Last week I walked out of King’s Cross station with my daughter. As we turned on to Euston Road, I told her about the time I nearly missed the Sleeper I’d booked to visit my grandmother in Aberdeen because I went to King’s Cross instead of Euston. I had to run down the road carrying a huge rucksack to get there in time. I told my daughter how I used to visit my grandmother for her birthday in January every year, and how much I loved taking the train overnight. It made me think of Love Tea, so I bought it again today.
Image: https://www.pukkaherbs.com/uk/en/products/organic-teas.html
I loved the idea of Love Tea as soon as I saw it advertised and went straight out and bought it. In retrospect it seems odd to associate herbal tea with romance – in fact anything non-alcoholic seems a bit of a stretch – but that was what I was expecting when I bought it. I got something else entirely.
I explain what we’re testing to The Wife. She inspects the box. ‘Hang on,’ she says, ‘I’ve got to put my glasses on because the writing’s too small.’ A small pause while these are retrieved. ‘Seems to have all girls all over it, there are only two boys down the bottom. It reminds me of that thing…’ Eh?
‘It was on TV in the seventies and eighties, I can’t remember, maybe a Bond movie? There’s always dancing girls in Bond. It went doo-doo-doo… I can’t remember. Anyway, it looks like that.’ She starts trying to work out which are boys and which are girls from the bottom shape. It’s probably time to brew up.
The box suggests infusing for up to fifteen minutes, but our tea looks pretty substantial after five minutes, so I withdraw the bag. I hand The Wife hers, in a mug with a faded Shuri Castle print.
‘I never think fruit tea has a good colour. This one looks like wee. It does!’ She sips and giggles. ‘It’s ‘cos I always look at wee ‘cos I have to. As an athlete. Maybe it’s the mug…’
‘Taste-wise, I do taste quite a lot of lavender and was that because I read that there was a lot of lavender in it, or because it tastes of lavender? Is that rose in there? Maybe we need to dunk the teabag for a bit longer to get another flavour in there. Hmm…’ She sighs, contemplatively.
She continues: ‘I hope this isn’t like the valerian and it makes you sleep and I don’t wake up in the morning.’ She makes hand gestures conveying uncertainty. ‘A bit odd.’ She puts the cup down, picks up her tape measure and goes back to visualising furniture. ‘Yeah,’ she says from over by the telly. ‘Strange taste I think… Have you tasted it?… Oh, this is annoying me now. What is the name of that thing on TV?’
It smells like health food shops. Not Planet Organic or any other modern place: I mean the ones from the eighties, when eating tofu was a bit niche and only done by people in tie dye everything who wore socks and sandals (shockingly, even the latter is fashionable now) – and my granny. Long before it was fashionable, she was a strong believer in organic, holistic wholemeal everything, but also believed that this should be served with butter, cream and full-fat milk – none of your low-fat margarine nonsense. There was a particular vegan paté she favoured; her home-made muesli; dandelion coffee; and robust, grainy bread – plus apparently healthy yet wildly sugary biscuits. In the mornings she made me buttery egg on sturdy toast and set it down on a perfectly laid table, where it was dwarfed by heavy silver cutlery. In the evening she gave me ‘Night time tea’ from a box with a teddy bear in pyjamas on it. Love Tea tastes like her kitchen smelled. It doesn’t taste like any of the things that it’s made of; it smells of dark and heavy Victorian furniture, a sort of musty dustiness with depth. It’s smooth and strangely soothing.
The Wife is still researching the box. ‘Oh was it Roald Dahl? No…’ She supplies me with wine, for romance, still pondering. ‘Tales of the Unexpected!’ she announces, triumphantly. ‘That’s what it was!’ We finish the tea and I start the wine, watching the intro sequence on YouTube.
Some other thoughts 