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You microwave your water?! Actually, I knew someone years ago whose idea of a cup of tea was a mug containing a tea bag, sugar, cold milk and cold water, microwaved for 1 minute 40 seconds on full power. To be honest I've never tried that approach myself - maybe I should?

And no, you're not banned! 😉

I had such fun with that missing comma, Mitchell! I reckon that opporunity was a set-up by Terry all along....! 🤣

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Oh gosh, tagged teabags! Mitchell, I hate the things...! Over here I'd say that most tagged teabags are the fruity/herbal variety - standard teabags, unless they come in those individually-wrapped sachets, tend not to have them. I'm still not over the fact that many brands over here make ROUND ones... and even pyramid-shaped ones! I hanker after those simple squares of my youth!

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Bigelow Mint Medley - wowzers!

Pyramid bags® 'More room to move'. http://www.pgtips.co.uk/our-teas/originalpgtips/

Tea does not NEED to move in its bags... that's what all the spoon-mashing is for! #travesty

(Shhhhh, but Jim drinks DECAF tea. 🙄)

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The one minute tea might catch on here in the USA market, but since I retired, I have come to appreciate how brewing a cup of tea puts a beautiful pause in my afternoon.

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Jo, that's such a great point - yes, what a lovely break in the day! To be honest, though, I'd probably prefer to make my own 43-second cuppa and then settle down to that pause with the tea already made! 😊

What you've said though has made me think about perhaps becoming more intentional about my tea drinking. Maybe I need to make a time-brewed cup again, and see how I get on. ♥️

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The way you do teatime over there, even if it's a rushed brew, is so different from American coffee culture which has such oddities as:

1.Drive thru coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts here in the suburbs, or morning coffee brewed at home to drink in your car on the way to work.

2. Running to the break room at work, grabbing a quick k-cup brew and taking it back to your desk to drink while working.

Maybe I am romanticizing your culture, but the fact that tea can take longer to brew makes a break for some convivial conversation in an office, or a chance for family to sit down together at home. Has tea time become as crazy as a coffee break can be over here?

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Oh My! I’m not even going to get into the controversy surrounding “tea”. While I do agree that it’s a very personal thing endemic to the one doing the dipping, dunking, swishing, swirling, squishing and pitching of the bag before drinking, I’m sure you may get a few comments from others weighing in on this topic, so I’ll let them have at it.

For me, here across the pond, on my tiny corner of the earth, I would have to have an asbestos mouth and tongue to drink or eat something so hot, especially just off the boil! Just this past Saturday while out for breakfast with a friend, I burned my tongue--twice--while eating a bite of corned beef hash and eggs. The second time was because I couldn’t believe it hadn’t cooled off enough after my pushing it around on my plate a bit before shoving another large forkful into my mouth yet again. To date, nothing has tasted right since.

I am not used to restaurant food being so hot! Most of the breakfast eateries I have occasionally visited usually serve it just above warm. And because I was with a friend and there were others nearby, I couldn’t just spit it back onto my plate, but fortunately my friend saw my distress and when I looked up, he was holding my glass of cold water up in front of my face.

I prefer to cook for myself at home and by the time I am done with clean up, and sit down to consume my food, it has cooled to a more tepid fare. But I digress and have gotten off topic of tea.

Loved the post. ❤️ And as always, it’s food (or drink) for thought. 🤗

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Thanks so much for reading, Gail - I'm so glad you enjoyed this letter to Terry! But gosh, I'm so sorry to hear about your experience on Saturday - that sounds really unpleasant! And for that burn to have affected the way you taste things sounds like no fun at all.

At home growing up we'd always serve hot food on hot dinner plates, and would eat it very hot - it's what I've always been used to. I remember once passing - with bare hands - a plate of stew across the table to my sister-in-law, and it was so hot that she all but dropped it. I felt absolutely terrible about it! I half-caught it, took it away and served her again - this time using a plate straight out of the cupboard rather than the oven.... 😳

I used to be a glass artist, winding molten glass in a torch flame to make beads for jewellery. I wonder if I've always had a thing about heat?! 🔥

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Tea pits and teapots! Love it! (I’m still trying to wrap my brain around ‘those all-omitting tea timers’. I can understand why you just left that one there to gather dust...) Just having a cuppa myself, but it’s a ‘lemongrass, lime and ginger tisane’ in a teabag! I’m sadly lacking in sleep quantity and quality this week so didn’t want to ruin my chances tonight. (Hmmm... that sort of phrase used to mean something very different.)

Anyway, another terrific read. Thanks so much. 🤗🤗😘🫖☕️

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Thanks, Beth! And you've brought up the elephant in the room - I just did NOT know what to make of 'those all-omitting tea timers' either - what on earth does that mean? That at tea time everything but tea gets left out? Forgotten? Put on the back burner? NO idea! I would have explored that had I not got dragged down the tea pit rabbit hole.! 🤣

(Or perhaps Terry might be kind enough to provide his own analysis of that phrase in his reply to me? 🤔 Now that would be great!)

Sorry to hear about your poor sleep - hope all's well. There's nothing funny about insomnia, but I'm afraid you made me laugh with this: '...didn't want to ruin my chances' 🤣

Lemongrass, lime and ginger tisane sounds yummy! My favourite early morning cuppa for a while was lemon and ginger - that's a cup which brings its own get-up-and-go!

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Thankfully I had a much better night’s sleep last night. I’ve been looking after a neighbour’s dog, heading round bright and early to feed and walk it, walking heaps throughout the day, doing heaps of volunteer stuff then chatting with my sister until late. We finished our chat much earlier last night thankfully, so some good sound sleep. Makes such a difference. Sleep well. 🤗🤗😘

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I couldn't agree more with your tea-making process Rebecca! If it ain't hot, it ain't worth drinking. I once read an article (some years ago) debating the length of time a teabag needs to brew, and the conclusion was 20 seconds. While I generally leave mine slightly longer, I won't be testing the 60-second perfect brew.

Still chuckling over teapits... 🤣

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Tea pits! 🤣🫣😳 I'm going to be embarrassed about those for a while! Good ol' Google for setting me straight! 🤣

Regarding temperature: if it's not TOO hot, it's not hot enough! 🔥

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Loved the tea pit and the fact you drink your scolding beverage out of a giant mug! There was something calming about watching you make yourself a cup of tea, and that's from a coffee lover. Also enjoying the potholes theme; still musing over which plants would go best in which of the myriad potholes I slalom around daily 😊

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I can't BELIEVE that I thought a tea pit was an *actual* thing, Mya! #cringe

Yay to planting up those potholes - I loved that idea - it's my kind of guerrilla gardening! Let's make our own pothole headlines by prettifying them! 🌷

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🤣It could have been, I probably would have fallen for it too! Tempted to only refer to them as such from now on....and add to the long list of things I already mispronounce!

Yes to guerilla gardening, Rebecca! I'm thinking lavender and mini palm trees at the moment...I gather you might go for beautiful roses perhaps?

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Good morrow! I will respond properly in my next letter, Rebecca. In that epistle I will explain the correct and proper way to make tea, including the precise temperature to which the water must be heated. As for one-minute tea, perhaps the less said about that the better.

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I agree with what you've said about the traves-tea of one-minute tea, Terry. As my video has so clearly shown, taking a full minute to make a cup of tea is an obvious - and unnecessary - waste of seventeen seconds which could be put to better use elsewhere.

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Ha! LOL. Very good. My approach is slower.

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Sep 21, 2023Liked by Rebecca Holden

Chacun à son goût, Terry!

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Indeed, but some of us have more taste than others!

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Sep 21, 2023Liked by Rebecca Holden

ha ha ha ha ha! When it comes to taste, I prefer Malteasers ( in my pocket) and Jammy Dodgers (with my tea.)

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maltesers yes; jammy dodgers no. 😂

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Sep 21, 2023Liked by Rebecca Holden

You got something against petrified pseudo-fruit goo?

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No, but my doctor has

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Sep 21, 2023Liked by Rebecca Holden

Chortlesome! I could not think of a better word to describe your correspondence with Terry. I love it that you let us in on it. A very instructive tea making video. Cute as can be. I am proud to say I make mine exactly as you do, massaging the hell out of the bag, but NEVER letting it steep. I only use a tea pit when I have special guests. I just wonder what that lady did with 102 mushrooms....

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That’s a LOT of mushroom soup! 🍄 Glad to learn you’re a fellow masher of tea bags, Sharron- I’ve always known we were kindred spirits!

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'chortlesome' is a word that needs to be used more often. :).

Oh and when I was young, my Mom taught me how to make tea.

You fill the kettle up, put it on the stove, put a teabag in the kettle, turn on the stove and wait for the water to come to a boil, pour the tea into a mug and then add milk. You also have to have a biscuit or two to be dunked into the tea.

I did this so many times that it was permanently embedded in my brain.

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I love that you have this routine that’s embedded in your muscle memory, Olga! Wonderful! 🫖

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As per, chortling with the best of them.

XXXX

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Thanks so much, Prue!

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While you were writing about tea pits, I thought, well here's another possible botanical dyeing situation, especially as you mentioned "tannic", "That makes tea that’s murky and tannic, with a film on top not unlike that nasty sheen on the surface of a stagnant puddle. Besides all that, tea that has been left to brew isn’t hot." Perhaps the stagnant puddle would render linen a beautiful subtle hue of tea pits. I'm now a believer in the pitted tea. If the tea is pitted, does it make it a stone fruit? Asking for a friend. (Here come the mac-mojis) ☕️ 🍑 🍃😅. shift+command+space bar is now full muscle memory.

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Ooooooh yes, stone fruit - actually over here we don’t call them pits, but stones! So, cherry stones (or pips), peach stones, plum stones, avocado stones. I’m sure tea will turn fibre a lovely shade - do report back!

😊

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Thanks for the tea making lesson! I was happy to learn that squashing the tea bag on the side of the mug is an acceptable practice across the pond. It will help my tea making to become much more efficient as I’m sure the new and trendy 60 second tea bags will take forever to reach Canada and I wouldn’t be interested anyway.

I chortled (to steal your awesome word) when you removed the comma from the caption on Terry’s wonderful art masterpiece. Call me crazy but it seems to go with the art!

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LOL! It's amazing how different a cup of tea tastes when the teabag's freshly squashed and not left to stew! I'd recommend that approach to anyone!

I had such fun taking that comma out! I can't wait to see what I can do with what Terry throws at me next! 😁

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The "tea pit" is so funny! I'll be giggling about that all day. 💜

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LOL Sue! I'm still cringing about that - I'm so pleased I'd taken that screenshot, otherwise I might have thought I'd imagined it! And to think that I thought it was an ACTUAL THING!!!! 🫣

I'm so glad you enjoyed this post - as always, thank you so much for reading. 😘

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