Wonderlicious wrote:1. Do you like tea? I have done very much so for around the past two years, but I was wondering if you guys liked it too.
I have been drinking tea for all my life, and I like it very much. I like mine sugared, and with evaporated milk. I also think it's fine with normal cow's milk though it doesn't taste quite as good. What I find annoying with evaporated milk is that it's very fattening.
At the moment I'm using "Ideal" milk by Nestle. Years ago, we used to use "Frisian Flag" milk. When it comes to teabags, we have used "Tetley" very long ago. Recently we were using "Typhoo" tea bags, and currently we are buying "Lion Tea" Tea bags.
Wonderlicious wrote:2. Do you prefer tea or coffee? I hate coffee, so tea wins by millions of miles for me.
I like both, but I think tea is my favourite. I rarely drink coffee. In fact, I think I haven't drunk any coffee for about 2 months now. Although I love tea, I don't drink it much during the summer. In fact I think I haven't touched tea now for quite a while. But give it some and I'll be drinking tea 24/7.
Wonderlicious wrote:3. If you're not from the UK or Ireland, is tea considered a delicacy compared to say, coffee, in your respective country (I know most replies will be from the US, but there are Australians, Canadians, Scandinavians and others on this board)? I ask this, as when in Berlin recently (I was actually there at the same time as Julian Carter, but we never actually knew that we were so close
), coffee seemed to be slightly more readily available, and unlike in the UK (and Ireland as well) where the only tea that is readily available is just plain tea, the tea seemed to be available in many different flavours, often of which seemed like very slight variations on another flavour. Coffee isn't available in many flavours over here, but tea seems to be a bit more readily available in England. Do you think that tea a fancy thing where you are?
I'd say that in Malta, tea and coffee are equally popular. Note however, that most people here seem to drink tea with normal cow's milk, whereas I prefer the tinned evaporated milk. Normally, when someone offers to make me a cup of tea, they wouldn't have evaporated milk as not much people seem to use it. Also, in terms of coffee, in Malta, the instant type is popular, like Nescafe (even though the Italians wouldn't touch anything instant, they're such coffee maniacs
)
While I was in Berlin (at the same time as Wonderlicious) I also came across the flavoured tea. I tried fruit tea. It tasted almost exactly like the normal British brewed tea (that I'm used to at home) save for a slight sensation of, well...fruit.
I'd rather have the normal tea though.
While I was at a restaurant in Berlin I ordered a cup of English brewed tea. When it arrived, the milk I requested was just a little cylindrical plastic container sealed on top. It looked like the same tiny containers used for butter or margarine when you want to butter a piece of bread at a restaurant. The difference is that whereas such a container is large enough for butter, there isn't anything near enough space for milk intended for a cup of tea! The tea tasted disgusting. There was so little milk that the tea looked like brown sludge.
At the hostel where I was staying, they had tea every morning for breakfast. The teapots were labeled to notify one of the type of tea inside the pot (ex. fruit tea, green tea etc.) I chose "English Brewed Tea", the norm. I poured it. added sugar and milk, and tasted it. This was a different case. I didn't spit the tea out in disgust. It wasn't disgusting, just tasteless. As soon as I added milk, the cup of tea turned
white. I looked inside the teapot, to find just two teabags hanging there.
Two teabags! For a whole teapot!! No wonder it was tasteless and had no colour!
The bottom line: Don't expect to get a good cup of tea in Germany.
Loomis wrote:3. Tea is certainly a standard here, because we have such a strong British cultural influence.
Same here. Malta was occupied by the British until the late sixties, by which time we became independent. However, the Brits' stay certainly left an impact on our culture. It affected our cuisine, lifestyle and even our language. For all I know, tea was introduced by them over here.
Love It.
