Category Archives: Cogitations

Here’s a question…

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6

On a few occasions over the last month or so, I have bought large cups of espresso coffee.

Now before you freak out and call the Federal Police and inquire hysterically as to who has abducted Verity, the well known tea blogger, and replaced her with a Pod or what have you, let me just say that this coffee was not for consumption. No indeed; it was for spraying around in my garden in the hopes that it would get rid of some of the slugs and snails that have been feasting on my tender seedlings.

You see, apparently caffeine is inimical to gastropods; it gets absorbed through their skin and then kills them somehow. That’s the theory. I can’t really say if it worked, because I certainly didn’t notice hordes of dead snails everywhere, but for the purposes of this post that’s beside the point anyway.

Let me explain what the point actually is (she wrote, long-windedly).

Each application of coffee spray consisted of 50ml coffee in 500ml water, which was about enough for our small garden. Ergo, I had the other 50ml of coffee stored in the fridge for a few days until I had a chance to apply a second round. SO! My question is this, tea friends: would there still have been any functional caffeine left in the refrigerated portion? Or would it have degraded upon storage, the way that antioxidants in brewed tea do? (there, see, there is some tea post this post)

I had a bit of a browse on the caffeine page on Wikipedia last night, but the only information on the half life of caffeine related to its metabolism in the human body (highly variable across individuals) – nothing about its breakdown under other circumstances. Does anyone know anything more about this? Just curious.

Let’s go there, shall we?

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I’ve been drinking an unusual (for me, anyway) amount of herbal teas lately. I used to drink them all the time; then I started getting more into black and green teas, and my love affair with herbal simples and blends fell by the wayside for quite a long time. But I’ve been feeling my way back into drinking them again lately, partly because I’ve been growing quite a few herbs that are good for making into tea, except when the *insert expletive of choice here* possums or caterpillars or snails get them first.

That’s beside the point though, for the moment.

The thing is: I call them HERBAL TEAS.

Regardless of whether they contain Camellia sinensis, or not.

I base my definition of ‘tea’ on the preparation method, rather than the ingredients. Unapologetically. I regularly see people having other people jump down their throats before they can even have a sip of their lovely herbal tea, because the herbal-tea-drinking people called it tea rather than a tisane or an infusion. How tedious.

Let’s be inclusive, not divisive. Let’s go there.

 

Not so cosy

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8

In the grand tradition of @lahikmajoe and @thedevotea, I present you with a bit of a rant, tangentially related to tea!

I am sure that MANY of us here are well on-board with the joys of snuggling down with a cup of tea and a good book. Could there be anything better? Ok, maybe a whole pot of tea instead of just one cup and a REALLY GOOD BOOK by a FAVOURITE author which often actually includes TEA as well! But even your bog-standard cup of tea, sit down and book is a pretty winning combination.

In this vein, there is rarely anything I like better than sitting down with an Agatha Christie alongside my tea and getting caught up in a good old-fashioned ‘cosy mystery’, particularly when it’s one I haven’t read for ages and I can’t remember how it all turns out. I am quite likely to do a little skip and a jump (not while I’m holding my tea of course) on my way to the couch.

I started reading Aggie Chris (as Dame Agatha, Queen of Crime, is affectionately known to me and my sister) at the ripe old age of eight, when I used to pinch ‘The Seven Dials Mystery’ off my mum’s bedside table. By the time I was twelve I think I’d read just about every one of her works. Gosh how I loved them and, obviously, still do. Except that, on my most recent re-readings (at the much, much riper and slightly wiser old age of 32) I am vastly more aware of the extremely racist, classist and misogynist aspects of these otherwise very fun books. Of course Aggie Chris was a writer of her time, and many, if not all, of her works hark back nostalgically to a Golden Age (for the privilieged, anyway), even if that Golden Age was in fact itself mostly fiction, a bit like the world of PG Wodehouse.

But enough with the post-modernism (or whatever intellectuals are up to these days, it’s a while since I studied literature at university). It’s just that some of the more uncomfortable moments in the books offend me more than others and I need to get it out of my system.

For example, in ‘Taken At the Flood’, which I just finished the other day, the main(ish) female character, having nearly fallen for the handsome, devilish ‘bad lot’, ends up back with her steady, stay at home fiance of seven years, realising that he actually IS her one true love after being nearly strangled to death by him.

Yes, really!

Her fiance almost chokes her to death for the excellent reason ‘If I can’t have you, no one can,’ and (once rescued in the nick of time by Hercule Poirot), she decides that she will in fact marry him because living on the edge of potential domestic violence at any time will actually be quite exciting and shows he is a REAL MAN!

Wowsers. Crikey. Yow.

It’s taken quite a lot of tea to wash the taste of this out of my mouth.

Feeling sub-par

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Ah, the disgusting misery of having a cold. Even a mild one is such a pain, isn’t it? To add insult to injury one can’t taste anything so even the things that normally make one feel a bit better and that SOMETHING is right with the world – a nice cup of tea, for example – are relatively pointless.

I have certain teas that I fall back on when I can’t taste anything; usually the same ones that I turn to when I want a predictable cup of tea that I don’t have to think about too much. An organic Ceylon orange pekoe that has a pleasant fruitiness to it (when I can taste it, that is); Daintree tea or any other strong basic black tea that I happen to have on hand,like an Irish breakfast or Yorkshire Gold; Australian Alpine sencha if I chance to feel like green tea.

I’m drinking my way through a pot of Daintree tea right now and yearning for the return of my sense of taste and smell and wondering whether half past one in the afternoon is too early for a hot toddy. Not that I’ve ever had one – well, not an alcoholic one, anyway, though I’ve had plenty of tea with lemon and honey. But by golly I fancy something a little stronger.

Where do we keep the brandy…? Bah. I can’t be bothered to get off my bum and look for it. I suppose I’d better just finish off this pot of tea instead…