a war on, or at least there had been a war when the coffee percolator had arrived in our house as a means of making the most of rationing. Post war we began using real coffee beans instead of roasted acorns, but the extra expense probably wasn't worth the difference in taste of the final product. But don't talk about the war. Not now.
Tea we did know about. I've steered the subject of conversation around to the cup that refreshes but does not inebriate because I intend to hijack this month's column to correct a misapprehension about the preparation of the beverage put about by an ex-colleague of mine. Douglas Adams isn't widely regarded as an authority on hot drinks, and certainly during my association with him in the Doctor Who days, liquid refreshment at room temperature in foaming pint glasses was more the focus of attention. But Douglas is in print (in "The Salmon of Doubt") with a recipe for tea preparation that I fear his many fans may take seriously.
In an essay simply entitled "Tea", dated May 1999, Douglas remonstrates against our Transatlantic cousins, who are puzzled by the British devotion to something "that never seems to them to be a very good drink". With the incisive insight that characterises his best writing Douglas responds that the cousins are hardly in a position to judge because they've never learnt to make it correctly. "The American habit of bringing a tea cup, a tea bag, and a pot of hot water to the table is merely the perfect way of making a thin, pale, watery cup of tea that nobody in their right mind would want to drink," he notes. Touche. A step in the right direction since the days of the Boston Harbour incident, perhaps, when the water was stone cold. But no cigar.
So Douglas puts them right. "The water has to be boilING (not boilED)", he writes, "when it hits the tealeaves." Precisely. But at this point the lecture goes right off the rails. First of all he advises the use of Earl Grey tea. This ghastly concoction is named after a merchant banker whose cargo of China tea arrived at the docks after a stormy sea voyage accidentally drenched in bergamot oil which had leaked from the adjacent hold. Rather than junk the resulting muck, the wiley Earl, in one of the great marketing coups of all time, foisted it on the public as a scented delicacy. Snobs and suckers are still lapping it up to this day, despise recent findings that bergomot oil is carcinogenic.
But there's worse to come. Douglas goes on to recommend: "When the kettle has boiled, pour a little of it into a teapot... and pour it out again...." Having warmed the pot and added the tea you: "Bring the kettle back to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can back into the pot."
Uh-uh. If the water has boiled and cooled, even by a fraction of a degree, chuck it away and start again. Reboiled water, in the words of my grandma, "loses its goodness". Her trick was to use some of the half-way boiled water to warm the pot. Modern tea aficionados may resort to microwaving the teapot briefly.
The final gaffe Douglas makes is to suggest putting the milk in first and then adding the tea. In a footnote he observes: "This is socially incorrect..." but this incorrectness has "nothing to do with reason, logic or physics". Wrong, Douglas. I admit that my habit of adding the milk last dates back to the days I hung around Sloane Square trying to better myself with the debutante daughters of the landed gentry, but there is clear physical and logical reason behind the process. When adding a small amount of milk to a larger quantity of tea it's much easier to judge by eye when the mixture is right.
So for our American cousins, an important message. Use Assam, not Earl Grey. Don't boil the kettle twice. Put the milk in last. If that works for you, get back to me for further more general advice about the trouble you have brewing. Oh, but I promised not to talk about the war.
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