Vintage tea from Betty Crocker
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. A little note about this last one, formosa is the Portugese word for beautiful (per Google), which was the name given to Thailand. In reality, China makes all of these styles of tea.
They list 5 steps to making a good cup of tea. It starts with the teapot. It should be china, pottery, or heat resistant glass. It should also be spotlessly clean having been washed with hot, soapy water after each use. I question this. I wash my teapot as directed after every use. The outside is spotlessly clean, but I would have to spend significant time with a bottle scrubber and various other implements to get the inside of it spotlessly clean. There's a reason why tea stains are a known thing.
Step 2: scald the teapot. This is pretty straightforward. Pour some boiling water in the pot and let it sit for a few minutes to heat it up. Pour the water out before adding your tea leaves.
Step 3: add 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of tea per cup of water.
Step 4: pour fresh boiling water over the tea leaves. They advocate using freshly drawn water that is furiously boiling. You should bring the teapot to the water, not the water to the tea. Either everyone is drinking black tea, or they have yet to learn that green and oolong teas steep best at different temperatures.
Step 5: cover pot and steep tea 3-5 min. Then strain into another heated pot. Hmm. 2 teapots. Now we have strainers that fit in the top of teapots so you only need one.
For iced tea, the reader is instructed to pour double strength tea over ice, or for less cloudy tea, steep 3 teaspoons of tea for every 3/4 cup cold water in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
For serving hot tea, thin cream or mild and sugar, or thin lemon slices with sugar are suggested. If you feel like making tea into an arts and crafts project, you can stud the lemon slices with whole cloves. In my tour I've never seen anyone stud lemon slices with cloves, although I still have more places to explore. They also suggest that hot water be offered so people can adjust the strength of their tea. That is a familiar concept from other cultures. These days that adjustment seems to happen based on size of mug used compared to the tea bag. Standard tea bags are made for 1 cup of water, but virtually no mugs are that small anymore.
Speaking of mugs, Betty does point out that teacups are smaller than coffee cups. I will say that this statement is true when using specifically made for tea teaware. However in day to day life, the mug reins supreme these days.
Iced tea should be served in tall glasses on coasters or "special holders" with finely granulated sugar and lemon wedges. I had to snicker at the idea of a "special holder" for an iced tea glass. I'm still wondering what exactly that would be.
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. A little note about this last one, formosa is the Portugese word for beautiful (per Google), which was the name given to Thailand. In reality, China makes all of these styles of tea.
They list 5 steps to making a good cup of tea. It starts with the teapot. It should be china, pottery, or heat resistant glass. It should also be spotlessly clean having been washed with hot, soapy water after each use. I question this. I wash my teapot as directed after every use. The outside is spotlessly clean, but I would have to spend significant time with a bottle scrubber and various other implements to get the inside of it spotlessly clean. There's a reason why tea stains are a known thing.
Step 2: scald the teapot. This is pretty straightforward. Pour some boiling water in the pot and let it sit for a few minutes to heat it up. Pour the water out before adding your tea leaves.
Step 3: add 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of tea per cup of water.
Step 4: pour fresh boiling water over the tea leaves. They advocate using freshly drawn water that is furiously boiling. You should bring the teapot to the water, not the water to the tea. Either everyone is drinking black tea, or they have yet to learn that green and oolong teas steep best at different temperatures.
Step 5: cover pot and steep tea 3-5 min. Then strain into another heated pot. Hmm. 2 teapots. Now we have strainers that fit in the top of teapots so you only need one.
For iced tea, the reader is instructed to pour double strength tea over ice, or for less cloudy tea, steep 3 teaspoons of tea for every 3/4 cup cold water in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
For serving hot tea, thin cream or mild and sugar, or thin lemon slices with sugar are suggested. If you feel like making tea into an arts and crafts project, you can stud the lemon slices with whole cloves. In my tour I've never seen anyone stud lemon slices with cloves, although I still have more places to explore. They also suggest that hot water be offered so people can adjust the strength of their tea. That is a familiar concept from other cultures. These days that adjustment seems to happen based on size of mug used compared to the tea bag. Standard tea bags are made for 1 cup of water, but virtually no mugs are that small anymore.
Speaking of mugs, Betty does point out that teacups are smaller than coffee cups. I will say that this statement is true when using specifically made for tea teaware. However in day to day life, the mug reins supreme these days.
Iced tea should be served in tall glasses on coasters or "special holders" with finely granulated sugar and lemon wedges. I had to snicker at the idea of a "special holder" for an iced tea glass. I'm still wondering what exactly that would be.
I know how hard it is to find a reasonably-sized mug! My hot cocoa packets only need 6 oz. of water, and that gets cold in NO TIME in a full-size mug. I managed to find a couple of smallish mugs at thrift stores, thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteThrift store dishes are a good lesson in how sizes have changed over time. Now, people will just use 2-3 packets of hot cocoa powder instead of a smaller mug.
DeleteI definitely do not need that much hot cocoa at once!
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