There are many famous people I would love to have tea with. Plato, the Doctor in all his incarnations and with Amy, Sherlock Holmes, even though I would probably be pointed out things about myself that I do not want to know, Newton with Apple pie, Lipton to show him what his legacy has become, Thomas Sullivan to show him the nightmare he caused, Virginia Woolf to get a stream of thoughts, Kaldi to teach him that tea is better than coffee and that he should not listen to his goats, O.B. Bommel if you understand what I mean, Shifu to give him a moments rest from teaching Po, Peter Parker to see if caffeine really has that effect on spiderwebs, Neil Armstrong on the Moon, Victor Hugo to relieve the Miserables and of course many, many, many more.
And just now I had “Tea with Jane Austen”. That is the book by Kim Wilson. In this book Kim takes the reader with her to England around 1800. There we delve with the guidance of Jane into the life in Britain during that age. That is society life of course. Mixing tea references from Jane’s books and letters with some social history.
Tea with Jane Austen
The exploration is divided in 5 themes:
- Breakfast: To start with.
- Shopping: From buying to drink with filled bags.
- Out: From recurpation of travel to drinking tea somewhere else.
- Health: from tea as medicine to a comfort drink .
- Evening: To end it all at whatever time and with whichever company and events fancies us.
All parts end with a few recipies of the age. Each recipy is given twice. One taken from a contemporary cookbook and the other a modernized version for whoever want to try this today.
It was a good and comforting read. Teaching me more about English life and society around 1800, the place of tea in it and of course about Jane and her work. The book is richly illustrated with contemporary engravings. The only real problem with the book is that it makes me want more of it. And I could if I had a garden.
Tea with Jane Austen and with some Sense and Sensibility become her.
I hope the tea was the centre of their lifes. 😉
Drinking tea with Plato? I wonder what he would drink.
Did not think about that. But this means it would probably be a new experience for him. That could be interesting in itself. But probably someone else beat me to it.
I should have written “that TEA” rather than “the tea” (sometimes I write too quickly).
A post that pushes most of my buttons. When i have finished mucking about in the 1700s, i should join you over tea.