A Cup of Tea and a Little Bit of History

Since I have been staying with my mum on weekends I have come to realise what a ridiculous perfectly wondrous variety of tea she keeps in the house. Sure, it’s nice to be able to pick out whatever tea you fancy, but I personally feel that if you have more than about six varieties (black, green, chamomile, peppermint, a variation on black tea such as chai or Earl Grey plus some sort of fruit infusion) you may in fact be bordering on OCD territory.

 

I really began to notice how much tea mum keeps when I realised that every time I ferreted around for the variety of tea I was after, I would invariably be hit in the forehead by a precariously perched box of tea that had decided to make a break for freedom.

It looks a little bit like this:

Bear in mind that this cupboard is also at least 2/3 the depth that it is wide, so there is more tea behind this tea!!!

 

The tea cupboard harbours the following varieties (in addition to the normal black tea kept in a canister on the bench):

Green tea; green tea with mint; peppermint tea; white tea (there were two of those); chamomile tea (3 different boxes); Sleepy Time tea; Roobis tea (whatever the hell that is); blackcurrant tea (actually, it was in there but I drank my way through it); honey and lemon infusion; raspberry, cranberry and strawberry infusion; rose hip tea; chai; Earl Grey iced tea powder circa 1986 (it still tastes fine but it’s a little more challenging to dissolve than it once was. I plan to finish it off this summer); Caro (caffeine free, barley-based coffee that tastes like crud soaked in pond water); and... well, check it out for yourself!

So now I’m going to let you in on my diabolical plan:

I intend to drink my way through  mum’s tea cupboard.

Heheh, not usually what you think of when the phrase “drink your way through” comes up, is it!

I’m just sick of the stupid little packets hitting me in the head when I open the cupboard. It's a perfectly diabolical scheme. I wonder how long it will take mum to realise that her tea stores have been depleted...

As for the history part of the post title, well when I was ferreting around for a packet of gelatine on Friday night to make a White Chocolate and Passionfruit Tart (forgot to take photos, but that's okay, because I got it wrong and will have to make it again to ensure that it's juuuust right... heh heh heh... although I'm sure that Al and Nat would say that it tasted fine, but I think this is one instance where perfection is important ;-) ), I came across this old cake glaze. I believe it’s normally used to glaze flans and fruit tarts. And that’s fine. Mum used to use it back in her catering days, when fruit flans were cool.

(Again, I apologise for the sideways nature of my picture, but they still won't stay turned (Kirsti, I haven't tried the Picasa thing yet but I will when I can be bothered have time). And thanks to those who offered the slightly condescending very sound advice of saving the photo after I have rotated it... the Sarcasm Fairy is knocking loudly at the door and I really, really want to let her in, but I'll just have to be satisfied by saying that I mastered the concept of saving changes to documents back in about 1994. I know you guys meant well, and honestly, thankyou for trying to help, but there are far darker and more mysterious powers at work here!

Also, sorry about the seventies-esque colours, but I had to play with the colour balance in order to allow you to read the packet.)

Aaaanyway, back to it - the bit that threw me a little was the fact that it was made in Germany. West Germany, to be precise. Now, I have a vague recollection of seeing the wall between East and West Germany crumble on TV in about what, Year One? So that's 1989. That wasn’t my imagination, was it???

WHAT THE HELL!!! I TOOK THIS PICTURE IN LANDSCAPE BECAUSE I KNEW THIS WHOLE PORTRAIT/LANDSCAPE THING WAS A GREAT BIG SCHEMOZZLE, AND BLOGGER HAS KINDLY OPTED TO DISPLAY IT IN PORTRAIT FORMAT!!! EVEN THOUGH THE ONLY CHANGES I MADE WERE TO THE COLOUR OF THE PHOTO, AND I DIDN'T TOUCH THE ORIENTATION OF THE DAMNED THING!!! I TOLD YOU THAT THERE WERE DARK AND MYSTERIOUS FORCES AT WORK HERE!!! AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!! I GIVE UP!!!

Ahem. Tantrum over.

I suppose it is quite fitting that such a luxury item as cake glaze was produced in West Germany and not East Germany. With that in mind, I should go and investigate whether that big ol' jar of sauerkraut in the bottom of the shed was in fact made in East Germany...