Norfolk notes - drink
Hydration is important. Normally in England in October one can rely on the elements to try and hydrate you as often as possible, whether you want it or not. But as a family that cannot function without constant supplies of tea, this was the holiday where the thermos flask, and flask tea in particular, came into it's own.
Flask tea is a very particular brew. You can make up your tea however you choose, brew in a pot and decant to a flask, adding the milk on site later separately, or add the milk to the flask and save yourself the hassle. Or just take boiling water in the flask and take the tea bags and the milk separately. It doesn't matter, because once anything from a flask enters a cup; that cup contains flask tea. It's like alchemy, with tea.
The taste is unique. I could describe it as being the result of the thermos flask needing to be sealed and hence depriving the tea of oxygen, or being the result of some sort of in-flask brewing or fermenting process, but the reality is that it's probably the result of not washing out the thermos flask as often or as thoroughly as one should. What makes flask tea taste like flask tea is probably the ghost of soup. That, the tannins and quite a few molecules of metal from the interior of the flask.
It also tastes different because it's served outdoors. Those cowboy movies where they all sit round a camp fire that has a pot of coffee brewing on it, that's flask tea. It's the taste of freedom, of independence and, most of all, tea.
Tea's poor relation, coffee, also got a look in. Oddly, we'd walk on the beach and then have some tea to give us the energy to go somewhere for a coffee. While tea is drunk out of a flask, coffee is taken in pubs or bars or coffee shops because it's hard to reproduce a really good latte from a flask and a cuppachino is impossible because the chocolate sprinkles melt in transit. Having a posh (bought) coffee was not just a treat, it washed the taste of the damn flask tea out of our mouths.
Because I was driving the wagon, I was on it as well and so was denied my normal lunchtime tipple of six pints of whatever has the most interesting decoration on the pump handle. This did not stop others developing a taste for a lunchtime glass of champagne as a reasonable option to a latte. Champagne served by the glass is the sign of a civilised society. It's the perfect lunchtime alternative to coffee in that it is refreshing after a morning's walk, but it won't keep you awake all afternoon.
It also means it's somewhat difficult to make the transition back to work following the holiday. As one stares at a paper cup full of, probably quite decent, coffee, one cannot help feeling a little short changed that it's not a flute of a bubbling beverage that one can describe as 'biscuity'.
Flask tea is a very particular brew. You can make up your tea however you choose, brew in a pot and decant to a flask, adding the milk on site later separately, or add the milk to the flask and save yourself the hassle. Or just take boiling water in the flask and take the tea bags and the milk separately. It doesn't matter, because once anything from a flask enters a cup; that cup contains flask tea. It's like alchemy, with tea.
The taste is unique. I could describe it as being the result of the thermos flask needing to be sealed and hence depriving the tea of oxygen, or being the result of some sort of in-flask brewing or fermenting process, but the reality is that it's probably the result of not washing out the thermos flask as often or as thoroughly as one should. What makes flask tea taste like flask tea is probably the ghost of soup. That, the tannins and quite a few molecules of metal from the interior of the flask.
It also tastes different because it's served outdoors. Those cowboy movies where they all sit round a camp fire that has a pot of coffee brewing on it, that's flask tea. It's the taste of freedom, of independence and, most of all, tea.
Tea's poor relation, coffee, also got a look in. Oddly, we'd walk on the beach and then have some tea to give us the energy to go somewhere for a coffee. While tea is drunk out of a flask, coffee is taken in pubs or bars or coffee shops because it's hard to reproduce a really good latte from a flask and a cuppachino is impossible because the chocolate sprinkles melt in transit. Having a posh (bought) coffee was not just a treat, it washed the taste of the damn flask tea out of our mouths.
Because I was driving the wagon, I was on it as well and so was denied my normal lunchtime tipple of six pints of whatever has the most interesting decoration on the pump handle. This did not stop others developing a taste for a lunchtime glass of champagne as a reasonable option to a latte. Champagne served by the glass is the sign of a civilised society. It's the perfect lunchtime alternative to coffee in that it is refreshing after a morning's walk, but it won't keep you awake all afternoon.
It also means it's somewhat difficult to make the transition back to work following the holiday. As one stares at a paper cup full of, probably quite decent, coffee, one cannot help feeling a little short changed that it's not a flute of a bubbling beverage that one can describe as 'biscuity'.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home