[Sca-cooks] Tea water, was raised crusts

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Edouard de Bruyerecourt:
>A F Murphy wrote:
>>
>>  Well... I have accepted that, if I order tea in a restaurant, I will get
>>  a cup of sort of hot water with a tea bag nestled coyly beside it. The
>>  only way you can make real actual tea, as opposed to colored water, is
>>  to pour boiling water over the tea... So, I simply refuse to drink tea
>>  in restaurants. (Except the Indian place in my neighborhood. They make
>>  good tea.) 185 isn't hot enough, but I don't think 195 is that great an
>>  improvement.
>
>I find the hotness of tea water varies from business to business, and
>will also vary depending on whether or not your server drinks tea
>themselves.

And whether the tea the server drinks is in an English style.

<snip>

>Tea will brew in less than boiling water. It just takes longer. We've
>made cold brew ice tea, but it takes overnight. Not timely while you're
>waiting for your frittata, though. And I find cold brewing produces a
>flavourful, but less bitter/acidic tea that doesn't go bad as soon. I
>understand that's why we don't _boil_ tea, as it realeases bitter oils.

I've never understood the concept of brewing tea either at a
strength, or for a length of time, such that its primary flavor is
that of tannic acid. Making it so strong that it has to have milk
added (let alone sugar -- bleahh!) seems sort of pointless, unless
you simply need the milk for some dietary purpose, in which case it's
probably easier to drink milk straight up. Personally, I favor a
wholesale replacement of the whole tea with milk/cream [and sugar]
thing with the Digby tea with eggs, a sort of caudle made with
freshly brewed tea. Or how about some nice [ever-so-slightly-rancid]
yak butter instead?

It's more than a bit like dowsing food with ketchup or salt without
even tasting it beforehand.

Yes, it is often a matter of taste and of acclimatization, but when
it is an affectation, as often appears to be the case when a certain
degree of exactitude is exceeded, I find it, well, silly is probably
the most diplomatic term. I've always been amused at the idea of
Chinese tea (generally much less aggressive and more subtle than even
Indian tea, let alone English tea preparations) is thought by some to
be tasteless, and then see those same people adding sugar to it.

<snip>

>You take you chances asking for hotter water while traveling and eating
>at new places, but cultivating regular business at a few local places
>helps a lot. Certain customers I automatically will make the extra trip
>to the espresso machine for hotter water. I one even 'steamed' the water
>in a hoddle just like one would steam milk for a latte, until it was
>seriously boiling, then carried it right to the table. The asked me both
>politely and insistantly that they wanted as hot of water as I could
>manage.
>
>Of course, I admit, that's me. I've worked with servers that I'd have
>loved to locked in the walkin freezer and left for the night.

I've always gotten the impression that the _occasional_ server (I
have never been a server and so will not generalize) will "punish"
the customer for any request that is out of the ordinary. Ask for a
dish to be hotter, spicier, more well-done, less well-done, etc., and
you can get something prepared to such an extreme as to make it
nearly inedible by most people's standards. Letting the best be the
enemy of the good, you might say. Of course, this could also be a
matter of expediency: most restaurants are staffed and organized in
such a way that, once they have to prepare the same cup of tea twice,
they need to do almost anything to avoid having to do it a third
time. If they have the time to do it a third time, one could argue
they're overstaffed, and if they need to do it a third time, they may
have lost one or more customers.

Adamantius (coffee is allowed to have milk added when it is dreadful;
otherwise, no.)