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  • [British-style tea] What did Orwell mean?

    From Dario Niedermann@21:1/5 to All on Sat Dec 12 10:58:32 2015
    On 17 Mar 2015 I wrote:

    Referencing the famous article "A nice cup of tea" by George Orwell[1].

    What do you think he meant when writing that the teapot is best warmed
    by placing it on the hob?

    Wouldn't it damage the teapot?


    Note:
    [1] http://www.george-orwell.org/A_Nice_Cup_of_Tea/0.html

    Following up on an old thread I started, just to report that I
    eventually found a way to pre-warm my teapots on the hob (aka gas
    stovetop).

    I can finally follow Orwell's advice, thanks to a contraption called
    a "heat tamer". Many models are available: mine is a solid cast iron
    disc. I interpose this item between the teapot and my smallest flame
    at its lowest setting.

    Now, the process isn't quick. It might take up to 10 minutes.
    But it allows for two things that are important to me:

    1) I can finally steep in a finely pre-determined amount of water, since
    I don't have to pour out "some" from the kettle, for teapot warming;

    2) I can warm a teapot that contains spent leaves, to which I'll add
    fresh leaves to make a new cup.

    I've been subjecting my teapots to this treatment for more than a month,
    with no ill effects; so I just thought I'd pass this trick on to the
    group.

    Cheers,
    DN

    --
    Dario Niedermann. Also on the Internet at:

    gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/ , http://devio.us/~ndr/

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  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to dnied@tiscali.it on Sun Dec 13 10:46:02 2015
    Dario Niedermann <dnied@tiscali.it> wrote:
    On 17 Mar 2015 I wrote:

    Referencing the famous article "A nice cup of tea" by George Orwell[1].

    What do you think he meant when writing that the teapot is best warmed
    by placing it on the hob?

    Wouldn't it damage the teapot?

    Following up on an old thread I started, just to report that I
    eventually found a way to pre-warm my teapots on the hob (aka gas
    stovetop).

    My guess is that Orwell wasn't talking about a gas stovetop but a coal or wood-fired one. The hob then is just a metal plate on top of the firebox. --scott
    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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  • From Dario Niedermann@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Sun Dec 13 20:50:52 2015
    Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

    My guess is that Orwell wasn't talking about a gas stovetop but a coal or wood-fired one. The hob then is just a metal plate on top of the firebox.

    True, "hob" meant something different back then (as I learned from this
    very thread). The point is that a heat tamer lets me emulate that metal
    plate of old, using my present-day gas hob.

    --
    Dario Niedermann. Also on the Internet at:

    gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/ , http://devio.us/~ndr/

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