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TEA CONNOISSEURS
This particular section of the General Index may amuse the reader but in sharp contrast to that amusement is the fact that these incidents have been taken from real life.
In 1929, T’sao Hsiieh-chin and Kao Ngoh published a book entitled The Dream of the Red Chamber, a curious novel (to say the least) about Chinese life and what it means to be a REAL CONNOISSEUR of tea. The book was written in English and, if you can find it, well worth reading. In the book a nun is offering tea to two guests; one is named Black Jade and the other Precious Virtue. I quote from the book published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., New York, 1929:
George Gissing, 1857-1903, declared in his book, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, “Nowhere is the English genius of domesticity more notably evidenced than in the festival of afternoon tea.” He went on to say:
The above is probably a purely masculine view of the subject of tea. May Sinclair, an English novelist and poet in days long gone, writes this very visual painting of an afternoon tea service in her book A Cure of Souls. The location of this scene is an English country town where all social life is centered about the parish church, the rectory, and the bachelor rector, a Rev. Mr. Canon Chamberlain. The Rev. is making a house call on Mrs. Beauchamp, a wealthy and attractive widow, who has just recently moved into the parish. I quote:
All aspects of tea, from the purchase to the preparation, are serious if one is to experience serious appreciation of it. Tea will give back to you exactly what you give to it (no more, no less).
The Tea Man
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