give us a slug of that Builder's Tea, yeah?

imagine the tea these builders might've brewed

A friend recently mentioned Builder's Tea to me, and I realised that I've never bothered writing about this before. It's not common parlance outside of Britain (not that I'm aware of), but it's such an evocative term. Here's what Wikipedia says about Builder's Tea.

It describes so brilliantly that milky, sugary sludge of black tea that your everyday typical British construction worker carries to the building site in his flask everyday. Sure, some drink it without milk and even more rare is a flask filled with Builder's Tea that has no sugar. The stuff is too strong. Too bitter.

You can drink it black, but it can't be good for you.

If you didn't have a look at Tea Trade Peter's account of drinking insanely strong black tea in Kosovo while he was serving in the army, do yourself a favour. Go read it. You can find it at:

Russian prison tea, Outpost Terminator and me

Go ahead and look now. I'll wait while you're gone. It's ok. I have time.

Doesn't that sound enticing and dangerous and delicious all at the same time?

I love these sorts of tea that people drink in such an unassuming manner. A little like the Grandpa Tea that I wrote about months ago. Throw leaves in a pot, add boiling water, wait a bit, drink it down, repeat with the same leaves ad infinitum.

You could be drinking all day from the same pinch of leaves if you do it right. Doesn't that sound great? It's the simplicity that gets me every time. Just me, some decent tea leaves and boiling hot water. What more could you want?

this stuff'll kill you

an apothecary in Munich

I've been reading a lot recently about the health benefits of tea.  It's rather remarkable what drinking this stuff will do for you.  Most of the time I reject these promises outright.  The proof, if there is in fact any proof, is often flimsy.  Or misleading.

So I went searching for the most ridiculous promises of tea's magical properties, and a funny thing happened.  Many of the sources I found wrote their claims in such a way that they can't be disputed.

'Drinking tea might delay Alzheimer's' or 'Green and black tea can slow down the spread of prostate cancer' or 'Tea may lower cholesterol and protect against heart disease'.  You get the idea...this stuff just might happen...maybe...actually, the place I read those provided sources for many of the claims and they look reputable enough.  You want to see it?

It's at a site called 2BASnob.  Aside from recommending that you should drink loose-leaf tea whenever possible, but if you're on the go and have to drink instant or bottled tea, you should just drink more...yeah, aside from that, it seems like there's a lot of good information.

I can hear you saying, 'That's not funny.  What was the funny thing that happened?'  Well, I was getting to that.  So then I found a site based upon the Wikipedia page about health benefits of tea.  It's a page with some content (the first column) and then a selection of google ads and related stories (the second column), which appear to send you to similarly written articles.  Then there's another section for ads and video news and some more ads and then a listing of breaking news (the third column)...What the hell is your point Lahikmajoe?

(revision...I don't want to drive any, or any more, traffic to that site, so I've resolved to link to Alex Cazort's article Health Benefits of Tea, which actually has reliable information not written in such an annoying and meaningless style)

I'm sure this site is driving lots of traffic to and fro, but is all of this really necessary?  It's so busy...I'm almost unable to focus on the reason I came here.  Health benefits of tea, right? (Again, I've taken the link out to that site.  If you really want to see it, I'm sure a quick search will bring you either to it or somewhere as useless).

Once I pay attention, my eyes zero in on this sentence:

One should consult a doctor before using high concentrations of tea for disease prevention.

Really?  I drink a lot of tea, but not necessarily for disease prevention.  I'm still ok, yes?  My doctor's going to think I'm nuts if I bring this to her.

'Doc, I have to be honest,' I hear myself saying, 'I drink a lot of tea.'

'Yes, and...,' she answers. 'What seems to be the problem?'

So then I tell my doctor what I read next on the Science Daily website:

'Ingestion of large amounts of tea may cause nutritional and other problems because of the strong binding activities of tea polyphenols and the caffeine content, although no solid data exist concerning harmful effects of tea consumption.'

Did you hear that doctor?  I'm doomed.  It's all over.

'I have good news and bad news,' she tells me.  'Which do you want first?'


Oh my, it's worse than I thought.  Ok, I can take it.  Give me the bad news first.

'The bad news is that you are, in fact, going to die,' she acknowledges.

I knew it!  All that bloody tea.  What was I thinking?  Ok, what could possibly be the good news?

'Well, the good news is that it's very unlikely going to be from tea consumption.  It's possible, but highly unlikely.  And probably a long long time from now.'

Oh.  Really?  Well that is good news, isn't it?  I'm going to celebrate this by brewing a pot of tea.  Would you like a cup, doc?

Rapture tea

Last year, I live blogged what sort of tea I would serve each of the players in the Champion's League Final. You can see it here: Tea voodoo.

So, I joked about it earlier in the week, but this blog is anything if not topical. What sort of tea should we serve for the Rapture? Now, I'd normally avoid any sort of religious topic on a tea blog. I'd like to do anything to avoid any sort of controversy, and religion will certainly send us down that road more quickly than almost anything else.

But having said all that, what sort of tea would be perfect for just this event. I did only the briefest of research on what specifically the Rapture actually meant. I'm sure I could find plenty more about this, but for our purposes, Wikipedia will be more than enough of an authority.

And I quote: 'Some Dispensationalist Premillennialists (including many Evangelicals) hold the return of Christ to be two distinct events or one second coming in two stages. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 is seen to be a preliminary event to the return described in Matthew 24:29-31. Although both describe a return of Jesus, these are seen to be separated in time by more than a brief period. The first event may or may not be seen (which is not a primary issue), and is called the rapture, when the saved are to be 'caught up,' from whence the term rapture is taken. The 'second coming' is the public event when Christ's presence is prophesied to be clearly seen as he returns to end a battle staged at Armageddon...'(my parentheses)

So here's my point. All over twitter and throughout the internet people are joking about this Rapture. These people who're getting so much mileage out of this are clearly not in the crowd who're going to be 'caught up' and carried off. It's the doubters among us who're going to be sitting round and not seeing anything.

What sort of tea do we need for just this sort of event? Here's my scenario: I brew up a pot of my darkest Assam, and go sit on my terrace. Looking out over the sky above Munich (with the Olympic Tower in the distance) nothing happens. At least nothing as far as I can see.

I read somewhere that the optimum place for those who really believe this is happening is on a mountain in the French Alps. The citizens and authorities of the nearest village are purportedly less than impressed with the pilgrims who're making their way to this mountain. While they're being carried off, I'll be sipping my Assam on my terrace.

See you on the other side.

*sip*