Guest Guest Writer: Sam the Tea Man's DAD drinks tea

Well, as you can tell ladies and gentlemen, we are really getting into our tea blogs. The truth is that Sam the Tea Man has been writing for a little while now, but I've been lax about uploading. But it now seems like ALL of his family want to get in on the tea-blogging action, and are adding their points of view into the mix. Today, we have Guest Guest Writer, Sam the Tea Man's DAD, Joe the Tea Man.

The tea in front of me is PG tips ,weak and milky, pale khaki in colour. There is about half a pint in a white mug which has a thick blue line around the top and thin lines within the blue. It is of a perfect drinkable temperature.
Around me are several girls , my pumpkin team, some of them drinking tea of varied colours and in different mugs. There are five pumpkins all being lovingly sculptured into bonfire night horrors. It is November 8th , the nearest Saturday to November 5th. Outside another team is putting finishing touches to a HUGE bonfire. They are placing benches,tables chairs and stools at a "safe" distance from it and preparing the "boncaloo." A group of Her Majesty's Security Staff still check underneath the Houses of Parliament before the Queen opens a new session. Our guy this year is very tall, green and handsome.
Autumn is just finishing ; still a few apples on the trees and leaves of all colours from dark red through yellows to green. They are scattered everywhere and some are even sill on their branches - just. Clouds - grey. white ,puffy , solid - are allowing some blue sky to show through. Everyone prays for the rain to stay away.
Bruce (the Shetland pony - ed) is bewildered. He is having to share the field with people and their excitement is catching . Even the chickens have not been let out, Bruce ois VERY bewildered.
The pumpkin seeds are being washed ready for toasting. I have never done this before and am really excited about tasting them. Dusk draws on and another cup of tea is finished.

Guest Writer: Sam the Tea Man drinks Tea

Blog Number: 3 No title this time

Hello, this is a rather impromptu blog, as I was intending on doing it tomorrow on my long train journey home, but I’ve just sat down in my flat with a fresh brew so I thought I’d tell you about it.

PG Tips with a dash of milk, nice & dark with a single sugar lump. (I like sugar lumps, (especially since Turkey since they’re everywhere), it means you don’t have to worry about the size of the tea sponn or how much sugar is on there.) Anyway, it’s maybe slightly darker than normal but still good. In a good mug (mugs are very important to some tea drinkers, we’ll probably discuss this in a later blog), which is round at the bottom, I’d guess about 30mm across (1 ¼” in old money), and almost square at the top, with nice thickened corners.

The tea is good, I need a bit of a boost after a long day, but refraining from a snack as it’d just spoil my appetite and tea/supper/dinner (depending on which part of the country you’re in) will be soon, well, when I get round to cooking it.

I’m fairly posiive & the tea is definitely helping. I’ve just been to an interesting lecture on Crossrail (the new Cross-London rail link for you non-Londoners) & now I’m about to make a pair of recycling bins for my flat. Partially because I watch “An Inconvenient Truth” (Al Gore’s film which is good) last night, but it was something that needed doing anyway as it’s a new flat (for me) and it’s not the best at the moment for recycling. I looked on the Interweb today & what I wanted was £50, which I thought was a little steep, so I’m going to make my own out of old boxes & plastic carriers. So not only am I not buying new stuff, I’m reuse old boxes before I recycle them, so REUSE & RECYCLE, all I need to do now is REDUCE, maybe I’ll just eat half as much, or drink less tea, or just use each tea-bag twice; then I’d be cooking on gas, or maybe Biofuel?

Guest Writer: Sam the Tea Man in Zummerzet

Blog Number: 2 The Cider House Brews

Tea Type: Miles Tea: The West Country Blend.

In a cup & saucer with two shortbread fingers.

Fantastic tea, good flavour, but most importantly it’s warm and wet, which when you’ve just walked about 12 miles in Somerset on a grey day on the 1st November any tea and biscuit would be welcome, but this tea is actually particularly good.

I think the setting of your tea is also particularly important, and I would say that sitting on a four poster bed in the main bedroom of a Doomsday Book Farmhouse is pretty much as good as it gets, especially when the company is particularity great………the farm cat called Tiger has just curled up at my feet.

We’re staying at Blackmore Farm which is an amazing B&B in Somerset, and has open fires, antlers on the wall and a four-poster bed, so pretty special. We drove down from Gatwick last night and it’s cool, & it has great tea bags.

So…location, great. Tea, great. How do I feel? Great. Is this down to the tea? Not entirely, but it definitely helps? My hands have thawed out now and the fire is blazing downstairs so I’m off to thaw my feet.

After the tea, this (blog writing) was the first thing I did, actually started thinking about it with a mile to go (which was pretty much straight after I started thinking about the tea funnily enough) so I think I’m getting into it (although this is still only the 2nd day.)

Off to the fire now, until next time…………Keep on Brewin’.

(261, nearly spot on this time)

Guest Writer: Sam the Tea Man really gets going

Blog Number: 1a Extra Words Brainstorming Topics

Buoyed with the ease of which this rubbish is rolling off my tongue, I thought I’d go for another “one” & since I haven’t had/didn’t get another cup from BA, I can’t really call this Blog #2, so here’s #1a.

I’ve not really thought about how this would work, not just the number, the whole blog really.

I’m good at bullet points (one of my good Top Trump Suits along with Admin, Languages & Singing are my worst I would say, although the jury’s still out on Blog \Writing!).

Each Blog will:

• Be based around a tea drinking experience, with a cup of tea conaumed whilst I’m at the seat.

• The tea will be judged, both in terms of…..well whatever I see ft really.

• Try to give the reader some idea of the venue, so they can decide if they want to do the same

• Probably have some sort of ramblings about something, the topic of which will almost certainly depend on what mood I’m in etc etc.

To help myself out (and to use up the remaining words), I though I’d list the Tea Relatated Places/Topics that could form the basis of my additional ramblings if I’m struggling for inspiration. These were as follows in the order I thought of them.

Tea with Mum @ home/in the garden.

Tea with Lex’ Parents, or not quite (the first time I met them)

Turkey Tea – Cay

Ginger Tea

European Tea

53 Carlyle Rd Tea

Desk at Work

Somerset B&B

Tea Rooms

Alone in my flat.

With friends in my flat

With my sister

Why am I doing this?

Does tea & Haribo work?

Does Lapsangsu-Shong actually taste of ash trays?

Phew, another 285 done, just as we land. Lets see how my enthusiasm & momentum go with regard to when I next have 250 words in mt, but until then………Brew Well My Friends.

(Do I need a cheesy line at the end of each thing, or is that a waste of words? Does anyone care? Does anyone read this except my Mum?)

Guest Writer: Sam the Tea Man's first real post

Blog Number: 1 First Entry Here We Go

sat here with a blunt pencil and my ears start to pop as we descend into Gatwick, I’m longing for another cup of BA tea (although I think it’s too late, the seatbelt sign is on).

After 8 days of drinking Turkish Cay (pronounced Chai we very quickly learnt) I was longing for that first cup of English tea, as I’m longing for another now.

It was probably a sub-conscious thing. Right, holiday over, back to England, what do we do in England, play cricket, well yes, but not in November, but we always drink tea, even in the heart of summer. Peter Kaye’s mum was right, it does quench your thirst. It also apparently keeps you alive. Apparently, a wise man once told me once that during the Korean War, the US Army suffered a significantly higher number of casualties due to pneumonia and other cold weather conditions when compared to the British.. This was apparently due to the fact that when they stopped trekking thought the jungle for a rest, instead of lighting cigarettes they lit their stoves and boiled water for tea, so not only were they warm, they didn’t get cancer, and that can only be a good thing. N.b. for future reference, whenever I start, “A wise man once told me” or something similar, please take it with a pinch of salt; it’s either something I believe to be truthful (or something that is so obviously gibberish that I’m trying to be ironical.) Oh, no words left give or take, so:

Type: BA Tea.

Where: On my way home from Turkey.

Description: Paper cup, one sugar, beltin’.

Blog #1 done, woo hoo.

Guest Writer: Sam the Tea Man

In what is probably a welcome break from my obsession with economics and frugality, I'd like to introduce my new, and much loved, guest writer. Sam the Tea Man. To set the background - Sam and I are bestest buds, and one of our main shared obsessions/enjoyments/little pleasures, is a cup of tea. We drink tea in, we drink tea out, it's often all we'll talk about. So we decided it was high time we made a joint project of it. I asked Sam if he'd like to start writing blog entries of about 250 words detailing his tea exploits. I'm sure you'll agree that the results are rather hilarious. So here, unadulterated and true to form, is Sam's first blog entry following our teablog discussion.

Blog Number: 0 Introduction Let’s Get Going

There are few things in life as glorious as a perfect cup of tea, except perhaps a perfect cup of tea together with a perfect biscuit ready to be either dunked in the tea or nibbled between mouthfuls.

I, along with many many other people love a good cup of tea, indeed “Lets put the kettle on” or “Get a brew on” are often the first thing I’ll say when entering a room, (depending on the company of course). So, in this series of completely irregular blogs, I’m going to be talking about my experiences of tea drinking.

In the famous words of Mr Scruff

So, where am I writing this first historic entry in the Great Food Lovers Annals? My mum’s kitchen table? A Tea Room in the Devonshire country side? My friends room at university? Nope…….32,000ft above Europe on my return from holiday, in seat 11B of a …………Boeing 737-436 according to the safety card.

I’m next to a man who is sleeping off the 3 bottles of wine, 2 shots of rum and can of Carlsberg he consumed after dinner and my girlfriend who has “borrowed” my book to read, so faced with a blamk sheet of paper I thought I’d rise to the challenge set by the site’s owner & write about something we both love, tea. I don’t think I’ve written this much since my GCSE English exam so apologies if it’s rubbish, but give me a few entries to get going, 250 words is the target each time (a good number according to a journalist friend, and as I’m about……38+60+52+109 I’d best curtail my introduction & start thinking about my first entry.

271, is that ok Miss Editor? As this is hand written, what counts as a word? i.e., does N.b. count, or indeed i.e.? Why doesn’t everyone who reads this count how many words they think there are and then compare with MS Word total and maybe we’ll learn about words as well as tea (eventually) and all be better people because of it. Now I’m at 342, is that too many?