Hence, though servants
in England are vastly better trained than with us, this delicate mystery
is seldom left to their hands. Tea-making belongs to the drawing-room,
and high-born ladies preside at "the bubbling and loud hissing urn,"
and see that all due rites and solemnities are properly performed--that
the cups are hot, and that the infused tea waits the exact time before
the libations commence.
Of late, the introduction of English breakfast-tea has raised a new
sect among the tea-drinkers, reversing some of the old canons.
Breakfast-tea must be boiled! Unlike the delicate article of olden
time, which required only a momentary infusion to develop its richness,
this requires a longer and severer treatment to bring out its
strength--thus confusing all the established usages, and throwing the
work into the hands of the cook in the kitchen. The faults of tea, as
too commonly found at our hotels and boarding-houses, are, that it
is made in every way the reverse of what it should be. The water is
hot, perhaps, but not boiling; the tea has a general flat, stale, smoky
taste, devoid of life or spirit; and it is served usually with thin
milk, instead of cream.
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