I have three more weeks in Korea before I begin a nice, meandering trip home via Australia, Amsterdam and the UK, and as the departure date draws closer I find myself remembering my last trip home.
There was a single activity which highlighted more clearly than anything else, just how long and how far I had been from home.
It was the humble cup of tea.
Irish people take our tea very seriously. We are very fussy about the tea itself and while the ritual of making the tea may lack the aesthetics of, say, a Japenese Tea Ceremony, make no mistake - it IS a ritual.
Irish people drink more tea per capita than any other country in the world. Think about that for a minute. We drink more tea than the Chinese, the Japanese, even more than the English for crying out loud!
Though now that I am living in Asia, I think this is explained by the fact that in the U.K and Ireland when we say tea, what we really mean is black tea, whereas here in Asia you can make tea out of anything even vaguely botanical. So while we beat them out drinking black tea, they have the market cornered in consumption of say, Chrysanthemum or Quince teas.
The blends we drink in Ireland are mostly Indian and Kenyan teas which are very high in tannins. This makes for a very strong tea to which we add milk and often, sugar. A notion that would have most Asians turning green at the gills.
The ritual comes into the making of the tea itself. Now, most households in the Northern Europe know how to make a decent cup of tea, but my parents elevated it to an art form. A precise dance of intricate and measured steps.
First, boil the kettle and choose a teapot of a size appropriate for your party. My Dad, the Science teacher, drilled us that while making tea the kettle should only be boiled once - as each successive boiling reduces the oxygen content of the water and oxygen is necessary to draw the tannins from the tea leaves. ( I DID say that my parents take tea seriously, right?!)
The very second the kettle boils, pour some of the water into your teapot and swirl it around - thus 'scalding the pot'. This must be done quickly and deftly (it's all in the wrist). You want to heat the pot while not taking so long that the water has gone fully off the boil.
Put one or two scoops of tea leaves into the pot. In our house, tea bags are for sad losers who drink alone.
Fill the teapot, place it on the pot stand, cover with the tea cosy and leave to 'brew'.
While the tea is brewing, gather the rest of the required paraphernalia; the cups, milk, sugar and of course something to eat.
In the words of my grandfather, "You can't ate tae without bread!"
To have a cup of tea in one hand and no cut of cake, no bit of brack, not even a fig roll biscuit in the other hand..... well! That's simply unthinkable! Barbarous, even!
By now the tea is well brewed to the color of aged amber. The next step in the ritual is serving it up just how everyone likes it.
This is done with knowledge which has accreted though the thousands of tea ceremonies which have gone before.
Who likes the first cup out of the pot? Who insists on having the last and therefore strongest cup?
Who likes the milk to be poured in the cup first and who likes no milk at all - though I hesitate to even type that last option, as it happens so rarely.
We brew our tea so strong that drinking it without milk is hardly feasible.
Once that mysterious alchemy has been performed the cups must be handed around according to a subtle hierarchy. This might explain why the Irish, when we actually bother ourselves, are quite good at diplomacy. Years of figuring out who gets the good china cup and the first serving without starting a family feud makes more overt forms of negotiation a cake walk.
Once the tea has been dispensed, it's back to refill the kettle for round two: The Hot Sup. Good hospitality dictates that when the cup is down to the last quarter, it must be refilled with fresh, hot tea, because in Ireland, no one ever drinks just one cup!
Unfortunately for me, after two years of drinking delicate infusions of hibiscus blossom or chrysanthemum tea and various other blooms - whom I had previously only encountered in the titles of the more artsy kind of martial arts films - my ability to appreciate (i.e. cope with) tannins in all their glory, has been almost entirely eroded.
One Lyons teabag, which for any other Irish person will make one cup of tea, will do me for four!
Last Sunday I was at my sisters place and when she offered me a cup of Irish tea I asked her to simply dip the bag in my cup and then use it to make her own cup.
She physically recoiled in horror and the look of revulsion on her face was priceless - her nose wrinkles so adorably!
And this is why, for the three weeks I am home in Ireland, I will be making every pot of tea in EVERY house I set foot in - all the better to avoid lengthly explanations and the look of uncomprehending horror at my drinking tea which my Grandmother would delicately dismiss as 'maiden's water'!
Or as my father would say, "It's too weak to climb out of the pot!".
Or maybe I'll just stick to coffee!
