A Nice Cup Of Tea

A nice cup of tea is something you will not find in Belgium unless you make it yourself or find one of the few special people who have been indoctrinated in the art of making a cup of tea.  The hot drink of choice here is coffee, in fact I was so annoyed with the poor standard of the preparation and quality of tea I even chose to drink a koffee verkeerd whenever I went to a café.  It took some time before I found out that the word verkeerd meant 'wrong', so I was ordering a coffee wrong, which says it all really.

Anyway, order a cup of tea in a café and you will get a glass cup, no milk and probably a slice of lemon. The glass cup will have some tepid water in it and the tea bag will be in an individual wrapping on a saucer.  You will also get some kind of accompaniment such as a biscuit or, heaven forbid, Speculoos (a traditional Belgian biscuit).  The temptation to whip out a projector, laptop and various other learning aids and deliver a presentation on how to prepare a proper cup of tea is very strong, but it is in fact an utterly pointless exercise.  On the packet that the tea bag comes in there is a pictorial representation of how to make a cup of tea, they key point being that it requires boiling water to be poured over the said tea bag.  The exercise is also questionable because the quality of the tea is low to say the least.  They most often serve Yellow Tea or English Breakfast, which of course is not to be found commonly consumed in the UK!  They do have other teas such as Earl Grey, but they are for those who know what to ask for and in any event you cannot get past the criminal act of having it served on a saucer next to a cup of hot, but not boiling, water.  So with the quality and preparation being so poor it is hardly surprising that there are not that many tea drinkers around, perhaps this was the anti-competitive behaviour of the coffee suppliers or just plain ignorance.

I must report that I have had some success in converting the family to Earl Grey tea, or Flash as it is known by the family back home on account of its similar smell to the detergent.  I normally drink Tetley, which provides a good strong cup of tea.  I do, however have to import this from the UK.  The other thing I failed to mention is that if you ask for milk you will be given cream, because that is what they use for coffee, it just adds further insult really.  As sophisticated as the Belgians are with coffee they are equally unsophisticated with tea and lets be honest why would they worry?

I regularly bring back tea for my in-laws and An is fully converted and knows the importance of ensuring that the water is boiling.  For my father-in-law, he prefers it if I just waft the tea bag at the water as it goes into the cup, he does not like strong tea and certainly no milk.  Occasionally he takes a bit of lemon, but at least it starts the right way.  My sister-in-law has in fact broadened my tastes to other forms of tea but I do draw the line at fruit teas In my view these fruit teas leave an enduring taste in whichever cup or pot they are brewed in and a blowtorch would not get rid of this residual scum even if applied vigorously followed up by a wire brushing.

I mentioned speculoos earlier, this is a popular and famous biscuit that Belgians find very appealing and seem to like serving with coffee and other hot drinks.  Speculoos is similar to a ginger snap but without the ginger, which begs the question, why?  The British have an incredible range and diversity of biscuits but this is not reflected in the same way over here.  In terms of appeal I would compare speculoos to a Rich Tea or for those weirdos that like Rich Tea, perhaps if I said it had the opposite appeal of a chocolate Hob Nob?  I think that some brilliant entrepreneur came up with this biscuit baked with a bit of sawdust and managed to market it as the perfect nibble to have with your coffee and in doing so dominated the market.  To all Belgians out there, try some biscuits from the UK, you will be pleasantly surprised, mind you they might introduce an import tariff if they get too popular.