Steps to a Tea Spangled Christmas

I’ve been quiet of late on the blogging front. On-line generally.  A few blogs here and there, a few incredibly funny or incredibly venomous comments – the best ones are both. But not much.

I notice it has coincided with with a couple of other bloggers also going to ground a bit. Between @lazy_literatus and @lahikmajoe, there has only been a few blogs, and of course, this is also the list of people who hardly ever write about the actual drinking of actual tea.

So, dear readers, you are getting a lot of information about how such-and-such a tea tastes, but precious little about how you should be living your life – which is the point of Tea Trade after all.

So, to help with that, here is the definitive nine and a half point method to survive Christmas, entirely on the basis of tea.

1: ONLY DRINK TEA

Yes, Christmas day is a very busy time, and you need your wits about you. So, after having a nice rum-tippled eggnog Christmas Eve, leave out all of the alcohol as it only makes you think you are getting funnier as you aren’t and drink pure tea. That means when others pass out you can selectively exchange their presents for yours, allowing you to have the best stuff and therefore declare yourself “The Winner of Christmas”.

2: HAVE TEA INSTEAD OF BREAKFAST

Christmas would not be Christmas if it weren’t for traditions like stuffing Christmas Mixture up your face and enjoying servings of turkey, ham and pudding that are each bigger than your own head. Eating breakfast is peaking too early.  A nice malty Assam and the day’s first handful of Christmas Mixture as all you need to start the day.

If you live in some foreign place where you don’t know what Christmas Mixture is, you need to rise up and overthrow your government! It’s lollies (sweets) in an enormous bag, only available at supermarkets when Christmas starts, which is about August.

3. STUFF YOUR TURKEY WITH TEA

Yes, cook some polenta in a nice tea, add fried onions, cranberries and ham. You need to add some salt. Quite a lot. Then stuff this up the backside of your guest of honour (NOTE: This is an artistic reference to a turkey, not your Mother-in-law. )

This means that all the people who “don’t like tea” around your table will be shown up as wrong. It’s revenge, and getting revenge on people you are related to is, of course, the true meaning of Christmas.

4. TAKE A FLASK TO THE GIFT OPENING BIT

Let’s face it, the only to things that matter are gifts you have given or you have received. Whilst some may argue it’s better to give that receive, who can argue with the fact that it’s better to be opening a carefully wrapped kilo of Doke Rolling Thunder than it is to watch Cousin Harriet get a new book of knitting patterns from Aunt Beatrice? No-one, that’s who! Coast through the boring bits by sipping a nice dark Nilgiri and eating more Christmas Mixture.

5. ONLY GIVE TEA OR TEAWARE

This is so damn obvious it’s barely worth mentioning. Apart from the benefit of being able to wrap a Bi Lo Chun that you found a mite bitter in a gauze bag, discard the use-by date and palm it off to Uncle Albert. There is no reason why people you love can’t respect your right to be tea obsessed. For the ones you care enough about, you could mix it with their obsession, like a TARDIS teapot for a Doctor Who fan or a “Harry Potter Special Mix”* for the little ones.

5b. GIVE THE BEST TEA BASED ON SELF-INTEREST

An additional note there is to consider who you will soon be visiting. If you’re spending a week with Aunt Jemima for New Year’s, she gets a nice teapot and half a kilo of Lover’s Leap, whereas if Uncle Cyril is only on day release and will be re-incarcerated for the rest of the year, then he gets a bag of Genmaicha, which will have the added advantage of earning him a cavity search at the very least.

6. USE A METAL TEAPOT

Christmas often involves listening to a lot of twaddle from people you’d rather tie in a burlap sack and drown, so by carefully selecting the loudest teaware possible, you can start making a racket the minute they start talking. They’ll get the hint. If not, there’s always the burlap sack option.

7. SHOW NO TOLERANCE FOR TEABAGS

Should you be presented with a tea bag at Christmas time, whether it be in the process of misguided hospitality or as a gift, set fire to it immediately and hurl it back at the offending miscreant. Just because it is Christmas does not make a teabag acceptable.

8. GOODWILL TO ALL MANKIND

This phrase often gets bandied about, but what does it mean? It means making the best tea you can, obviously, to serve to your guests. You might think that your maternal Aunt’s latest lip-plumping collagen treatment makes her look like a Red Snapper**, that your brother’s new girlfriend has the IQ of a duck and you can’t forgive your second cousin Barnaby for eloping with the parish priest the day before your wedding, but that doesn’t mean you can’t rise to the occasion and share a truly exceptional tea with them. This makes you a better person than all of them.

Of course, it should be preceded with the phrase, “why not have a cuppa before you leave?”.

9. WIND DOWN WITH TEA

If you can manage to get in front of the television by sunset, with just your significant other, a lovely cup of Pai Mu Dan, your pile of loot and the last half-kilo of Christmas Mixture, then you can declare Christmas over and look forward to next year.

Merry Christmas!

* To make “Harry Potter Special Mix”, stick every tea you don’t like in your cupboard in a bucket together, add jelly beans and mix. Palm it off on children.

**  A Red Snapper is a fish, not a communist photographer.