Role Reversal

 

I find there's a role reversal with many of my Brit friends. They'll drink coffee while I drink tea.

It's easy to identify a British or an American mystery novel without any other reference to location by the number of cups of coffee or tea characters drinks. And the phrase, "I'll put the kettle on," has appeared at least a zillion times in English books, TV shows and movies.

When I arrived at a British friend's after learning a friend had been murdered, she took one look at my face and said, "I'll put the kettle on." The tea was accompanied by tissues and hugs as she listened and poured cup after cup.

Tea and Coca-Cola are my beverages of choice. Coke would be for another blog. Tea memories are laced through my lifetime.

My family's English connections had not been activated since 1636 when they arrived in Massachusetts, but tea was what was drunk, although my grandmother sometimes snuck a cup of Nescafe instant first thing in the morning.

The years I lived on Wigglesworth Street in Boston with friends, tea was drunk after work. We had a series of teapots, and we could almost tell the maker's mood by the pot chosen.

Although I now use mainly teabags, there's nothing like hotting the pot, spooning in the right amount of leaves and letting it steep. I still feel badly that I broke the violet-decorated teapot I inherited from my stepmom's dad. We shared the same birth date along with Amelia Earhart and Bella Abzug.

The use of my word steep became a major conversation when I made a pot of tea for my multi-national co-workers in Switzerland. Should it be steep? Draw? Brew? No matter the word, they all drank it.

At another workplace a Swiss co-worker would bring a cup of tea to my office every day around 10, about the same time the bakery made their deliveries of pain au chocolate, croissants, and other goodies. 

After covid, while heading for Edinburgh by car, we went to Greywalls Hotel for afternoon tea at the recommendation of a friend who shared my last name. It was served by the fire in a room that would have been perfect for Hercule Poirot to reveal the murderer. In another lifetime I would love to be a scout for movie sets and the mansion would be perfect for so many films.

My lovable husband brings me a cup of tea in bed morning. I wake to the aroma of whatever tea he has selected. And as I write this he's brewing a cup to place next to me.