I have found our latest crisis. Even though we aren’t short of them, this one needs attention.
The United Nations reports that humans drink more tea than any other liquid except water, producing it in a variety of different styles that some believe is comparable to the wine industry for its cultural complexity. But most outlets don’t respect that.
“They’ll literally take the tea bag, put it in a cup, and often those tea bags are not worth more than 5 to 10 cents and charge $4.50 for the same thing you can walk in and get a specialty coffee for. That’s what we’re trying to change because really, in a tea bag, you’ve usually got the lowest grade tea,” Australasian Tea Association chair Sharyn Johnston said.
In most establishments I have worked in, the above is exactly what happens.
My dear, departed dad was a stickler for how tea should be brewed. So, I should know better.
In our house, with loose tea, the post had to be pre-warmed and have a cosy over it for three to five minutes. If it was in a billy on a campfire either on the farm or camping, he used to swing it around his head for a minute and then let it sit for a while.
I think the swing around the head was to settle the tea in the bottom of the billy, so he wasn’t chewing through the leaves.
Heaven forbid if he had to have a tea bag: the cup had to be pre-warmed and the bag dunked 43 times. And if you had to have milk, it was added after the procedure was finished.
You were encouraged not to put too much milk in, so the finished product was a mild brown colour. If it was more whitísh, look out to whoever delivered it as they would get a good ol’ spray.
The old boy would have a conniption if he were alive today and was handed a cup of hot water and a tea bag and asked for $4-5 for the privilege.
HL Robinson was a very quiet, polite gentleman (unlike his youngest son), but I pretty much reckon he would have shown another side over the humble tea bag.
Don’t start him on people that hand you a beer with their hand on top of the glass where your mouth is supposed to go, but let’s deal with one crisis at a time.
We need to help our tea industry first, and maybe take a famous Japanese quote more seriously: “Tea is the religion of the art of life.”
I reckon Dad would be happy with that.
Ashley Robinson is chairman of the Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball, and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
