Hello Hello Hivians
This morning I was reminded of this post The Great British Cup of Tea from @mypathtofire and I thought I would do my version...
It's all about the water!
Okay the water and the tea of course blended together make the perfect ☕ .
The problem with Britain is much of it is England and most of England has hard water...
Scotland has soft water...
So what you say!
The main difference between hard and soft water is the amount of dissolved minerals it contains.
Hard water contains high levels of minerals like calcium and magnesium and water with 100 parts per million (ppm) or more of minerals is considered hard.
The main problem to me with hard water, is that you get mental limescale buildup in appliances. I remember when I worked in London and other places in the south of England, the elements in kettles would get bowfing very quickly!
It would even float in your cup of tea...
Ewww!
Now on the other hand ....
Yes my tea of choice in Scotland to capitalise on the nicer water is Scottish Blend which has been specially blended for Scottish Water...
No idea what that means, but it does taste good.
Working from home this week
I have a pleasant week this week as I will be 100% working from home.
Which meant I could start this morning with a nice gentle cup of tea. I did not need to be wired awake.
So I picked out a couple of teabags and got the kettle boiling...
No floating limescale jobbies in my kettle thank you very much...
Yes the kettle was chosen as it lights up blue when boiling the water lol.
I don't use cups any more for tea or coffee come to think of it. No, it is mugs, now of course back in the day, tea was served in your best bone china cups. These would be thin walled.
The Scotland mug is actually Mrs T's favourite mug for tea as it has thinner walls.
Then you let it steep.
Steeping time is more important with different teas that don't use water.
You can tell I made these mugs of tea because of the tea bags.
Mrs T on the other hand will get tea leaves and put into little strainers to dangle in the mug!
Usually green tea but she has others too.
However we are having breakfast tea and that means a dod of milk...
Talking of breakfast, in this house it was toast this morning...
Butter and orange marmalade for the Scot and Peanut butter and raspberry jam for the American.
One thing about Scottish Blend that I like ....
... is that everything is biodegradable, they got rid of the plastic outer wrapper. I do my best to eliminate plastic where possible so whenever I see a product doing it, then often I will get it...
RAINFOREST ALLIANCE CERTIFIED 100% Certified Tea
Scottish Blend tea is fully Rainforest Alliance Certified™
By choosing Scottish Blend, you are choosing a brand that is helping to protect the environment, ensure decent working conditions for tea farmers and provide access to education and healthcare for them and their families.
Yes hopefully the tea workers actually benefit from the Rainforest Alliance Certification...
So there we have it, my great Scottish cuppa this morning!
And to work I must get now... So thanks for visiting and have a wonderful new week!
All images and ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman TengoLoTodo unless otherwise stated. All photos captured with my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL and have not been edited.
@tengolotodo October 14th 2024 (Oct 8 Premium 2 VR)
DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND DO IT OFTEN
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Great to see how they making tea in Scotland Ed. I can agree with you about the water, it needs to be often descaled and often is full of fluroide too. I do like the nice china t cups, but only drink from those when I visit my mother as they are quite old fashioned.
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Yeah descaling things was a pain and yeah fluoride levels too Steve.
Ah yes I think of them now with older generations for the china teacups. Does taste nice I must admit.
I got a similar kettle like yours, but I find it really noisy, I can barely hear the TV or radio when the water is boiling.
Your tea looks a little milky, I prefer mine stronger. And peanut butter and jam.... is that an American thing is just how Mrs T likes her breakfast?
Oh yes it is noisy and tends to boil too long before it switches off, so I do turn it off once boiling.
The milk yeah I normally have it less milky, but it was the end of that bottle and I didn't want to put a wee dribble back in the fridge lol!
Yeah PBJ is an American thing that they can eat anytime, I actually quite like it too now.
Hubby used to drink tea in a cup and saucer, I kept one set but it sits in the cupboard. We each also had our special coffee mug.
I wonder how the Scottish blend will do in South African water😅
I like just a dash of milk and a couple of grains of sugar with my tea.
Where are the scones and clotted cream?
PS onto something else, I tried voting for Silver Blogger of the week over the weekend but the link didn't work. It was the same with Plant Power🤷♀️
I like your breakfast very much and although I am not Scottish, I sometimes have tea with a dod of milk.
The water here is disgusting hahaha... everything is full of magnesium and God knows what else. But I'm used to it now, I'm immune and it tastes like water. But when I drink distilled bottled water, it tastes like coconut. Ah, I don't know... I have coconuts in my backyard by the way.
Enjoy the week 100% at home. 🙂
Sending love!
I did not know that Scotland had soft water, the things you learn... Looks like some good tea, does Scottish blend have a touch of peat flavor to it? It's been awhile since I tried it out.
I need a glass of coffee 🥰 Enjoy your time working from home
I'm not a tea drinker, but the butter and marmalade looks tempting :))
After reading your blog I started looking at my Scottish ancestors again. If I follow the different branches I think I'm related to half of Scotland :))
It's a lot of fun, tracing those roots.
Good profit, you classified the hard water, as I did not know about them, thank you. Here where I live near the sea the water has a lot of magnesium, lime, they say it comes from wells, I long ago boil the water and then pass it through a filter, I have an electric coffee maker that I used it to heat the water in the filter and then I put the tea bags, that I bought or I have been given and so I enjoy a tea free of much magnesium.Buen provecho, clasificaste el agua dura, ya que no conocía de ellas, gracias. Aquí donde vivo cerca del mar el agua tiene mucho magnesio, cal, dicen que viene de pozos, yo hace mucho tiempo hiervo el agua y luego la paso por un filtro, tengo una cafetera eléctrica que la utilizó para calentar el agua del filtro y luego pongo las bolsitas de té, que he comprado o me han regalado y así disfruto de un té libre de mucho magnesio.
I enjoy a cup of Orange pekoe most times along with a few herbal varieties. I've tasted hard water in some of my travels across the continent, and living on the West coast of Canada I have been blessed/spoiled with very soft water for most of my life.
wow, so Scottish water is not as hard as that of England, that is why you prefer tea from Scotland 😃