No Tea For YOU!

Sure, it looks innocent enough....a traditional Victorian style English Tea Room in Brighton, UK -- but make no mistake...the Tea Cozy is adamant about good tea etiquette. In fact, if you can't have good table manners, you will be shown the door!

NO TEA FOR YOU!!!

Among the offensive behaviors that will get you thrown out:
- Using your cell phone (hooray for that one...)
- Blaspheming the Queen and..
- the uncouth practice of Dunking your Biscuit! (heavens, No!)

It's nice to know in these changing times, that SOMEONE cares about good manners.

No, really, I'm not making this up. Should you be less then congenial or show bad manners, including the aforementioned actions of utter incivility, you will be promptly shown the exit.

Read more: Dunking Biscuits Banned!!!

I do hope one of my readers can stop by and share a review of what I am sure is a lovely and very proper tea room. It will be my pleasure to stop by when I visit the UK next Fall.

Don't Nuke the Tea!

Because I just had to share this story....

Now these people are some SERIOUS Tea Drinkers!

***************************************************************

British planners feared tea shortage after nuclear attack
LONDON (AFP) — Never mind the radiation: British contingency planners worried there would be a dramatic shortage of tea in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, recently declassified documents showed Monday.

The shortfall of the staple British beverage would be "very serious" if the country were to come under attack with atomic and hydrogen bombs, said according to a memo drafted between 1954 and 1956.

"The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce (28 grams) per head per week could be ensured," it said.

Keep reading here...

Let's Talk about Tea!

It was my pleasure and priviledge to be a part of a radio broadcast all about tea, last Wednesday with Siren FM, out of Lincoln, UK. The show was a part of the morning line-up and took place at 10am...if you live in England, which is 5am here.

I am not yet able to post an audio file of the show, and am waiting for permission to do so.

In the interim, I wanted to share some of the highlights of this radio exploration on the subject of tea because I felt that the team producing this show was very creative.

The show started off with a montage of answers to the "man on the street question" as to how Brits take their tea. The hosts Richard and Hayley then introduced the topic of Tea and how they were going to be taking it on from a global perspecitive. The shows features included:

- an interview with the owner of Imperial Teas (located in Lincoln, UK) about teas and about how to make a proper cuppa.

- a discussion with Edward Mann, an art historian who educated the listeners to the spiritual quality of the Japanese Tea Ceremony
(Teaism is close to Taoism...Meditate upon this concept with each mindful sip)
- The Making of a Tea Pot
- The Confessional Diary of a Tea Addict: 3 days without tea (!!!)
- A scientific experiment and mad tea party with dunkable biscuits

- and....the live interview with yours truly, Madam Potts. I had made a customized blend of tea, called Mel-iciously Sweet for Melissa, their resident tea addict, who joined them in the studio, and who had no idea that a tea was being made, using my PersonaliTEA system, in her honor.

They asked me about the PersonaliTEA system which they had had Melissa fill out previously, and how her answers, like"grassy meadow" or "Britney Spears Fantasy perfume" inspired the blend that I ultimately created.

I know it's been awhile since I shared a recipe. But here it is...
The blend that I came up with for our British Tea Addict is:

Mel-iciously Sweet
Mango Ceylon Tea

Ginger Root
Rooibos
Hibsicus

Damiana

Berries
Stevia

SIREN FM hosts a Tea Party!

Good Morning UK!

SIREN FM is featuring Madam Potts in their inaugural show called, "Take On..." The idea of the show is that they 'take on' a new topic and the first topic is TEA (ooh! my favorite subject!).

WITNESS people...TASTING SOMETHING MAD!

What does it take to create a fun PersonaliTEA?

Find out: Wednesday, April 23rd,
TIME: in the UK: 10am
If you live on the East Coast, that's 5am
but only 2am for my WCoast sippers!
audio file to follow soon

The show lasts 30minutes so TUNE IN

Or for anytime, because this is one fun radio station!


Let me know if you get the chance to listen in!


Sipping Madly!

Madam Potts Live!

Dear Friends ~

It is with much excitement and anticipation that I bring you this next announcement...

Madam Potts will be giving a live interview with Siren FM (based in Lincoln, UK) on Wednesday, April 23rd. The show is called "Take On..." and this time the show is 'taking on' the subject of tea. How very cool for a first episode of this program to focus it on a topic so near and dear to my heart!

SirenFM is an eclectic community radio station which streams live on the Internet 24/7, 365 days/year. I have been listening to the station quite often and am enjoying the truly independent and even Random nature of their programming.

I will post a reminder next week with more information

about the show and the teas that will be tasted during the show.

Until then,

Happy Sipping!

What's so Great about Britain?

For many an American, myself included, tea was something that the Brit's drank. It was stuffy, it tasted bitter, at most you had it when sick. A quick glance at history shows that the British Colonists (aka: early Americans) used tea on numerous ocassions to symbolicly reject the decrees, laws and taxes handed to them from the Mother Country. Since then a bevy of beverages have taken precedence and now tea seems like a phenomenon, but really...it's just another product of global sharing (after all, our new-found tea culture encompasses Asian as well as British teas and wares).

While I had embraced the notion that tea was more than a stiff-upper-lip British thing, I realized recently that I had, what with all my learning of various teas, unconsciously held onto a preconceived notion that all British citizens knew so much more about tea then their trendy American counterparts.

In my recent travels to London and Wales this past month, I realized how very UN-pretentiously they take their tea. They still drown it in milk and sugar without so much as a gasp. Many housewives will not really know what "type" of tea it is...and more often than not, you will get a tea bag -- just like you would in Elmira, NY (or insert hometown of choice).
At most I met a chap who was firm about not liking Earl Grey, but was not much informed on what he did like. As if, for the most part, all black tea was just that -- black tea.

It was refreshing that no one asked how long it was steeped, what grade or brand it was. Tea was just that: TEA. The simplicity was subtle but spoke to me quite loudly. I can't say in my humble travels across the countryside that I had marvelous tea, but the way in which it came across as part of the every day routine and not as an emphasized ritual or "personal time out" was poignant.

How do you stop a trend from being trendy? Make it an everyday part of your life.

Now THAT's Great!