Tea drinking

Tea has been my favourite morning drink for quite some time now. In my new kitchen which has four big, deep drawers one of them is almost fully taken by various teas. Black, green, red, white, infusions, herbal teas…Too many really and I am trying to manage it by not buying any new teas except refilling the essential Lapsang Souchong. This has been for few years my favourive morning tea.

                                                    

Recently I claimed my birthday present at Kikki's as I found an interesting teacup which is a cross between tea glass and a teacup. Being a stationary junkie I found my way to the local Kikki shop and enrolled on their customer list. Now each September I get a $10 coupon to purchase my birthday present in the shop. As I have all the stationary I need I focused on their home line and found this glass-cup. It says :  Dream Breath Create Inspire. The writing is unobtrusive, hardly visible really. I like it. The reason why I chose such a present is in a way related to old Polish way to drink tea.

When I say “old Polish way” I do not think of all that very distant times. The tea drinking out of  a simple 250 ml glass is still done in many Polish homes. Tea tastes best when it is hot and drinking it out of a thin  glass burnt one's fingers. Sometimes such a glass did not have a saucer underneath and as sugar was widely used in my young days I had a dilemma if I should leave the spoon in the glass or put in on the table after I was done with stirring my tea. Then my mother typically gave me a beauty lesson saying: if you drink your tea with the spoon in the glass you will look like general Rokossowski. I did not want to look like him and have one brow higher than the other so I quickly took my spoon out of the glass. Funny things we remember and the lesson was rather interesting and saying things about my beautiful mother.

                                                      

Tea drinking out of a glass rather than a teacup is rather tricky and requires some care and clever ideas to cope with it and enjoy the beverage without burning your fingers and harming your beauty forever.

With passing years glasses with handles appeared in Polish homes but they were typically made out of a thick glass and this was not particularly satisfying to me. There was another way and this was to put your glass in a holder with a  handle. This could be really a nice way to drink your tea especially if the holder was antique and pleasingly designed. This is really a Russian way to drink tea without burning your fingers, but also used in Poland.

My new cup satisfies my taste in many ways. The glass is thin, the shape (minus the  handle) reminds me of a regular polish tea glass. It has a simple design that looks elegant to me. I wonder if Swedish (Kikki is a Swedish shop) also drink tea out of a glass. My Swedish husband was not really accustomed to it and made funny faces expressing discomfort of burning his fingers. Very quickly he was served his tea in a little holder. My mother always tried to please her guests and her Swedish son in law in particular.

All this tea drinking thoughts came quite unexpectantly while drinking this morning my Lapsang souchong out of a Kikki glass.