Remember me
The other day we had a protracted power cut. This was no mischance. No Hebridean storm had toppled poles, nor had Putin’s goons severed the cable at the bottom of the Little Minch plugging us into the National Grid.
This was in fact what our electricity provider called a ‘scheduled outage’ – but it was an unusually long one, from nine in the morning till five in the evening; probably in connection with the latest round of wind turbines and export of the volts thereof.
Accordingly, nothing could be cooked, no washing could be put on, I was reduced to my smartphone for brief glimpses at the worldwide web and – worst of all – I could not have a cup of tea.
I could but gloomily regale myself with chilled, sparkling mineral water, insufficiently caffeinated in a day that fast felt without form, and void.
As any true tea-jenny will know, it is more than – depending upon one’s mood – a soothing or revivifying beverage. Making tea is a ritual, and we all have our own rites.
Mine must be in a man-sized Sports Direct mug, it must star an Earl Grey teabag from Twinings, it must be made with absolutely boiling water and it must infuse for precisely four minutes.
Before the addition of a splash of semi-skimmed, and then twenty minutes of serenity for MacLeod, as I contemplate the next piece of journalism or all manner of badness.
E leven years ago, I may proudly relate, I was actually banned by mine host at a certain café after the second occasion I had asked for a pot of tea.
The waitress – a lass pale and insipid as the brew – had brought me a pot of quite hot water and a teabag, dry and pointless as a beached whale, on the accompanying saucer.
There's nothing like a big cup of tea... as long as it's made correctly!
An afternoon tea, although delicious, is not the same as a high tea...
I explained courteously that this is not how tea is made and was startled shortly to be excommunicated by the wild-eyed proprietor. The business, unsurprisingly, folded soon afterwards.
If you do not use water at a rolling boil – as the adage goes, always bring the pot to the kettle, not the kettle to the pot – your brew will taste flat and dusty.
There was another, historic consideration, and why the masses took so avidly to tea in Victorian times as it became generally affordable: in the age of dodgy street-pumps, typhoid and King Cholera, tea made with seething, sterilising water was pretty well the only safe thing to drink.
It was widely retailed, in her day, that the commonest dream in Britain was of having tea with the Queen. Who also liked Twinings Earl Grey with a splash of milk.
Every day began with it – brought with a couple of Chocolate Bath Oliver biscuits and, naturally, in monogrammed china – as she listened to Terry Wogan before rising, bathing and dressing.
Elizabeth II took afternoon tea so seriously that her duties were usually scheduled around it: whatever the ship to be launched, the plaque to be unveiled, the street to be walked about or some high heid yin to be humoured, she was always back at base by four in the afternoon.
It was her favourite meal of the day – dainty octagonal sandwiches, chocolate-biscuit cake, scones for the corgis – and an occasion politely to entertain dignities she did not know very well.
On the scale of Her Majesty’s regard, the likes of Sir Edward Heath enjoyed but an occasional dine-and-sleep at Windsor; at the other end, the Sir Jackie Stewarts or the Countess Mountbattens were warmly welcome at Balmoral.
Afternoon tea, incidentally, is not the same thing at all as high tea. Even Masterchef: The Professionals has been known to confound them.
High tea, for most of us, was the evening meal in a past era of hard physical work calling for a pretty calorific mid-day meal, invariably involving potatoes and always called ‘dinner.’
High tea, for others, was a potato-free zone, usually involving some sort of grill or fry-up and served up – complete with bread, butter, jam and baking – all at once. As late as 2010, if you hit the likes of Nairn or Montrose or Peebles you could still find hotels offering a good Scots high tea; but it did not long survive the age of Starbucks.
Afternoon tea is very different. Popularised from 1840 by Anna Maria Russell, 7th Duchess of Bedford, it soon became a cherished ritual of gentlefolk, not least because – once they had brought everything in – all servants could be dismissed and you could have a candid hour of delicious gossip.
It can still be enjoyed in all its ceremonial glory in the Palm Court of Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel.
You usually have to book, but it is surprisingly filling – as well it should be, at £70 a head – and on most occasions, in a gallery aloft, a lady is playing the harp.
A variant, in the West Highlands and at least where Gaelic is still spoken, is the strùpag – the impromptu cuppa for, usually, unexpected guests, and which my grandmother’s generation could conjure up with swift aplomb.
With the setting and china exquisitely geared to your importance: mugs in the kitchen for some great-nephew, the Royal Albert and the ‘best room’ for the minister. In less Presbyterian airts, the tea and scones and sweet treats would be accompanied by a hearty dram or a dainty glass of sherry.
But that would be highly unusual in Lewis, where even having a drinks tray on open display in your parlour is thought unseemly.
An odd exception was – or at least used to be – the Friday of a Free Presbyterian communion season, perhaps because the morning service that day is a ‘Question Meeting,’ it was apt to be inordinately long, and the crowds of yore were such that it was often held outdoors.
Then, at some kindly household for dinner, a vast measure of the hard stuff was pressed first into your hand and one often had to be wily in disposing of it. (I do hope not too many pot plants perished in my wake.)
For that matter, back in the manse the ministers had also to be discreetly refreshed.
Every lady of the manse knew each cleric’s preferred poison and it was quietly borne on a tray to his chamber, always covered in a laundered white cloth.
But, be ye high or low, the length of the land and whatever the occasion or emergency, do any words in the English language put as much in perspective as that murmured, delightful intimation, ‘Let’s put the kettle on’?
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