Hello Again, Sydney

One Sydney-sider's experiences moving back to Sydney after a long absence overseas.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Tea time




How on earth did tea not get a mention in My Favourite Things? Part of the great coffee conspiracy no doubt. But they couldn't hold it down. Tea doesn't need advertising, or viral marketing campaigns. It doesn't need fake smilers to hand out samples at Town Hall station (except maybe those dodgy chemically flavoured varieties). It's not even illegal, and yet people still drink it.

My relationship with tea started when I was a kid and my parents took me on a road trip around country NSW: Adaminaby, Coonabarabran, Narrabri, Deniliquin... In one of them we went to a shop where they had Twinings tea chests and I asked them to buy me one. Not the most reasonable request for a 12-year-old, but it was a long drive between towns and the scenery wasn't what you'd call thrill a minute (less interesting than a box of teabags in fact). So my parents caved in.

In every hotel room for the rest of the trip, I brewed something different, trying to pick the difference between Irish and English breakfast or decide which was better, Darjeeling or Earl Grey. I loved the way the packets were all different colours. Most clearly I remember the Lapsang Souchong. I think the label described it as having a gunpowder flavour. I liked that idea (and the exotic name) so much that I forgave the taste.

My tea phase lasted about as long as that holiday (much to the relief of my parents I bet). But it all came flooding back last week when I went to the Tea Centre in the Glasshouse mall to look for a birthday present for a friend. Behind the counter the staff are surrounded by tea, floor to ceiling, all lined up along shelves in metal tins the size of hatboxes (yeah you know, hatboxes). It's like standing inside a tea chest.

And this is without even getting to the teapots which are pretty amazing. I had half a mind to go home and smash ours, just so I could buy a new one. But of course, that's not the approach. I reckon a teapot is one of those household items that only accumulates its specialness after years of mundane service. The stains, chips and scratches are like shorthand for an entire domestic narrative written out over a thousand cups of tea. At least that's how I hope it works out for the teapot I bought my friend.

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