The month of January is Hot Tea Month! (Cue applause) Now, while we all know everyone loves a good cuppa (if you don’t, then gtfo, fool!), most people drink tea all through the year, so what is so special about January? Well, the internet wasn't very forthcoming on the specifics of this, so I'm just going to assume it’s because January is very cold and there’s nothing nicer than having something lovely and warm to hold while you slowly metamorphosize into an icy stalagmite. As the second most consumed beverage in the world (after water, obviously) and one of the oldest drinks known to man, tea has played a very important role in society around the world, both historically and today. On my travels across the internet I found a really interesting tea timeline that goes all the way back to 2737 BC, which is apparently when tea was first discovered in China by Shen Nung, the Second Emperor. People have been drinking this delicious beverage for a very long time. I wasn’t initially entirely sure how to celebrate this ‘month of tea’, but upon investigation it appears that the purpose of this celebration is for people to explore the diverse and surprisingly extensive world of tea, expanding their horizons beyond the safe supermarket standard brew.
As a medium to heavy tea drinker, I will be the first to admit that usually I hedge my bets and stick with my standard cup of Yorkshire tea (splash of milk, no sugar) but I have dabbled in other teas, with the odd cup of green, chai or chamomile. Though I have usually tended to enjoy these ‘novelty’ teas, I have unerringly always returned to the old favourite. On top of this, I have rarely bothered to investigate to find out information about any kind of alternative tea other than whether milk is recommended with it or not. Thus, I shall be delving deeper into the world of tea than ever before. I will try as many different types of tea as I can, both the variations I have had previously and those I have yet to try (white tea and oolong, I'm looking at you). As I sample the different tea variants, I’ll delve into their fact sheets and try to provide choice snippets along with my own opinion. Loose leaf tea may be on the cards, but we’ll have to see where this month takes me. If I can find the time, I might possibly also even attempt to make some hot tea cocktails or cook with tea. Tea soup, anyone?
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Tea Testing Round 1
Redbush - a Rooibos tea from the Western Cape of South Africa. Rooibos is a relatively young strain, with a history dating back only 300 years. It is completely calorie free, and can be served hot or cold. This brew had a strong, almost tobacco-like smell which I found a little off putting, but the smoky taste was pleasant enough. The aftertaste, not so much. I discovered after drinking that Rooibos is technically not actually a tea, which may account for why I didn’t find it to be entirely excellent. I had mine straight, but my boss drank a cup with milk and sugar and declared it delicious. 5/10
Green Tea has a lovely smell and taste, mellow and refreshing. Green tea is known for it’s health benefits, such as speeding up the metabolism and helping to clear the complexion if consumed regularly, but the internet professes that this tasty beverage also has healing properties, and can even be used as an antibacterial solution, apparently. Who knew?
10/10
I shall be doing further experiments with tea as the month progresses, but for now what else do we have to celebrate today? Not one, but two of my most favourite things; cuddles and shortbread. If I had to choose between the two, I'd probably choose cuddles, as shortbread, although delicious, is only one of many kinds of biscuit, whereas there is no decent substitute for a good cuddle. Boyfriends and girlfriends are the usual first port of call for such activities, but a good friend can be a perfect cuddle companion too.
You don't even need an actual person to cuddle up, some cuddly toys are excellent. Frank (the gigantic pink dog pictured above) has lived in my bedroom for more than 5 years. Whenever my boyfriend spends the night away from home, I put Frank in his place so I have something soft and warm to cuddle and don't wake up in the night looking for him. Frank has also helped many others, perhaps most importantly my friend & housemate who ended up on the streets of Stratford overnight once, and returned to find Frank waiting for her in her bed to soothe the pain of her ordeal :) Onesies are also great cuddling gear, and kigurumis, like the red panda one I am curled up in below, are even better. However, if you have a paucity of people and things to cuddle up with, cuddling up in bed with a book and a nice warm drink will more than suffice :)
Finally, today is also National Shortbread day. Although shortbread may have come second to a good cuddle in my rankings, this in no way means that I don't still love it. Shortbread was always one of my favourite biscuity treats when I was little. Looking back, this is probably because it is so deliciously sweet and crumbly. Eating shortbread as an adult is always a bit of a guilty pleasure - you know that is is filled with butter and coated with sugar but goddamn it if that doesn't make it an excellent biscuit. Digestives and custard creams pale in comparison (Rich Tea does too, but those tasteless wonders pale in comparison to pretty much any other possible option). Fifteen years ago in the world of Rebecca , the ultimate kind of shortbread was this one...
For the benefit of the uninitiated, the above image shows a Fox's Sports Biscuit. These biscuits always had an image of a little stick man or two doing some kind of sport, presumably in order to encourage fat youngsters to do more sports by eating shortbread. Flawed logic, to be sure, but these biscuits were awesome. I loved them. Whilst looking these up, I discovered that the Fox's biscuit company were originally founded in Batley, an area of my current hometown of Leeds in West Yorkshire, which endeared me to the company somewhat. This effect also came into play when I first discovered Asda were originally a Leeds-based company. Of course, everything is owned bystupidly huge conglomerates now, but it's nice to know some big brands have homely roots in God's Own County. I assumed that the Sports Bicuits had been discontinued years ago as I haven't seen them around for ages, but it seems I must have been walking around with blinkers on, as they still exist, albeit in different form, with silhouettes instead of stick men. Sacrilege!
I have had plenty of other tasty shortbreads in my time, and many of them come in tartan packaging with some kind of reference to Scotland, so I was always vaguely aware of it's Scottish roots, but I never really knew much about the particulars before now. Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), the famous Queen with no kingdom, was a romantic figure who spent most of her life in captivity, and she is surprisingly often attributed with the invention of shortbread. Records from the time show she was a big fan of 'petticoat tails', a particular cut of short bread cut from a big round and traditionally scored with a fork.
More often than not when a famous and/or important figure is credited with the discovery or indeed invention of something, it proves to be a false claim. Although earlier in this post I credited Chinese Emporer Shen Nung with the discovery of tea, I highly doubt that he discovered it himself. Neither do I think that Kim Jong Il really invented the hamburger. All contemporary records describe Mary as being a very haughty woman with an extremely high regard for herself, and it is highly unlikely that such a woman would deign to even step into the kitchen, let alone spend enough time in the bakery to develop her own biscuit. But still, she loved shortbread enough for it to go down in history, which is pretty cool. Apparently shortbread can trace it's origins back to hundreds of years before Mary;
The story of shortbread begins with the medieval "biscuit bread". Any leftover dough from bread making was dried out in a low oven until it hardened into a type of rusk: the word "biscuit" means "twice cooked". Gradually the yeast in the bread was replaced by butter, and biscuit bread developed into shortbread.
Today, shortbread continues to have traditional uses in Scotland, from being broken across the head of a new bride to celebrate her marriage, to being used as a traditional gift at Hogmany & First Foot Day. Shortbread can picked up with ease from any supermarket, which is definitely what I will be doing today, but if you would like to have a crack at it yourself, various recipes exist, some of which are here. Enjoy ^_^
References
2. History of shortbread quote http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Scottish-Shortbread/
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