Tea anyone?

Or would you prefer coffee?

If you have tea with me then it will currently be made with rain water and loose tea in a teapot unless you tell me you actually prefer a tea bag. Yes, I have an emergency store of the latter.

The Senior Cat insisted on what he called "proper tea". He might have had milky coffee at breakfast time but by "recess" time he wanted his  tea. The ritual also had to be repeated in the afternoon. I must have made thousands upon thousands of pots of tea in my time.

His mother taught me how to make tea in a tea pot. The tea pot she used was brown earthenware. It was old, very old. She always used the same tea - "China, not Indian" she would say. Grandma drank her tea black and without sugar.  Grandpa had milk and sugar and so did the Senior Cat. Tea was made with rainwater. The pot was warmed first and the water had to have only just reached boiling point. There was an art to tea making - interestingly told me all over again by the woman whose family owned a majority of shares in a very large tea estate.

Mum did not drink tea. She did learn how to make it "properly" but it was my job from the time she thought I could be trusted with the danger of boiling water. We kittens were not encouraged to drink tea...or coffee. Brother Cat and Middle Cat drink more coffee than tea. I have stayed with tea...milk and no sugar please.

I gave sugar away when I was teaching. The last school I worked in was the one where my classroom was next to the school office... and I was the person who had to answer the phone. Going into the staff room after that (if there was any time at all) meant finding all the milk and sugar had gone. (It was sent over from the residential section each morning.) I almost gave up tea entirely.

Going off to university I discovered the joys of tea again. It was an important part of university life. It ranked along with "Hobnobs" and "Penguins" - Upoverites will know what I am talking about. Some people had instant coffee but most of us drank tea...and more tea.  I remember A... making "builders' tea" for me. A... was the secretary to several of my lecturers...and, unofficially, cared for me too. If I came in wet and cold after school visits a mug of the dark brown liquid would appear in front of me with the instruction, "Drink that and warm up." I drank it then but I don't know I could now.

I associate tea with things like the Senior Cat and my godfather sitting at the kitchen table and reminiscing. I associate it with the Senior Cat and some world renowned magicians working out how to build an illusion. I associate it with friends who came in to laugh or cry with him and, now, me. 

I don't even ask whether I need to put the kettle on for W..., for G... or for S...  They need tea. If I offered coffee they would look at me in bewildered anxiety - no tea? 

Perhaps the best I can hope for when I have to move is that at least one of them will be able to find their way to the tea and that I will have rainwater with which to make it.  Tea is important...and they have no idea how to make it in any local cafe.