Global Tea Time

When I think of Switzerland , I think of the Alps and the book "Heidi". I also think of high quality chocolates. While it is a small country with a modest population, Switzerland has a large effect on the region, and the world. Most of their population lives in cities and towns, and their economy is largely service based (banking, and insurance). I had some difficulty finding information on tea in Switzerland. All I found was a video with a lot of wind noise showing a cup of black tea with a teabag still floating in it. So I decided to have a cup of my Swiss chocolate black tea to honor Switzerland.

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...

For the longest time I didn't think that I would have anything for Norway. I found bubble tea, generic references to herbal tea, and then a very interesting video about tea smoked salmon. They take a smoker, put tea and rice in the bottom, and use that to smoke their salmon. I don't have the equipment for that, nor do I have any desire to buy the equipment to do that. I thought that I wouldn't come up with anything for Norway. Then last week I picked up my tea books (I have 3 of them), and found inspiration.! Thank you HBP clearance section. This book is full of recipes utilizing tea. While a lot of the recipes are sweet, some are also savory. I found a recipe for tea smoked chicken. That recipe involved lining a pan with foil, putting the tea in the bottom, and turning on the exhaust fan, and the heat until whisps of smoke started coming out of the tightly covered pan. That was obviously not going to work for me. Then I found THE recipe that inspired the tea for today...

Today I'm looking at Betty Crocker's "Picture Cookbook", original copyright 1950, reprinted in 1998, 2005. While this book does show how to set a table, it wouldn't help the girls in my last blog post figure out how to set a table for tea. This book does, however, have a page dedicated to tea. According to Betty Crocker, "the glamour of centuries surrounds tea." They go on to say that there are 3 kinds of tea. Black tea, green tea, and oolong tea. Actually, there is also white tea, yellow tea, and pu-erh tea. I'm actually a little surprised that oolong tea was known in 1950. Perhaps because most of the tea bags on the grocery store shelves here are black and green. There are some oolongs, but they are indistinguishable from the black teas in flavor. They also attribute different teas to different regions. Black tea is from India, Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra. Green tea is listed as being from China and Japan. Oolong tea is said to be from Formosa....

In holding with last week's theme, I'm wandering off into vintage video territory again. I have one really fun blog post left for Europe that I want to put at the end of the series, and a feeling of boredom about the hand full of other countries I have tea info on. Something about people who claim that "superfoods" soaked in hot water will cure everything... So watch out. Today Barbara is planning a really boring school event. Ann thinks a game would be more fun, Coreen is bored (chances are her parents forced her to join a school activity), and June is a people pleaser who is willing to try.  I love how the opening title for these old films always vaguely floats around on the screen. It's not like they are trying to animate the letters. I always get the feeling that someone is filming a sign, and can't quite hold the camera perfectly still. I also feel like the ambivalence and boredom of the girls is very real before (and probably after the event) sinc...