Tea-Totalled and Coffee-Hounded - October 13, 2018
I met my hubs, Laurence, when I was the grand old age of 18. Yes, by small town standards I was definitely “getting up there.” We met through friends – I was visiting them and Laur was trying to finish an essay that was due about one minute after he slid it under his professor’s door. (Laur’s affinity for doing stuff at the last possible minute has not changed much.)
We became a boyfriend-girlfriend couple pretty quickly. He had quite a few things I liked about him. He was studying English Literature, and so was I (at the time.) He had twinkling blue eyes like my grandfather. (Laur says I make him sound like Santa Claus.) He listened to CBC radio – as did I. And, being a United Church minister’s son, he was Biblically literate – as was I. (I’m just sayin, if he couldn’t have caught the reference “There are she-bears in those woods…” – well, that would have been a deal-breaker.)
AND he was a tea drinker. And not just any old tea – Red Rose tea. The brand of tea my grandfather and my father drank. In fact he had a Red Rose key chain. I practically swooned. There were a few things I didn’t like – he wasn’t a vegetarian and he was a little scruffy – but I figured those things could be easily fixed. (And they have been. 😊)
Every day of our marriage for decades I made us endless pots of tea. I brought my hubs his cuppa in bed – more to wake him up than to be a nice wifey. I brought my hubs tea while he slaved over marking hot essays – to help keep him hydrated and awake. And we also had tea after supper – and I have no idea why. I guess, why not? In those days I could sleep, and hubs didn’t have to have the side of the bed closest to the bathroom.
For years Laur drank coffee as a student at school, but when he pretty much burned a hole in his gut, he had to quit coffee – cold turkey. I never drank coffee anyway, so that didn’t mean much to me. Hubs on the other hand missed it.
Bless my mom’s heart, Grannie Marj found a water-processed decaffeinated coffee at Second Cup that he was able to tolerate. And she kept us well-stocked. That came out around the same time as the Melita coffee maker. Laur loved having an occasional decaf coffee midmorning and after supper. But tea still ruled supreme.
And it did until December of 2011. It was our first stay in our new-to-us Fifth Wheel at our seniors’ trailer park in Green Valley, Arizona. Our dear friends had invited us to visit them in October and, after a few days of warm sun and blue skies, we bought a trailer of our own. Elvie and Johnie helped us to set it up – meaning, they told us what to do and we gladly did it. We are so clueless about all things domestic.
But the one thing we could not find in Green Valley Arizona was a teapot. Americans are coffee drinkers and I’m easily influenced, so we bought a coffee maker. “No matter,” I thought, “I’ll make tea in the coffee pot and when we’re finished our tea, Laur can make coffee.” (To this day, I do not know how to make coffee – and I plan to keep it that way.)
We became coffee hounds very quickly – we now drank our tea so that we could have our coffee. Then one day it dawned on us! We could have coffee first thing in the morning and skip the tea altogether. We both felt a little awkward about trying this – it felt downright kinky. But that night Laur set up the coffee before we went to bed, and in the morning, instead of boiling a kettle, I hit the “on” switch on the coffee maker.
Within 10 minutes our trailer was filled with the wonderful aroma of coffee and for the first time in our marriage, I brought my hubby a cup of coffee – first thing in the morning. This living on the wild side has continued these past 7 years – with coffee to start our day. I still have tea in the afternoon – Laur finds that after drinking one cup of orange juice, two large cups of coffee, and at least a litre of water at the gym, he has all the fluids he can reasonably cope with.
Our morning coffee routine has been tweaked a little over the past few years. Laur now grinds coffee beans – Zavida vanilla hazelnut to be exact. And he now makes it half-caff. There is not enough room in a small trailer for his wifey to be doing jumping jacks and running laps – completely buzzed on caffeine.
And we brought back this new pattern to Canada. In fact, I don’t even use the teapot anymore. The other day I said to my hubs, “I wonder if this teapot could use a good washing.” It truly could have been seven years since it last saw some soap and water. Hubs put it in the sink and – crack – not being used to washing a teapot, he banged the spout on the faucet and off it fell. My poor 30+ year old 6 cup brown betty teapot had poured its last.
But not to worry. I can get a new stoneware 6-cup tea pot at Walmart in Canada for $9.99. But here’s a shocker – the equivalent in the USA is $23.01 American or about $29.99 Canadian. My glory, I could start a teapot smuggling business.
But there is the original problem that got me started on all of this. No, not my husband. (At least not this time! 😊) It’s those Americans – they just don’t care much for what they call “hot tea.” And given the way they make it – boiled water in a cup with the tea bag on the side – I don’t much blame them!
We became a boyfriend-girlfriend couple pretty quickly. He had quite a few things I liked about him. He was studying English Literature, and so was I (at the time.) He had twinkling blue eyes like my grandfather. (Laur says I make him sound like Santa Claus.) He listened to CBC radio – as did I. And, being a United Church minister’s son, he was Biblically literate – as was I. (I’m just sayin, if he couldn’t have caught the reference “There are she-bears in those woods…” – well, that would have been a deal-breaker.)
AND he was a tea drinker. And not just any old tea – Red Rose tea. The brand of tea my grandfather and my father drank. In fact he had a Red Rose key chain. I practically swooned. There were a few things I didn’t like – he wasn’t a vegetarian and he was a little scruffy – but I figured those things could be easily fixed. (And they have been. 😊)
Every day of our marriage for decades I made us endless pots of tea. I brought my hubs his cuppa in bed – more to wake him up than to be a nice wifey. I brought my hubs tea while he slaved over marking hot essays – to help keep him hydrated and awake. And we also had tea after supper – and I have no idea why. I guess, why not? In those days I could sleep, and hubs didn’t have to have the side of the bed closest to the bathroom.
For years Laur drank coffee as a student at school, but when he pretty much burned a hole in his gut, he had to quit coffee – cold turkey. I never drank coffee anyway, so that didn’t mean much to me. Hubs on the other hand missed it.
Bless my mom’s heart, Grannie Marj found a water-processed decaffeinated coffee at Second Cup that he was able to tolerate. And she kept us well-stocked. That came out around the same time as the Melita coffee maker. Laur loved having an occasional decaf coffee midmorning and after supper. But tea still ruled supreme.
And it did until December of 2011. It was our first stay in our new-to-us Fifth Wheel at our seniors’ trailer park in Green Valley, Arizona. Our dear friends had invited us to visit them in October and, after a few days of warm sun and blue skies, we bought a trailer of our own. Elvie and Johnie helped us to set it up – meaning, they told us what to do and we gladly did it. We are so clueless about all things domestic.
But the one thing we could not find in Green Valley Arizona was a teapot. Americans are coffee drinkers and I’m easily influenced, so we bought a coffee maker. “No matter,” I thought, “I’ll make tea in the coffee pot and when we’re finished our tea, Laur can make coffee.” (To this day, I do not know how to make coffee – and I plan to keep it that way.)
We became coffee hounds very quickly – we now drank our tea so that we could have our coffee. Then one day it dawned on us! We could have coffee first thing in the morning and skip the tea altogether. We both felt a little awkward about trying this – it felt downright kinky. But that night Laur set up the coffee before we went to bed, and in the morning, instead of boiling a kettle, I hit the “on” switch on the coffee maker.
Within 10 minutes our trailer was filled with the wonderful aroma of coffee and for the first time in our marriage, I brought my hubby a cup of coffee – first thing in the morning. This living on the wild side has continued these past 7 years – with coffee to start our day. I still have tea in the afternoon – Laur finds that after drinking one cup of orange juice, two large cups of coffee, and at least a litre of water at the gym, he has all the fluids he can reasonably cope with.
Our morning coffee routine has been tweaked a little over the past few years. Laur now grinds coffee beans – Zavida vanilla hazelnut to be exact. And he now makes it half-caff. There is not enough room in a small trailer for his wifey to be doing jumping jacks and running laps – completely buzzed on caffeine.
And we brought back this new pattern to Canada. In fact, I don’t even use the teapot anymore. The other day I said to my hubs, “I wonder if this teapot could use a good washing.” It truly could have been seven years since it last saw some soap and water. Hubs put it in the sink and – crack – not being used to washing a teapot, he banged the spout on the faucet and off it fell. My poor 30+ year old 6 cup brown betty teapot had poured its last.
But not to worry. I can get a new stoneware 6-cup tea pot at Walmart in Canada for $9.99. But here’s a shocker – the equivalent in the USA is $23.01 American or about $29.99 Canadian. My glory, I could start a teapot smuggling business.
But there is the original problem that got me started on all of this. No, not my husband. (At least not this time! 😊) It’s those Americans – they just don’t care much for what they call “hot tea.” And given the way they make it – boiled water in a cup with the tea bag on the side – I don’t much blame them!