"This fun, juicy cup is tangy without getting too 'cheeky.'"
~ About raspberry tea at Adagio.com
When we're not snuggling up in our down comforters and feather mattresses with our dogs, what do the Northern folk do for comfort in the winter? Years ago I learned the Cream Tea secret for an afternoon delight.
At one time I visited Canada and the British Isles (England, Scotland, and Wales) quite a lot. I remember everything served at my very first Cream Tea: scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream and a pot of hot raspberry tea.
I baked scones this week and wondered why that specific combination of tastes, textures, and scents can be so satisfying on any afternoon, winter or summer, fall or spring. After all the family history revelations I've had lately that affirmed the Danes in my family settled in 11th century Scotland and its English Borders, it turns out the scone comes from the Scottish quick bread named for the town of Scone, Scotland.
Scones have been part of afternoon tea since the beginning of the 20th Century. They are simple to make, although the ingredients used and form they take vary among the countries and regions of the British Isles. They may be rolled flat or spooned high or baked in a round pan and cut into wedges.
From the day I lost my Cream Tea virginity, I have refused to fill my cup with anything except raspberry tea. Adagio.com offers a tantalizing description of the alluring brew. It is "a blend of crisp Ceylon black tea with a sweetly tart red raspberry flavor. Very candy-like aroma, delicately tangy and jammy raspberry flavor. Rounded texture, balanced astringency and sweet, slightly dry finish."
If that description doesn't tell you how sensual it is, consider that the name for raspberry tea was initially "ida," a reference to the mountain in modern-day Turkey where it originated. The people of Troy introduced the tea to the Western world along with their other unforgettable contribution, Helen of Troy.
The final phase of the Cream Tea involves the clotted cream mustache as you bite into a high, cool white mound. Technically, Devonshire cream must be made from the milk of cows from Devon, a region in southwest England. You can buy it in a jar or improvise by whipping heavy cream, but it's never quite the same as the real thing.
While researching this post, I found a recipe that supposedly makes a fairly close substitute.
Ingredients:
3 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Mix together the cream cheese, sugar and salt. Beat in cream until stiff peaks form. Chill until serving.
I haven't tried it yet. Let me know if you do and how it works for you.
12 comments:
I was introduced to coffee by my grandmother about the time I could ask - what's that in your cup - can I have some?
I started to explore tea a few years ago. I'm not a fan of traditional black tea. Also unfortunately not a fan of the berry or fruit type tea. So I would have to pass on your sensual raspberry delight. Although the scones sound really good. Mostly I go with green tea or rooibos, with white or vanilla almond as sometime diversions.
It's funny I can rarely drink my coffee without milk and sugar. Probably comes from those early coffees Gram served me - 90% milk 10% coffee with a heaping spoon of sugar. Later it was with fresh cream off the top of the milk. I have lately tried to move away from refined sugar. I use either raw honey or maple syrup.
But with tea I rarely sweeten it at all and never add milk or cream.
I had never heard of clotted cream. Sounds terrible. lol Leave it to the English to call something really sweet and creamy - clotted. Do you buy the real deal for your scones?
D.L. Wood
Haha, D.L., the cream is extraordinary. Yes, I've bought it imported from Devon, although for the sake of freshness, I've started just whipping the heavy whipping cream from our local store.
I wonder how many of us started with coffee as children who saw it as an adult drink? I also drink my tea straight, without cream or sugar. Perhaps that's because I appreciate a tangy or cheeky taste :-)
I'll make a go at it. I tried making my own pasta tonight, and mixed up two different recipes. I ended up eating a bowl of mush (that actually wasn't horrible). If I master hand-pulled pasta, I'll go for the dessert.
Phydeau, it's hard to ruin scones. Go for it! Then have a cuppa tea or coffee and kick back.
Ahhhh... happy memories :-) Grandma's house in Idaho, the smell of fresh baked bread. And scones. What I knew as scones wasn't like what you describe, maybe they were the American version or something. What I knew as scones was yeast dough rolled out flat, then rolled around a fruit preserve, or a big smear of honey, into a shape something like a long john donut and let rise again for a few minutes and fried while the loaves were baking (before it was time to get the chicken started, you know, in the HUGE cast iron skillet). I don't know what those should have been called, I just know they were sure a treat. And real butter, homemade stuff from back in the days when a couple of milk cows kept company with the old horse in the paddock adjoining the orchard that adjoined the back yard. Good times in the land of my father, before the (five favorite bad words) "modern world" caught up to southern Idaho and ruined it all.
I'm like D.L. where coffee is concerned, it was my first drug of choice. But I had to learn to drink it black early on. I was hyper as a kid, I'm sure now the snarkfarking bumblesnouk shrinks would stuff a kid like me full of enough speed to keep half the truckers running way, way past their legal logs (and then wonder why I turned into a meth addict later in life, but that's another subject). Anyhow, my mom was a fanatical Mormon so of course anything with caffeine in it was verboten at the house, but I got good at snitching and stashing dimes so I could buy a cup of donut house java on the way to school, I discovered it did wonderful things for concentration. After a while the old guy running the shop would give me a big cup if I didn't have the dime, and I always picked up some trash for him, so it all worked out. I've been drinking coffee since the third grade.
Never been a real big tea drinker, although I do have some favorites. Not surprisingly though most of them are from the darker and stronger varieties, Earl Gray at times, or the black tea/matte blends that pack a wallop to run heads up with espresso. What you describe sounds good though, I'll keep an eye out for some. There's this little health food-fad food-foreign folks food store here in town (lots of foreign students and a few old hippies to keep it going), they might stock some. Find all kinds of neat stuff in there.
Mmm...sounds yummy!
Nowadays I'm a devotee of chamomile tea instead, which also tastes very good. But for tea with scones, there's only one way to do it - a freshly brewed pot of Tetley tea with milk. It just wouldn't taste right otherwise (the British love their tea.)
Clotted cream is fantastic. I regularly bake fruit scones for the family with clotted cream and home-made jam from wild raspberries that grow in my garden. The downside of this is my rapidly expanding waistline :-)
Lin, chamomile tea is out for me. Chamomile is a ragweed, and I'm allergic. But I would love to sit down with you and your Tetley and fruit scones with wild raspberry jam and fresh clotted (yes, D.L., yummy) cream. Ahhhh, heaven.
I have two scones left. Like you, I am fighting the winter waistline and have rationed them out. And by the way, they are fruit scones - with raisins.
Cream Tea has to be an erotic experience.
Cyranos, I am gratified with these comments from male readers. I know men love great food, and I do believe food can be an erotic experience. Your description of the Idaho variation of the scone is drool-worthy.
Thanks so much, guys, for sharing. The way to a man's heart?
That song came out when I was in grade school. I thought it was about fireworks. My older brother informed me what it really alluded to. I love a good metaphor.
Skyrockets in flight...!!!
Because I'm lactose-intolerant, clotted cream is out for me. And I've always drunk my tea and coffee black and unsweetened. Strangely, I never drank coffee until about age 30. (I was working data entry and needed to stay awake! Amazing how good even machine coffee can taste when your eyes are closing but you can't fall asleep. *lol*)
Aside from a double-espresso, my tea of choice is Lapsang Souchong. Whenever I make it, my room smells like a campfire. Mmmmmm!
Jochanaan, you're right about the machine coffee. In fact, these days it's actually not bad!
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