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Auntie Madge

NOTE: My Forthcoming book has 7 or possibly 8 pieces of tea-flavoured fiction included. Here’s one in draft form. Your comments are welcome.

I hefted the Britannia teapot to chest height. It seemed lighter than when I last lifted it, but then I was twelve back then.

It seems strange that all of Auntie Madge’s stuff went to Kate. Kate, whom I never really knew – I was moving out as a young man when she moved in as a sobbing pale infant, about six years after Mr Penton from New South Wales was Auntie Madge’s Gentleman Sipping Companion.

That’s always what they were called, these men who called on Auntie Madge. Maybe once or twice a year, an unfamiliar car might turn up, an Austin, or one of those new Holdens. A man in a suit and hat would knock at the door, and for a few years after I turned about eleven years old, it was my job to usher them into the sitting room, where china would be laid out.

“Auntie Madge will be just a moment” I would say. “May I take your jacket, hat and teapot, Sir?”.

I still remember the look on Mr Penton’s face. Over the years, I’ve settled on ‘bemusement’. I took his hat and charcoal pinstriped jacket, and then struggled to add the heavy Britannia teapot to my load. I was only around twelve, according to everyone’s best guess.

As always, I hung the jacket and hat, and then took the teapot to the kitchen.

Cook would be boiling the water and adding the still-warm shortbread fingers to a cream-coloured Alfred Meekins plate.

The first pot – the spotted china one – would be ready to take out. I’d gather the tray, and when I arrived back in the sitting room, Auntie Madge would be there. “Jasper”, she’d say, “What have we here?”

“Mah Jongg, Auntie Madge”, I’d recite. “From a fresh box.”

I’d lay the tray down, and Auntie Madge would always produce the same look, as though she’d just had an idea.

“Jasper, please join us, so you can tell Mr Penton about our little place here”.

“Thank you, Auntie Madge”.

They always asked a few questions, and during the exchange, Auntie Madge and the Gentleman Sipping Companion would exchange little smiles. The Gentlemen Sitting Companions always seemed to have an air of anticipated excitement.

Then it would be time for me to fetch boiling water and the pot that the Gentleman Sipping Companion has bought as a gift.

As I left on this occasion, I heard Mr Penton murmur “Remarkable, Mrs Lawson. His manners are astounding, and so well spoken. As good as I’d expect from a white boy, and better than some.”

When I got back, Auntie Madge had the usual small canister out.

“Do try this, Mr Penton. It’s my specially-blended Almond Earl Grey”.

It was always at this point that Cook would round all of us up – be it six or sixteen of us in residence at that time – for a walk to the lake. No-one left out, no excuses. It was called the “Necessary Constitutional”, and it happened at odd times, but always when a Gentleman Sipping Companion was in residence.

We would arrive back hours later with the plates and cups washed and put away, the car gone and Auntie Madge retired to her bedroom with one of her headaches.

So now, I put down the silver pot, and move to fondle a rose coloured china one. And so on – twenty-nine pots in total.

It’s over forty years since Auntie Madge died. Cook tried to flee with the money, the police got involved. Bluey Thompson from the local garage was convicted of selling at least a dozen stolen cars – the cops knew there were more, but settled for a dozen. All sixty-five of us who had ever lived at the Grace of God Home for Unfortunate Children proclaimed our innocence and lack of knowledge of these terrible crimes. Like the local public, we believed that the orphanage was wholly supported by donations. Of course, accounting standards didn’t really exist back then.

I can hold my hand to my heart and say that I did not actually know what was going on. And it was half a century ago.

But of course, I knew something was wrong. I must have.

I left the Grace of God Home for Unfortunate Children at eighteen years old with a scholarship to The University of Melbourne; a bible; some good tea; a bank book with twenty pounds showing in it, a few well-worn and lovingly repaired garments and a charcoal pinstripe suit.

Within a week of arriving in my accommodation in Melbourne, I’d departed. Catching a bus to The Alice, moving back to the tribal existence that Auntie Madge had tried so hard to save me from. I was not to emerge until a few years later, in the mid-Sixties, when I came back to the city to help in the fight for my people to get the right to vote.

Even though it is over fifty years ago, I still remember the moment that I walked from my student accommodation, with just my small wooden tea canister and my second best set of clothes. I left behind in my room in Melbourne my books, my money and my suit.

A suit that I had discovered had a label sewn into the inside of one of the pockets.

A label that said “Arthur Penton”.

Violence is the Answer

I had a cuppa at an old haunt – FINICKY FINGERS in Woodcroft, South Australia. It used to be Café 16, and is the only place nearby that sells loose leaf tea in any great quality – about 20-30 types.

I wanted a LAPSANG SOUCHONG, the MANLIEST OF TEAS, because I have been renovating a room, a very manly pursuit.

It was painfully obvious that, in additional to being unable to pronounce it, they were perpetrating the WORST SORT OF TEA FRAUD, and selling me a cup of tea with some sort of ARTIFICIAL SMOKE FLAVOUR.

I considered SMASHING THE PLACE UP A BIT, but instead, made my point by leaving in a dignified manner, and entirely undrunk “tea” on may table.

THAT WILL SHOW THEM!

Another beast lurks

Many of us on Twitter know Vic Darkwood, the possibly pseudonymic chap who was an early promulgant of The Chap magazine. Whilst he’s not a Beast of Brewdom, he is often referred to as The Beast of Dartmouth Park, and so rates a mention.

I am currently reading Vic’s book “How to Make Friends and Oppress People – Classic Travel Advice for The Gentleman Advernturer”

It has some astonishingly poor advice on making tea – reprinted from Francis Galton’s The Art of Travel (1872) which seems to recommend,  of all things, an eight-minute infusion.

However, such foolishness is not what has driven this entry.

In his own words, Mr Darkwood has described the humble teapot thus:

“Mother Nature, despite some notable design classics such as the banana, the three-banded armadillo and the young Jean Shrimpton, has yet to come up with a form as compellingly beautiful and ergonomically sleek as the teapot. The rotundity of its body – pregnant with promise, the pleasing arabesque of the spout and the jaunty effeminacy of the handle earn it a special place in the British psyche.”

An exceptional description, I think.

 

 

The Sex Tea Saga

Most people turn to tea because of health reasons, caffeine concerns, memories of their grandparents, or some other wholesome reason.

Mine began because of sex.

Here’s the story (i.e. click on the highly suggestive root):

the ‘best tea’?


Was asked by a friend today what the ‘best tea’ was. What a question, eh? But I love a good debate. And blog comments. In case I’ve been unclear in the past, I really really like blog comments. So here’s my not-so-humble answer. I wonder how the rest of you might respond.

Many teabloggers focus on green and/or Oolong tea, but as much as I like them, I’ve focused more on black tea. Most tea sellers in Germany make their own unique Ostfriesen Blend that is often a mix of strong, malty Assam and a Chinese Keemun (and maybe an Indian Nilgiri). If I had to choose my favourite non-single estate tea, it’d be one of those specialty blends.

But if it’s brands we’re talking about, the tastiest and most consistent tea I’ve found is ‘Yorkshire Gold’ made by Taylors of Harrogate. But that’s only if we’re talking about black tea blends.

I’d say the best non-green/Oolong tea, in my opinion, is still a single estate Darjeeling (to be truly accurate, most ‘black’ Darjeeling is really only 90% oxidised, so it’s actuallyOolong). I like stronger tea, so I enjoy second as well as first flush Darjeeling.

But the best brand? If you’re buying from a seller that can tell you on which estate aDarjeeling was grown, then the likelihood is that it’ll be better than something labeled simply as ‘Darjeeling’. The estimation is that 40,000 tonnes of Darjeeling are sold worldwide, while only 10,000 tonnes are grown. Logically, one isn’t always entirely sure that purchased Darjeeling was actually grown there.

Again, I’m very grateful for the question. Clearly the answer you’ll get is entirely objective. I like thinking about how to make loose-leaf tea drinking more attractive. If I were a tea snob, it’d be the worst way of going about the whole thing.

What about you other tea obsessives? When someone asks you what the ‘best tea’ is, what might you say? I know on the face of it, it’s an impossible question. But please jump in and claim your stake on this issue.

Did I mention that blog comments are encouraged?