TEA AND HOW TO TAKE IT

...WITH A NOTE ON THE CUCUMBER SANDWICH.

Australians drink a lot of beer but the national beverage is tea, ideally brewed almost black, with the liberal addition of milk and one or two spoonsful of sugar. The further one moves from civilization, the stronger tea becomes, reaching its apogee in the outback, where a handful of loose black leaves is dumped into a galvanized tin pot or “billy can” and stewed over an open fire until it satisfies the essential requirement - that a spoon will stand up in it.

My taste for tea survived living in California, where “tea” covered a variety of infusions, including cannabis, but also mint, camomile, verbena, bergamot, jasmine - none of them, however, resembling tea as I knew it.  A demand for “just black tea” yielded a cup of tepid water and a sachet which, with repeated dunking, produced a fluid resembling a urine sample.

Moving to England introduced me to the ceremonial nature of drinking  - or, as better bred Britons phrased it - taking tea.  Tea to the British encompasses the length and breadth of human experience. Only they could have invented the “morphine tea” of the ‘twenties, a favourite in the parlours of Mayfair and Knightsbridge. Once a maid served the lapsang souchong and made herself scarce, the hostess produced a hypodermic and administered doses of the seven per-cent solution that gave Sherlock Holmes his edge.

For a time I lived in a village well outside London. On days when I took the train into the city, I tried to return on the 4.15pm, since it was the only service that offered afternoon tea.

For this ritual, British Rail had kept in commission a single Edwardian car, a museum piece of worn plush, polished brass, chipped varnished wood and acid-etched glass.  Just before the train pulled out, two waiters moved through the carriage, enquiring “Will you be taking tea, sir?” Anybody not doing so was politely ejected.

As we eased away from the platform, they returned with a cup, saucer, plate, knife, spoon and cloth napkin for each person, followed by sugar bowls, milk jugs,   and individual metal pots of scaldingly hot tea.

The first food arrived as we reached the outer signal and accellerated onto the main line; tea cakes, halved, toasted and lightly buttered. Automatically, we selected one top and one bottom. To take two of the tastier tops was more than bad manners; someone who would do so was clearly capable of any beastliness.

The dishes continued, each presented by a waiter who held one hand behind his back while the other extended the silver mesh basket, linen-napkin lined.

Sliced and buttered brown and white bread, cut in half. One took no more than two halves, making up a single “round”. (A square slice of bread was a “round”. So was a sandwich made from two such slices. Tea cakes, on the other hand, which were  round, were never called anything but “tea cakes”. And the British think the Japanese inscrutable!

Fruit cake – one slice permitted. Biscuits – one or two, but only if you had not already taken cake.  

Then... the sandwiches.

Nobody made sandwiches like British Rail. Their white bread was of a pillowy doughiness, the crusts amputated as precisely as with a scalpel. Invariably filled with cucumber, cress, hard-boiled egg or meat paste, each was cut in quarters. Correct procedure dictated that one select no more than a quarter of each type, to a maximum of four. Taking less than three reflected on their quality, and might cause a frown to crease the forehead of our waiter; perhaps induce a breakdown in the kitchen, even suicide. While to take more….

Yet that unthinkable act occurred in my very sight one afternoon  in the spring of 1972.

As the basket was presented, the man sitting opposite said “Ah, lovely!  My favourite…”   and took  six quarters of meat paste!

The stranger beside me lowered his Daily Telegraph, turned his head, and met my eyes. At the same instant, we raised our eyebrows in contempt. For a brief moment, I experienced what it meant to be English.

Since moving to France, I’ve adopted a modified transAtlantic style of tea drinking. My favourite cup, a gift of friends in London and archetypally English, reproduces the letter “C” and a raddled-looking cat from Edward Lear’s nonsense alphabet.

And though we do own teapots, I’ve learned to make do with Marks and Spencer’s Extra Strong tea bags. Experiment as I might, however, the texture, taste and precision of the British Rail’s meat-paste sandwich eludes me. So far. But the search continues. As Robert Browning said, “Man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”