As has been observed many times, tea is a simple process. Put leaves in a pot or gaiwan, add water, wait, pour. While you can get better at it, and use better tea, it’s an essentially achievable process. As I once said in another blog post about a similar topic to today’s, “You could train […]
In about 1992, we acquired a 1972 Valiant for Lady Devotea to drive. We asked my Dad – who was a car dealer – to find us a small, second hand 4-cylinder car at a modest price as we didn’t have much money, and a few days later, a car transport turned up and deposited […]
Mr Bob Egle died in June 1971. Mr Jethro Batt became very ill in October 1971 Mr Fred Biggs died in November 1971. The men all had a number of similarities. They had gastrointestinal symptoms similar to food poisoning. They had hair loss. Hallucinations. They also worked at the same place. Hadlands, a photographic instruments […]
Kale, eh? The super-darling super-food of the super-earnest, it has a super-reputation for super-godliness like some super-evangelist, think Jimmy Swaggart, just before it turned out had a super-saucy super-predilection for prostitutes, BDSM, cheating on his wife and super-preaching the exact opposite. Remember him? “Please send super-rolls of cash to help God stamp out sin, etc.” […]
In Russia, tea is an important part of culture and society. When you tell a taxi driver or waiter to “keep the change”, in Russian you literally say “the rest is for tea”. Of course, Russian Caravan tea is an important historical legacy, and those guys have come up with some pretty impressive samovars. However, […]
Today, I’d like to share with you an exercise in improving our corporate logo. Here it is, in case you’ve forgotten: Lovely, isn’t it? But I started to wonder if something was missing. So, I thought about my deep and abiding respect for the United Kingdom’s second longest reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. What if […]
As those of you who hold a small celebration every time I post a blog post will be aware, December 22, 2019 was such a day. In that piece, I announced that the gift of spending some time and having some tea with me has actually been raised to the level of Christmas gift. Or […]
NOTE: I wrote this for The Devotea’s joint sales site with Baristador coffee. Reproduced here for those who subscribe to this blog. This past few days have seen the first iteration of the new arrangement for us at The Devotea; after joining forces with Baristador, we now have one weekend per month where we do […]
Let me tell you about a guy who is, frankly, a bit of a lunatic. He’s veeeeeerrrrry fussy about the way he brews his beverages. Not just because he likes to control water temperature and water/raw material ratios etc, but because he completely refuses to make his drinks the way most people do. The cheap […]
A chance comment describing tea as “dead leaves” caused eyebrows to lift. It was my friend Geoffrey Norman, sharing a Facebook memory of a paid commission to write about tea, which he described as “that time I got paid to write about dead leaves in water”. It immediately reminded me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to […]