An ode to tea...

PG Tips (warning: website includes slightly disturbing talking/staring monkey) tea to be precise.

An American colleague asked me if I ate lots of nice food while I was back in England at xmas. After I'd stopped laughing I did concede that I always enjoyed the bread and cheese back home, and do try and go for a curry just cos I can have it with rice other than Japanese rice, which I don't really find goes with curry. Oh, and bacon. Then there's tea. Now the tea in Japan is fine. It's not quite as nice as PG Tips, but then again neither is Tetley, but it is tea. It's pretty cheap aswell and very drinkable. So, no problem there, and what with Marmite being available in Jupiter and the high quality of food here (Asian or European) there really is nothing I miss foodwise about the UK (apart from your cooking Dad naturally....and you're not even English). I dread to think of a life without Ramen, Sushi, Okonomiyaki, Onigiri, Yakiniku, Soba, Kirin Lemon tea and Dars 100 yen chocolate. Oh and yakitori. I could go on.

Anyway, back to tea. This year's Omiyage involved a lot of PG Tips for expats and locals alike. I never really realised how NICE tea from England (not strictly from England obviously, you know what I mean) is until I lived in Madrid. Good GOD tea in Spain is undrinkable. Hideous tasteless dishwater. Emergency flares were sent up and luckily a steady stream of visitors kept us well in supply of our drug of choice. I think we even discovered you could buy PG Tips at an Asian food store. I suppose it is from Asia. Anyway, 2 tea stories that should leave you in no doubt as to the strength (brew) of a good cuppa...

1. In tea hell, Spain, I used to work for a British English language school. As you can imagine a lot of tea 'went down' in the staff room as most of us kept up the supplies with regular shipments from back home. Isabela, our secretary, eventually succumbed to the pressure of her peers and started taking the odd drop of cha. I remember her coming in one day to be offered a hot drink. Tea please she said only to break into a classic Madrilena sneer when she saw me reach for the only tea we had left (Spanish), 'Errrr not those ones, I want the ones you all usually drink' said the former dedicated coffee drinker. Don't think she'll be swapping her morcilla for black pudding though.

2. Concerning the omiyage I brought back this year. I presented my chum with a box of PG's finest at Opium the other day. Sometime 3K DJs Kazu and Daisuke where there with their lady friends. I don't think I have ever seen Kazu get so excited as when he spotted the box of PG. Jumping over to our table....EHHHH! Nani Kore? PG Tips!! Nande!!? Kazu used to live in England you see. His excitement drew the others over and for the first time in my life I think, I saw a Japanese person praise part of English cuisine......BARI UMAI! You should have heard him wax lyrical on how good it is. After that review we dolled out a bag each. Later on I noticed Kazu had 2 bags infront of him....one for his girlfriend he claimed.

Maybe I could become a PG pusher?