Italy

Like so much of Europe, there is a lot of information on Italy. 125 pages worth according to my link. I've never been there, but I remember flying over it. The Mediterranean sea is an amazing shade of blue, and Italy really does look like a boot. I got the impression of verdant mountains rising off the flat lands, but it's hard to tell from the cruising altitude of a flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. According to the information I found, that impression does not seem to be too far off with the north of the country being part of the Alps to its eventual disappearance below sea level.

I think Italy typifies the feeling or Europe being an old museum. This is the home of iconic ruins, famous Renaissance artists and scientists, and the head of the Catholic church (okay, Vatican City is technically the smallest country in the world, but guess where it is!) Of the people I know who have visited Rome comment on how it is obvious that the roads were established long before cars were ever dreamed of. The closest I've ever gotten to Italy (other than flying over it) was watching Rick Steves' travel programs on PBS.

Finding information about tea in Italy was pretty challenging. Well, maybe not challenging, but depressing. While Italians love their espresso and coffee (remember listening to all those conversations about espresso on Car Talk?), they do not really like tea. At least not much according to the internet. Italians reserve tea drinking for when they are sick. Apparently Brits bring their own tea bags when traveling to Italy because they know that their options are not good. Apparently Lipton is the best tea available there, and it is often served with wedges of lemon (and a suspicious look to evaluate how contagious you may be).

While I'm not contagious, I have joined the ranks of people complaining about allergies, so why not embrace the culture with a cup of tea? You know it's sad when the first thing you notice when you go to Target is that they re-arranged the allergy medicine aisle. I will say that lemon makes decaf Lipton taste a little better. I guess I am holding with the tradition of Italian tea, crappy bagged tea with lemon.


Comments

  1. Poppy CrockerMay 12, 2019 at 11:14 AM

    I've got to side with the Italians on this. There's no reason to drink tea if you're not sick. (And when I'm sick, I'm in no condition to deal with something so nasty....)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equatorial Guinea

Image
Equatorial Guinea Today we go to Equatorial Guinea , which consists of "Rio Muni" - Continental Equatorial Guinea, and 5 small islands known collectively as Insular Equatorial Guinea. When researching this country, I found "osang" tea. I found the name only, no instructions on how to make it. Mystery tea Upon doing some research, osang is a generic name for African milk tea. I couldn't pin down any specific flavors used for this region, just a general description of how people all over Africa make this tea. The base is black tea with milk. The suggested add ins are shown below. Tea Masala (thank you Indian food store), ginger, cardamom, or lemongrass. No, don't use them all together. Today I'm in the mood for cardamom, so that's what I used. The one blog I found about making this suggested a 1:1 ratio of milk and tea. I used 3/4 cup (about 200 ml) of each, with 3 cardamom pods. As usual, you can add sugar to taste. I decided to add the c...
Read more

Have a cup of Christmas

Image
I'm skipping ahead just a little bit because of a Central American holiday tradition. The hibiscus flowers are in bloom, and it's tea season. In this part of the world, hibiscus tea is known as "sorrel" instead of " bissap ". While my research on the tea of North America is not complete, I found that several countries make sorrel for Christmas. Trinidad and Tobago , the southern most Caribbean islands. They gained their independence from the UK in 1962. They are a continuation of the Andes mountains from Venezuela. They have a tropical climate, and temperatures vary widely between day and night. They used to grow a lot of sugarcane, but the last of the sugarcane estates was closed. Cocoa and coffee are also export crops. Most of the population is rural, and is made up of people from Africa, East Indian, and mixed race.  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , are part of the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea. These islands gained their independen...
Read more

Ataya/Waraga/Tuareg Tea

Image
"Berber Whiskey" What do you make on a Saturday afternoon when you're tired? I mean really tired. Like you just woke up from a 3 hour nap, and all you want to do is go back to sleep. I will admit I was a bit leery of this one when I found out how it was made, but this is wildly popular so I had to try it. This version of tea has many names, and some sources say that this is used like alcohol in cultures that forbid drinking and using drugs.  Ataya (or attaya - I've seen it spelled both ways), also known as Tuareg tea (so named for the Tuareg tribe), is a very social tea ceremony in West Africa. Most reviews say to expect to take at least 3 hours and have several rounds of tea. Over time, each round of tea is supposed to get milder and sweeter. Sometimes instructions say that mint is added. It is popular in many countries: The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau , Senegal (The Gambia is actually inside Senegal with a small border on the Atlantic), Sierra Leone , Mali , Mau...
Read more