On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:01:00 +0000, Jacey Bedford
<lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>In message <adcem3ddvd9llmj18ar5f9aki4ol8gblmv@4ax.com>, Marilee J.
>Layman <marilee@mjlayman.com> writes
>>On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:43:53 -0800 (PST), Paul Clarke
>><paul.clarke@eu.citrix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 17 Dec, 03:18, David Harmon <sou...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>>> Tea, instant, unsweetened, powder, prepared, 6 fl. oz.
>>>> Caffeine 20 mg.
>>>
>>>There's such a thing as _instant_ tea? I would really have preferred
>>>to continue not knowing that.
>>
>>Oh, and way too many restaurants in the US use it.
>
>Noooo, you are talking about instant cold (iced) tea... probably
>sweetened. Jonathan is talking about instant hot tea used in the same
>way that you use instant coffee. A spoonful of powder in a mug, add not
>water, add milk and sugar to taste (or however you take your hot tea).

The powder, sweetened or not, can be used either way, and there are
restaurants who use it for hot tea, too.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com

In message <laohm3h85k9bshgvrug6infh0qflveu9uf@4ax.com>, Marilee J.
Layman <marilee@mjlayman.com> writes
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:01:00 +0000, Jacey Bedford
><lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>>In message <adcem3ddvd9llmj18ar5f9aki4ol8gblmv@4ax.com>, Marilee J.
>>Layman <marilee@mjlayman.com> writes
>>>On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:43:53 -0800 (PST), Paul Clarke
>>><paul.clarke@eu.citrix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 17 Dec, 03:18, David Harmon <sou...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>>>> Tea, instant, unsweetened, powder, prepared, 6 fl. oz.
>>>>> Caffeine 20 mg.
>>>>
>>>>There's such a thing as _instant_ tea? I would really have preferred
>>>>to continue not knowing that.
>>>
>>>Oh, and way too many restaurants in the US use it.
>>
>>Noooo, you are talking about instant cold (iced) tea... probably
>>sweetened. Jonathan is talking about instant hot tea used in the same
>>way that you use instant coffee. A spoonful of powder in a mug, add not
>>water, add milk and sugar to taste (or however you take your hot tea).
>
>The powder, sweetened or not, can be used either way, and there are
>restaurants who use it for hot tea, too.

Groooh...euwww... that would be revolting. I actually like powdered iced
tea (the Lipton's sweetened stuff) but it's not anything like _tea_ it's
just a sweet drink.

Thankfully I've never had anything but tea-bag tea served in USian
establishments, though that's pretty bad for most Brits because USian
places don't know how to boil water and you can't make a good cup of tea
with coffee-temperature water.

I, however don't mind USian tea because I have my tea so weak that I'm a
very atypical Brit when it comes to tea. the only think I hate in the US
is not being able to get 1% milk for my tea in a restaurant. 2% is
tolerable but cream is an absolute No-No. Way too greasy. I can't
believe restaurants would try and give me half and half or coffee
whitener for tea.

Cream in coffee.
Milk in tea.

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:56:17 +0000, Jacey Bedford
<lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote in
<news:NqG8LNiRETaHFwF8@parkhead.demon.co.uk> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

> Cream in coffee.

<shudder>

> Milk in tea.

<SHUDDER!!>

Brian

Jacey Bedford wrote:
> I, however don't mind USian tea because I have my tea so weak that I'm a
> very atypical Brit when it comes to tea.

I'm your mirror image: a Yank who pays exorbitant prices to get Marks &
Spencer Extra Strong.

> the only think I hate in the US
> is not being able to get 1% milk for my tea in a restaurant. 2% is
> tolerable but cream is an absolute No-No. Way too greasy. I can't
> believe restaurants would try and give me half and half or coffee
> whitener for tea.

> Cream in coffee.
> Milk in tea.

Quite agree on the conclusion. What sort of milk one is likely to find
in the US is regional.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have
always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Man Who Was Thursday"

In message <476b0063$0$31134$607ed4bc@cv.net>, John W. Kennedy
<jwkenne@attglobal.net> writes
>Jacey Bedford wrote:
>> I, however don't mind USian tea because I have my tea so weak that
>>I'm a very atypical Brit when it comes to tea.
>
>I'm your mirror image: a Yank who pays exorbitant prices to get Marks &
>Spencer Extra Strong.
>
>> the only think I hate in the US is not being able to get 1% milk for
>>my tea in a restaurant. 2% is tolerable but cream is an absolute
>>No-No. Way too greasy. I can't believe restaurants would try and give
>>me half and half or coffee whitener for tea.
>
>> Cream in coffee.
>> Milk in tea.
>
>Quite agree on the conclusion. What sort of milk one is likely to find
>in the US is regional.

I've never been anywhere where the milk isn't available in the stores...
they just don't have it in restaurants and look at you as though you're
demented when you ask for it. (Which is also difficult because diet-wise
as well as preference-wise I'm not supposed to have high-fat milk.)

Jacey

--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

Jacey Bedford wrote:
> I've never been anywhere where the milk isn't available in the stores...
> they just don't have it in restaurants and look at you as though you're
> demented when you ask for it.

Well, that's what I mean. It's regional. Some parts of the US have milk
routinely.

Since I prefer whole milk, what drives me mad is that I can only get 2%
at restaurants in rural Ohio, when I can literally look out the window
and see silos.

Now that I think of it, I once fired off a little squib on the subject

Tea for None

American tea drinkers have been a long-suffering group. Ever since the
Boston Tea Party, it seems, we have received little respect; perhaps if
the people of the United States had not wished to display magnanimity to
Sir Thomas Lipton in the wake of his many /Shamrocks/ defeated for the
America's Cup, the importation of the dried leaves of /Camellia/
/sinensis/ would have ceased altogether by this time.

One grows used to it, of course. One is no longer surprised when, as
the waiter is making his third trip around the table to top off the cups
of the bean fiends in the party, a bus boy arrives with a tea bag, a
carafe of lukewarm water, and a thumbnail-sized slice of lemon, although
what one is expected to do with the last is something of a puzzle, when
milk was plainly included in the order. And one has become quite
accustomed to the incredulous stare that greeted that request for milk
in the first place, and to the fixed dialog that followed it:

Self: I'd like tea, with [mustering all the emphasis one feels can be
acceptable in a public place] milk.

Waiter: Tea?

Self: Yes, tea, with milk.

Waiter: Hot tea?

Self: Yes, hot tea, with milk. [By this time a wicked desire has
arisen to append "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more!" but one
suppresses it.]

Waiter: There's milk there. [He points to a pitcher that was on the
table when the party arrived.]

Self: [knowing the answer, but determined to play the match out] Milk?

Waiter: [Convinced he is dealing with a half-wit] Yes, milk.

Self: Not half-and-half?

Waiter: Yes, it's half-and-half. [He doesn't seem concerned in the
least that he has contradicted himself.]

Self: I'd like milk, please.

Waiter: Regular milk?

Self: Yes, regular milk. Hot tea with regular milk.

Waiter: Hot tea with regular milk. I'll try to find some.

-- and to do him justice, he usually does, albeit never without the
aforementioned gratuitous and useless slice of lemon. The thought of
millions of lemons dying so, every year, and all in vain, boggles the mind.

It goes without saying that any hope of the tea, or rather the water,
being added to the milk instead of the other way around (to prevent
scalding the milk) is usually crushed by the officious Ganymede.

All this, I say, one learns to live with. One learns to live with
ordering an iced tea in summer and receiving instead a concoction that I
understand to be mostly gin. One learns to tolerate the odious taste of
tea with half-and-half at buffets, knowing oneself not about to get
anything better. One even learns to bear with the slight flavor of
coffee generally to be found in the otherwise surprisingly decent tea
provided by the average vending machine.

But now the American tea drinker faces yet another assault, one that
cannot be tolerated, one that strikes at the root of the whole tea
system. While all the aforenamed violations are indeed barbarous
assaults upon the sensibilities of tea drinkers, they have not hitherto
gone so far as to estop the consumption of tea as such. In the last
week, I regret to say, I have observed a new trend that threatens --
indeed has successfully managed -- to do just that.

On Tuesday last, while visiting the Trump Taj Mahal (I was on business,
I swear, and I have the expense report to prove it), I requested tea
with my lunch, and received Earl Grey. Now, while Earl Grey is without
doubt made with tea, it is also made with the strongly flavored oil of
bergamot. The resulting taste, though no doubt interesting, and
pleasant to some, is not everybody's -- well, cup of tea, to coin a
phrase. It is certainly nothing to be sprung suddenly upon the unprepared.

Yet this fault, though grave enough, was soon to be eclipsed last night
at the Rye Town Hilton, where, when I requested tea, I received instead
a tisane that purported to be derived from grated lemon peel and other,
as it were, lemon by-products, together with mint and other assorted
non-tea substances. Per­haps this, like the pointless habit mentioned
above of serving tea with milk and lemon, is nothing more or less than a
dark conspiracy by the international lemon cartel. Perhaps not. But
what I know quite certainly is that I asked for tea and I got something
quite other.

In the classic computer game "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy",
written by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky, based on Adams' novel, the
hapless Arthur Dent "searches the length and breadth of the universe for
a decent cup of tea," while avoiding the horrors of consuming Advanced
Tea Substitute, a beverage described as "almost, but not quite, entirely
unlike tea." Arthur Dent's misadventures befell him after the Earth was
demolished by an interstellar highway crew; I suppose I should be
grateful that mine at least seem to have begun without this praeludium.

Today at lunch, I ordered tea and got iced tea. Relatively speaking, I
was relieved.


--
John W. Kennedy
"The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything...."
-- Emile Cammaerts, "The Laughing Prophet"

John W. Kennedy wrote:

> Now that I think of it, I once fired off a little squib on the subject
>
> Tea for None

Saved for amusement of self and family. Are you doing anything with it? If
not, may I post it (with all due credit, of course) on my
soon-to-be-refurbished web page, in the company of other rants and
short-shorts that don't have a home right now?

Irina

--
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth
should that mean that it is not real?" --Albus Dumbledore
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 18-Dec-2007
Purplish Cooking Pages http://www.valdyas.org/irina/purplishcookingpages/

In article <476c76c0$0$31145$607ed4bc@cv.net>
jwkenne@attglobal.net "John W. Kennedy" writes:

> [...] The thought of millions of lemons dying so, every year,
> and all in vain, boggles the mind.
>
> [...]

Amusing and true. But, kiddo, you're on a hiding to nothing: tea
is toast, unless you make it yourself.

Anent the dying lemons: in 1987 I had what for me passed for an
interesting lemony experience. Driving cross-country from FL to
the West Coast, I eventually reached the border between the USA
and California (the road from I-10 over to Saint James) and had
to clear agricultural customs. No, nothing to declare -- but I
had noticed large lemons littering the lanesides alliteratively
for longsome leagues, was that of interest? Not, apparently.

But they had been _large_ lemons. And (NB) _lemons_, not (say)
grapefruit. They were an eye-hurting yellow and had the bobbles
on each end. Monsters. Each could, at a pinch, have served as a
ball in a game of American "football", or fed a family for a week
in some Third World country. Clearly the erstwhile possessor of
these brutes had an abundance, or he/she'd have noticed so many
going astray. Who, I wondered, _needs_ so many outsized citrus
fruits? Merely for juice? No, surely some grander purpose had
been in mind. But what?
--
Andrew Stephenson

Irina Rempt wrote:
> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>
>> Now that I think of it, I once fired off a little squib on the subject
>>
>> Tea for None
>
> Saved for amusement of self and family. Are you doing anything with it? If
> not, may I post it (with all due credit, of course) on my
> soon-to-be-refurbished web page, in the company of other rants and
> short-shorts that don't have a home right now?

By all means. It's over 15 years old now, so I wouldn't try to place it
at this point, it feeling too much like something that someone else wrote.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Though a Rothschild you may be
In your own capacity,
As a Company you've come to utter sorrow--
But the Liquidators say,
'Never mind--you needn't pay,'
So you start another company to-morrow!"
-- Sir William S. Gilbert. "Utopia Limited"

John W. Kennedy wrote:

> Irina Rempt wrote:

>>> Tea for None
>> may I post it (with all due credit, of course) on my
>> soon-to-be-refurbished web page, in the company of other rants and
>> short-shorts that don't have a home right now?
>
> By all means. It's over 15 years old now, so I wouldn't try to place it
> at this point, it feeling too much like something that someone else
> wrote.

Thanks! Will do, within the next X months, for a value of X hopefully <12.

Irina

--
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth
should that mean that it is not real?" --Albus Dumbledore
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 18-Dec-2007
Purplish Cooking Pages http://www.valdyas.org/irina/purplishcookingpages/

In message <476c76c0$0$31145$607ed4bc@cv.net>, John W. Kennedy
<jwkenne@attglobal.net> writes
<snip tea rant>
>In the classic computer game "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy",
>written by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky, based on Adams' novel, the
>hapless Arthur Dent "searches the length and breadth of the universe
>for a decent cup of tea," while avoiding the horrors of consuming
>Advanced Tea Substitute, a beverage described as "almost, but not
>quite, entirely unlike tea." Arthur Dent's misadventures befell him
>after the Earth was demolished by an interstellar highway crew; I
>suppose I should be grateful that mine at least seem to have begun
>without this praeludium.
>
>Today at lunch, I ordered tea and got iced tea. Relatively speaking, I
>was relieved.
>
>
If you ever come to Yorkshire I will make you a decent cup of tea.
re the Great American Tea Conspiracy... I feel your pain!

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:30:23 -0500, "John W. Kennedy"
<jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:

>On Tuesday last, while visiting the Trump Taj Mahal (I was on business,
>I swear, and I have the expense report to prove it), I requested tea
>with my lunch, and received Earl Grey. Now, while Earl Grey is without
>doubt made with tea, it is also made with the strongly flavored oil of
>bergamot. The resulting taste, though no doubt interesting, and
>pleasant to some, is not everybody's -- well, cup of tea, to coin a
>phrase. It is certainly nothing to be sprung suddenly upon the unprepared.

Oh, flavored tea, iced or hot, has become very common in restaurants.
Sometimes I end up with water.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com

Marilee J. Layman wrote:

> On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:30:23 -0500, "John W. Kennedy"
> <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday last, while visiting the Trump Taj Mahal (I was on
> > business, I swear, and I have the expense report to prove it), I
> > requested tea with my lunch, and received Earl Grey. Now, while
> > Earl Grey is without doubt made with tea, it is also made with the
> > strongly flavored oil of bergamot. The resulting taste, though no
> > doubt interesting, and pleasant to some, is not everybody's --
> > well, cup of tea, to coin a phrase. It is certainly nothing to be
> > sprung suddenly upon the unprepared.
>
> Oh, flavored tea, iced or hot, has become very common in restaurants.
> Sometimes I end up with water.

In the Twin Cities, you get asked what kind of tea you want. (Most
places; some just have standard orange pekoe.)

In NYC, the Catskills area, and if I recall correctly, in Los Angeles,
what you used to get when you just asked for tea is called "regular
tea." It took me a while to figure out that here, I have to order
"black tea" to get that.

Except in Oriental restaurants, where that's not quite what "black tea"
means.

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
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