This is from "Down and out in Paris and London" by G.
Orwell:

"There were murmurs of agreement. Evidently the tramps were
not grateful for their tea. And yet it was excellent tea,
as different from coffee-shop tea as good Bordeaux is from
the muck called colonial claret, and we were all glad of
it. I am sure too that it was given in a good spirit,
without any intention of humiliating us; so in fairness we
ought to have been grateful--still, we were not."

This is a passage on how he and other tramps had to pray
for half an hour in a mission in order to get a free cup
of tea and two buns. Orwell also wrote an essay on tea
brewing, although I don't agree with some of his ideas
there.

writes:

> This is from "Down and out in Paris and London" by G.
> Orwell:
> [...]
> This is a passage on how he and other tramps had to pray
> for half an hour in a mission in order to get a free cup
> of tea and two buns.

That's a strange book. I bounces between sharp observation and blind
prejudice.

> Orwell also wrote an essay on tea brewing, although I don't agree
> with some of his ideas there.

Right. When he grew up, his politics improved but his tea aesthetic
turned Colonel-Blimpish.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin wrote:
> writes:
>
> > This is from "Down and out in Paris and London" by G.
> > Orwell:
> > [...]
> > This is a passage on how he and other tramps had to pray
> > for half an hour in a mission in order to get a free cup
> > of tea and two buns.
>
> That's a strange book. I bounces between sharp observation and blind
> prejudice.

Indeed, there was a funny stab at armenians,
'trust a snake before trusting a jew, trust a
jew before you trust a greek, but never trust
an armenian.'

>
> > Orwell also wrote an essay on tea brewing, although I don't agree
> > with some of his ideas there.
>
> Right. When he grew up, his politics improved but his tea aesthetic
> turned Colonel-Blimpish.

Well, I think the only good tea available at the time
was the type of english breakfast or irish breakfast
blends, so he couldn't say much about other
varieties, but his advice on these strong english
teas was more or less spot on. He mentions that
chinese teas are not very good, but I think he
meant green teas and the ones that he could
get were likely low grade and stale..

>
> /Lew
> ---
> Lew Perin /
> http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:09:15 -0800, andrei.avk wrote:

>
>> Right. When he grew up, his politics improved but his tea aesthetic
>> turned Colonel-Blimpish.
>
> Well, I think the only good tea available at the time
> was the type of english breakfast or irish breakfast
> blends, so he couldn't say much about other
> varieties, but his advice on these strong english
> teas was more or less spot on. He mentions that
> chinese teas are not very good, but I think he
> meant green teas and the ones that he could
> get were likely low grade and stale..
>
>>
>> /Lew
>> ---
>> Lew Perin /
>> http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

I don't think a lot has changed since Orwell wrote. As a matter of fact I
fear that the quality of tea, for the majority of people, has gone down
and that includes green teas. The tea bag did not do any favours to
quality.

JB

On Jan 3, 5:51*pm, JB > wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:09:15 -0800, andrei.avk wrote:
>
> >> Right. *When he grew up, his politics improved but his tea aesthetic
> >> turned Colonel-Blimpish.
>
> > Well, I think the only good tea available at the time
> > was the type of english breakfast or irish breakfast
> > blends, so he couldn't say much about other
> > varieties, but his advice on these strong english
> > teas was more or less spot on. He mentions that
> > chinese teas are not very good, but I think he
> > meant green teas and the ones that he could
> > get were likely low grade and stale..
>
> >> /Lew
> >> ---
> >> Lew Perin /
> >>http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
>
> I don't think a lot has changed since Orwell wrote. As a matter of fact I
> fear that the quality of tea, for the majority of people, has gone down
> and that includes green teas. The tea bag did not do any favours to
> quality.
>
> JB

There's a lot of different changes, some good and other,
really bad. On one hand you can get really good teas on
the internet and specialty shops that were not around
back then, and good strong Twinings loose leaf blends
are affordable to everyone, but on the other hand people
drink bottled soda drinks and insanely terrible instant
mixes and bad coffee instead. Availability and affordability
of good tea went way up but average tea quality that's
drunk went under, just as you say.

-ak