Gone To Pot #2 Teabag Memories

With no interesting Facebook posts and nothing amusing to report from home, yesterday I repeated a post from elsewhere.  It was from 17 February 2011 when I’d just read an on-line article (now unavailable) on how drinking loose tea can reduce your environmental impact.

My last blog brought back some childhood memories.

When I was a child teabags were considered a “nasty American habit” and were never seen in British (or at least Welsh) shops.  They began to creep in during the late 1960s/early 1970s supported by huge advertising campaigns. 

Anyone remember “a thousand perforations in every bag let the flavour flood through”?  These educational ads were required because most housewives knew that tealeaves have to swirl about and infuse in the boiling water to brew.  People were also highly sceptical about the amount of tea in each bag so there were ads where the bag was cut open and the contents poured onto an overflowing teaspoon:  “a generous spoonful of leaves in each bag.”

At the time my Dad was a postman getting up at about 5am. 

Mum was a night-owl, and there was more than one occasion when they passed each other when she’d dropped off in her chair. 

She would set the breakfast table for him so that all he had to do was boil the kettle and make his one-person pot of tea. 

Dad was a brisk sort of man who would hurl the leaves into the pot so vigorously that some of them missed or bounced out. 

It being 5am, he didn’t notice and Mum was forever wiping tealeaves off the kitchen work-surface and floor.

Then teabags came in and she though

“That’s a good idea, I’ll get some and not have to keep clearing up after him.”

However the spilled tealeaf problem did not go away. 

In fact, much to Mum’s puzzlement, it got worse.

After a week or so Dad said

“I don’t like those teabags love, they’re far too fiddly.”

Mum asked what he meant.

“Well tearing them open and pouring the leaves out, they go everywhere.”

Mum explained that one was supposed to put the whole bag in complete, which was what made bags more convenient than loose tea.

“But that’s not what they do in the advert” said Dad.