TEA THAT WINS FRIENDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 159, 26 September 1927, Page 4

TEA THAT WINS FRIENDS

BY ROSAMUNDE It was our rector’s wife saying: "My dear, thank you for a really good, cup of tea.” That set me thinking! "Oh, well,” I replied at the time, "not much to thank me for I’m afraid!” “Isn’t it?” she mocked. “If you had to drink as many weird cups of tea in the course of a year as I do, you'd be writing to tell people—how not to do it!” When you come to think of it, there is something in what she says. We drink tea at frequent intervals, all day long:—or, at any rate, a great many of us do. But when “out to tea” how seldom, as the rector’s wife said, do we meet with a good cup. Our own home brew we are used to. Generally that is pretty bad, too, but familiarity has made us indifferent to its quality. In my personal experience of servants, ranging from the cook to the charwoman, who, accoxding to her own formula, didn’t work, but "obliged,”

the only one who ever made really good tea was, strangely, the charwoman. But then she loves it. Her husband is reported to say of her that she will die with a cup of tea. in her hand. No Tea or Better Tea There is among the doctors a steady crusade against tea. From the milder forms of indigestion to the last dread cancer, there are some who blame teadrinking for them all. That blessed early cup, the best-loved of ail, -has almost the worst said of it that can be said. It makes us fat! Yet we drink it! With the doctors it is tea—“any old tea” —that is to be shunned. But if we don’t mean to shun it we might just as well make it better, and get something more substantial in the way of enjoyment as a«set-off to our aches and paitte. Like most things, it is an instance of paying attention to detail. Earthenware teapots are really the best for 1 making tea. In putting away ou r Queen Anne silver, because no one wants to clean it, we are really doing ourselves a daily service; we are drinking what used to be so much better than our own^—kitchen tea. The pot should be very warm, hot in fact, and dry, into which the tea is put. The water must be freshly boiled and really boiling. The last is very important, and is not nearly often enough attended to. Two Pots Needed The old plan of a teaspoonful to each person and one for the pot is quite a good one. The careful folk have their tea poured off into a second pot, also hot, when it has stood three or four minutes at the most. Anyhow, tea that lias been standing long on the leaves is bad for one and nasty. It is fashionable to recommend tea With lemon, instead of milk, as more wholesome. Certainly one tends to drink it weaker with lemon, as really strong tea without milk is extremely unpleasant and that probably is an advantage, For myself, I cling to what a friend of mine calls “a good middleaged cup” made in the usual way. And I buy the best tea I can afford. Mrs. Julius Rosenfeld, who is a prominent member of the Lyceum Club in Sydney—where a fellow-member of the committee is Dora Wilcox (Mrs. William Moore), the New Zealand poet —is in Auckland. Mrs. Rbsenfeld will leave for the United States with her husband, the former Consul-General for Czechoslovakia, by the Niagara tomorrow. A leading figure in Sydney Jewish circles, she is a vice-president of the Jewish Council of "Women, a keen supporter of the Zionist movement, of which Mr. Rosenfeld is N.S.W. treasurer, and one of the officials of the Maccabean Repertory Society. While in Auckland Mrs. Rosenfeld has been conferring with Mrs. David Nathan in regard to the child welfare work in Palestine, in which the Sydney visitor is much interested. Four ounces of permanganate of potash to one gallon of water will dye hessian a warm, dark brown: 3oz. will make it a golden brown. If a little vinegar is rubbed well into them before commencing housework, the hands will be much easier to cleanse afterwards. * * # When cooking anything on a girdle or oven-tray on top of the Are, using a piece of suet to grease it is far better than the usual greased paper. It is more economical, and also cleaner.