The Tea ling King

“It’s like egg shaped and you unscrew it so you can put the junk in there.” The spotty faced sales assistant looked at me with an expression of confusion. His largest spot on his forehead caught my eye but so wrapped up in trying to be articulate in my description I closed my eyes to think of a better way to tell him what I was looking for than stare at his pulsating pimple. I paused and thought the best way to help him understand what I was looking for was to act more enthusiastically in my description. So I took a step forward and started miming an egg shape while shouting “OK, it’s metal with little holes in and is shaped like an egg and tea goes in it.” At this point I thrust this imaginary egg shape towards the guy who looks at me in horror. And replies rather whimpishly that he hasn’t got a clue what I am talking about. The problem I find myself with is that I do not actually know the proper name of the product I wish to buy other than calling it a tea egg. I’m too embarrassed to ask for a tea egg but equally my powers of description leave adolescent part-timers a quivering wreck. So why all this hassle?

Well, recently I have been consuming copious amounts of tea. First it started off with the traditional Tetley tea bag with a splash of milk and no sugar. Then I moved on to Twinnings peppermint tea for a while which was superb for settling my stomach but nothing much else. It looked like pond water and didn’t really do anything to me. So I ditched the peppermint tea for only hangovers situation. It is here that the peppermint tea comes into its element, it’s great in sorting out that dodgy stomach after a few too many drinks the previous night. Still on a Wednesday morning, I found myself taking a sip and staring idly at the cup waiting for some aliment to be cured. It never happened. And so, I moved back to Tetley teabags, this time doing the sick but satisfying thing of leaving the tea bag in my cup instead of taking it out. This made the tea extra strong and I enjoyed the added kick but at the same time the taste kind of mellowed me out too.

Green tea came into the scene when I was around someone’s house and we ate a meal and afterwards they asked if I wanted some green tea. I nodded and after a few minutes I found myself slurping this green tea which really helped the meal go down. The next day I went to the shop and picked me up a packet and so this became my drink of choice after something to eat. However, this recent crash course in tea still had another twist. A friend of mine was going to China so I asked if they could pick me up some Chinese tea. They agreed and I thought nothing more of it until 3 weeks later she slid a large cardboard container across the table and told me this was some authentic green tea. When I lifted the lid of the cardboard container I saw dark green shredded leaves and immediately knew I needed to get a tea strainer.

Back at home I looked up tea strainers on the internet (because I’m all about the rock ‘n roll) and found that among all those strainers there was the ‘tea egg’. A small stainless steel egg shaped ball which could hold a small amount of tea leaves. The tea strainer did make me feel uncomfortable, it all seemed rather prim and proper with also excess wastage involved. By the time I moved removed the tea leaves from the strainer my tea would be cold. This tea egg phenomenon seemed appealing and the fact it was sold out on the website made me want it even more.

And so I found myself in John Lewis after trying a multiple of shops terrorising this spotty part timer trying to explain to him about the tea egg. After thrusting my egg shape before him he suddenly decided that backup was required and called the assistance of his supervisor. A small grey haired lady ambled up to me and asked what I was looking for. Once again I found myself closing my eyes for a moment and thinking carefully what words I should use. This time going for a more calm approach I described the egg and how it is unscrewed at the middle so that the tea leaves can go in. “Ah, you mean one of those tea egg things?” She replied with a friendly smile on her face. “Yes! Yes, that’s the one.” I bellowed my eyes bulging at her response. “Yeah, we don’t sell those.”

I got a tea strainer in the end and although the Chinese tea is gorgeous I still feel a geek fumbling about with that strainer spilling leaves all over the floor.

In other news, major props has to go out to Sazz for introducing me to this which subsequently made me discover this. My days seem a little bit funnier when I hear these songs. Both tunes are pure genius.

Hey Ma, if you could see me now, arms spread wide on the starboard bow