About tea....

I hope the Tea Room is the appropriate place to ask a question about tea.

I like tea. A few years ago I found a particular tea that I favor. However, its identity is unknown to me! Short story; about 5 or 6 years ago I became curious about the ration packs that were issued to UK soldiers. It happened as I was 'surfing' the net and ran across a military surplus site in England and noticed they had MoD ration packs for sale. Very inexpensive including shipping. So I ordered a couple.

They were the "24 Hour Rations" containing many things, among those being a number of packets of 'Instant White Tea'. I made up a mug per the directions and found it quite to my liking. It has a rich, full, flavor that is not cloaked by milk or sugar (I take two at most).

I have since attempted to re-create that tea with the brands/types available to me here but to no avail. The flavors are just not right.

So the question is; What type of tea could have been used to make this? And for a larger question, what types/brands of tea do most of you prefer, and how do you take it?

From an American ignorant of English tea,

Thank you.

Pete

I'll try adding this again.

Hi Pete,

I'm unable to help with your Ration tea, but at a guess I'd say it's possibly a freeze-dried powder form as used in vending machines. Does it have the milk already mixed with the tea?

I think here in the UK most tea drinkers drink tea of the black leaf varieties e.g. PG Tips, Tetley, Yorkshire Tea, Twinings, Earl Grey etc and either in tea bag form or loose-leaf for a tea-pot. There are a number of others available in the green leaf varieties which in my opinion are quite scented and should never be allowed near a tea cup (not my cup of tea anyway) and some others with fruit additives. I currently have a box of PG Tips tea bags, 1 bag per cup with a little milk and 1 level tea spoon of white sugar, keep the brown sugar for coffee and making bread pudding, Oh and the milk is added after the tea has brewed properly and is in the cup. It's not uncommon in my house for a packet of biscuits(cookies) to quickly disappear throughout the day when tea breaks come around.

I'm sure there will be some connoisseurs along to help this topic along, we might need a bigger forum!

How to make tea

Ed.

Edited By Ed Duffner on 26/04/2016 04:05:27

Yes, Ed, the Ration tea is a dehydrated mix of tea and milk. Not much milk as the resulting brew is rather more tea coloured than milk coloured. I enjoyed the video very much, thank you.

Pete

You have to know that British Army tea was laced with Bromide! I never drank all the tea in my mug as a white residue was always at the bottom and to this day I still leave some tea at the bottom of my cuppa out of habit.

I did one day find an opened tin outside the cookhouse waste area , labled 'Bromide' so i know it is gen.

A 25 year army vet. Clive

Bromide! What the....? What's that about, Clive? I should say that this Ration Pack was dated 2003.

Pete

There was a similar rumour regarding Bromide being added to the water in University halls of residence.

The idea behind it was to reduce the sex drive of the walking hormones aka students.

My (sadly late) brother was in the RN Submarine Service. He reckoned, tongue in cheek maybe, that making a good pot of tea was part of the entry exam for the Submarine Service. I'm no tea drinker but his tea was the best I've ever sampled. Not a big sample size however.

Chris' Way....

1/ Fill kettle with fresh, fresh water. Never reboil.

2/ Warm the pot thoroughly

3/ After warming, and seconds before the kettle boils, add one heaped teaspoon of tea per person, and the traditional "one for the pot"

4/ When the kettle is boiling, take the pot to the kettle and fill the pot. Put the lid on and cover the teapot with one of Mums Teapot Cosies.

5/ Allow to brew for 3 to 5 minutes

6/ Enjoy

Apparently British Army tanks have a "Brewing Station" so the tank crew can enjoy a good brew. Is this fact or ficton??

cheers

Bill

Yes, that is true Bill. In the event of a Nuclear or Biological attack the crew were closed up and sealed and filtered air drawn in. In that case they had a boiling vessel which would be used to cook Compo rations etc. It was mostly for liquid type foods, drink or from tins.

AFV's and some transport vehs. also were fitted with them. I have seen them retro-fitted in other vehs.In my time a Baby Burco powered off the Generator 27.5Kva allowed hot water for all purposes.

Brit. Comp was issued in 10 man packs and had variations in menu, Bacon packed in a tin rolled up in grease proof paper and when opened tipped into a pan and fried up was very good. Some had salmon but that always seemed to go to the Officers mess. The tinned pudds were popular and the chocolate and boiled sweets.

The US 'K' rations were totally different, as each was an individual ration. Ever seen a tinned roll? they included cigarettes and toilet paper and matches and a tin opener of course. The cardboard outers when used as a fire would heat the meal quite well. They had Turkey, Ham with Pasta (Not too nice that) They would freely swop their rations for ours.

Calorie wise the meals value was quite high, something 2500 plus, enough to keep a man going all day, various supplemental food was also available like oranges and some fresh veg.

I would forage widely while out on exercise, finding eggs and fields with produce and orchards. Hitler during his time ordered that fruit trees be planted alongside roads where soldiers would train so in the Autumn plums and apples would be found in areas where we would be positioned.

I often came home with a kit bag full of fist sized potatoes.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 26/04/2016 09:39:30

The strength of the tea is determined by the oxygen content of the water. When you boil water you drive some off, so boiling it twice results in less (its not the temperature of freshly boiled water, it should be boiled fresh water). when you make tea, pour the water from a great height, this entraps more air, you will find the tea is stronger.

Frank

It may be a special MOD mix, instant tea is often black tea with a certain amount of whitener

In Korea, China, Japan etc, tea is drunk without any sugar or milk. It's often green tea and (in Korea) may even be made with water that's been used to boil rice. So Brits abroad are advised to take their own supplies! I take dried milk powder, sachets of sugar (I know, I know) and English Breakfast teabags (Morrisons is fine). They find our British tea bitter, sickly and disgusting. In China, some teas are extremely expensive and treated rather like champagne or fine wines. It's not a taste I've been able to appreciate after decades of British builder's tea!

If you visit India, tea there is often made with milk, very strong and sweet and with additional spices - we seem to be somewhere in the middle between India and the Far East.

I used to visit Georgia (US) quite often on business. I don't drink coffee but my colleagues who did used to complain about the lack of it. Meetings there would be spent drinking dozens of cans of coke and Morning Dew instead, alongside trays of donuts, muffins and pastries. Oddly enough, there were quite a few obese individuals. Funny how we all have different drinking habits.

Murray - on my second pint mug of tea now.

For those who have survived a diet of compo rations in the field.

Who can remember the taste of tinned compo sausages? They actually tasted quite good.

Can you also remember the tins of 'babies heads' , a very descriptive name for tinned steak and kidney pudding

The tinned sausages were Soya link . I liked them crisped up a bit.. I also liked the apple pud. The marmalade was in 2 lb tins and I have also had plum jam in 2 lb tins. When away from base it was best not to try and separate food items but to make up a meal from everything so there was no waste.. The lads were so hungry after working all day they would as they say, 'Eat a scabby horse between two slices of bread' which brings us back to tea which was always necessary. Another delicacy was of course the egg banjo, A fried egg easy over and between two slices of bread.. You had to be quick if it was cold as the egg congealed. Again foraging was a way to change what you ate, I tickled Trout one time in Germany and another had a roadkill when I saw a LRover clout a small Deer, it was skinned and divided very quickly. Another time we stayed close to a Chicken farm and we bartered fags and the like for eggs and a few chickens. At that time we were 40 lads of all various trades, but split up into 3 sections so I was only interested in my section. Cooking was with petrol burners and fold up sheet metal hearth so i would use a burner at both ends. Nasty things those burners and I always lit up away from any likely fire hazard. The trick was to dig a trench and put the metal box over it and then all rubbish was thrown in to get burnt.

Clive

I had no complaints with Compo rations I even liked the Hard Tack biscuits, this brings back memories of the Sennalager war games during my National service.in Germany.

And what about that great tin opener.

It appears that instant white tea was part of army rations supplied by Premier Brands. One of their brands is Typhoo QT instant white tea. It maybe what you are looking for.

Mike

I've never been in HM Forces, but a pal who did his national service in the Rhodesian army in the early 60s told me that their tea was laced with copper sulphate, which was supposed to have the same effect as bromide. Reading all the above has made me so thirsty I'm off to the kitchen to brew a mug of Twinings Earl Grey - without milk or sugar, of course...

In fact, the packet is marked as being supplied by Premier Brands! I shall try and find them on the 'net.

Thanks, Mike!!

Pete

It seems Premier Brands was taken over by Premier Foods and then Typhoo were sold on. Typhoo are a long established tea producer in the Uk and India. The instant tea product is available as QT and would appear to be available in the USA via Amazon. Hope it's what you are looking for.

Mike

You'll notice that in North America, pretty much all tea claims to be Orange Pekoe, even stuff that is clearly swept off the factory floor (aka fannings or dust). Example of Walmart's offerings. From our time in Canada it seemed that advertisers in US and Canada are free to make outrageous claims without any fear of comeback. I liked the Kraft "100% Real Parmesan" that was made in Ontario.

Thank god for the Advertising Stds Authority here in the UK - and (dare I say it) the protected designation of origin (PDO) legislation that the EU provides us with!

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 26/04/2016 17:40:50