Afternoon Tea

Everybody has at least one thing that gives their lives a little hit of joy. I'm not talking finding a bag of gold, or getting a long over due promotion, or selling a TV show to a network joy. I'm talking a little joy to turn an ok day into a great one. For some people, it's that latte from the good place, two blocks out of the way, but still in the correct direction of the subway. Usually you don't go their because you're in a rush. You mean to, but the cat puked, and then you couldn't find your other shoe. But today you are running early and it is the first warm work day of spring. So you stop, and you even splurge a little on a croissant that actually looks and tastes like a croissant, and not a cresent shaped, flakey roll. (There is a difference!) And instead of cursing New York, like you did last week, in the freezing wind, you are happy to live here, where you can get a croissant almost as good as the ones in Paris.

I think one of the things that makes me happiest in the course of my day is my cup of tea. Only one other person on all of earth makes it as well as I do, and that is my friend Rosie, in London. In fact, when she is in New York, I make her make all my tea.

Ok, how hard can it be to make a cup of tea? It's pretty fool proof. You've got to hand it to the English. The tea bag is pretty self-explanitory. But, truly, it is not so easy to make my perfect cup of tea.

Firstly, I drink PG Tips, an English brand of tea. I don't drink it because I am pretentious (though I may be.) In England, it is really cheap, actually, the equivalent of the insipid Lipton you get at the diner here. I drink it because it is strong enough to send a horse to the moon. It's like coffee, it's so strong. And I find it very hard to drink it straight. Indeed, drinking a cup of PG Tips uncut is like drinking bong water with a dash of hay. Bitter and nasty! And like coffee, if you are not used to it, it will give your stomach paroxysms. So this is where things get tricky.

Like a great cake, a great cup of my tea is all about proportions: milk, tea, and sugar. Even the picture on the PG Tips box seems to have milk added to it. I like about two teaspoons of sugar in the raw. Rosie, when she makes my cuppa, halves the sugar. She, a proper brommie, is adamantly against ANY sugar in tea, but she knows I am a foolish American, and thus indulges me.

The microwave is the perfect way to make one cup of tea. You can figure out just how long until the water is very hot but not boiling (which scorches the tea.) In my microwave, the perfect time is two minutes. I put a cup filled 3/4 with distilled water, 1 tea bag, and that sugar in the microwave for two minutes exactly. Then, as soon as I take it out, I sniff it. The tea should smell a tiny bit bitter. Then take the tea bag out, and add milk, until the tea is a lovely caramel color. I give it a stir, to make sure the sugar is nice and mixed, and not waiting for me at the bottom in a sludge. (Ick!)

Then I sit back down, and enjoy. And that makes me unaccountably happy for the rest of the day.