(This is my 124th blog on Tea Trade. It will form a good intro to my 125th which I am planning to be something a little different. Stay tuned!) It must be said, I have a lot of tea. Now, I’m not talking about the dozens of kilograms of tea sitting in our blending area; […]
The last three days in England have been spent without internet for various reasons, and there is a bit of a logjam of blog posts. So even though I write this about 15 hours ahead of our departure from this country and hemisphere, it seems to me I can’t post it until we arrive back […]
Let me handle your first objection, dear reader. I have heard that tea smugglers of the 1700s are no different to drug smugglers today; and if that is your opinion, dear reader, then you are entitled to it; as completely wrong as it is. Tea was not illegal; merely highly taxed. Smuggling tea was not […]
I have fulfilled an ambition this trip and read “Myrtle Takes Tea”. Lady Devotea and I have also sipped tea with the author twice , and whilst we will respect that person’s wish to be a little mysterious, I am going to let the cat out of the bag and say that it is not […]
There was this thing called the British Empire. And it did some terrible, terrible things. So much worse than anyone else, of course. Wait a minute. Yes, in the name of empire; and through a quite inappropriate relationship with companies such as The East India company, Britain did some terrible things. Started wars for profit. Helped themselves to other […]
After leaving the Dorchester, for more than 72 hours I had limited tea. It is the confluence of limited opportunity and circumstance and limited tea supplies. In an attempt to walk off some of the repast after The Dorchester, we walked across Hyde Park. Then through some of Kensington. In fact we walked for about three hours. Add that to the three hours walking […]
Welcome back, boys and girls. When last we left our intrepid hero, the question was ” Are ‘top end’ tea places just really annoying?”Let’s find out, shall we? In the interests of science, we went to The Dorchester. Earlier in the day, we visited the Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road. A real let down, the cupcakes looked great but […]
A frantic two days came to a stunning conclusion last night. We’ve covered a fair bit of London and seen two shows; The Phantom of The Opera and We Will Rock You. and like the teas we have enjoyed over those two days, they have been at opposite ends of any measure you care to […]
(As I sit down to write, there is a front page story about a lady who lost her legs in the terrorist bombing here. She is now representing her country at the Paralympics. A great kick in the teeth to the cockroaches who planned and carried out that cowardly act; but it does make my […]
A note for the gentle reader: When the time came to commit these scribblings to posterity; I thought of framing this post as a message in a bottle; wrapped up and stoppered and cast upon the waves; awaiting chance discovery at a later date. But then, that would be too dramatic. Instead, I’ll recall 1995, […]