Army Tea

[drummer]

I have read much of the restorative powers of Army Tea and, in those readings, its issue and consumption seem to have been a much bigger event for the Tommy than coffee was to a GI. As I am from the US, I admit to not knowing my tea from cricket rules, and in fact have just discovered that what we call tea here consists mostly of the sweepings from the tea factory floor.

So what was it? Was it the type of tea, or the method of brewing, or the strong cultural influence of the beverage? Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Drummer

[marina]

No mystery - it's delicious!

Marina

[Kate Wills]

I have read much of the restorative powers of Army Tea ...and in fact have just discovered that what we call tea here consists mostly of the sweepings from the tea factory floor.

So what was it? Was it the type of tea, or the method of brewing, ...Drummer

Well for a start they brewed free-range tea. No teabags, which are the sweepings from the factory floor, or for a better class of bag, the last knockings* from the tea chest. Tommies brewed with loose tea, like the rest of the population. I don't know which brand, though Mazawahtee was popular. Most tea was bought loose from the grocer, weighed out and packed in a small brown bag.

*OK, if I have inadvertantly stepped in a double entendre, just guffaw!

[Barry Hayter]

I've read a lot about advanced troops and front line soldiers struggling to get a decent heat on portable heat source so assuming they brewed the tea in the same vessel as they heated the water I imagine it was extremely strong and bitter.

Back at base however I suppose this was not the case.

Just a guess to be honest.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

Guffaw!!

The trouble is Americans do not know how to make Tea!

a} The Pot has to be Warmed with boiling water

b} The Tea has to be measured~One Caddy Spoon per Cup expected from it + a further spoonful.

c} The Water MUST be BOILING,not just brought to the boil{unlike coffee tea doesnt go Bitter by adding Boiling water}

d} The Milk should be put in the cup first

e} The Tea must be allowed to infuse~@ least 7 minutes,but not allowed to stew.

f} Pour tea onto Milk,sweeten if so desired,with white sugar,stir clockwise 10 times{joking~pedants} & drink whilst hot~asbestos throat is desirable

g} Accompany with a good arrowroot biscuit ~ but NO dunking!!

Army Tea Thick Brown Liquid Milked & Sweetened with Condensed Milk Luverly!!

[delta]

g} dunking allowed with dog biscuits!

[Kate Wills]

f} Pout tea onto Milk,sweeten if so desired, stir clockwise 10 times

Anti-clockwise if brewing in the Southern hemisphere.

I never pout when making tea. A holistic appraoch is needed. Brew in a calm atmosphere, and this will be transeferred to the tea table.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

You got me!

I always use a Tea~Pout Never a Tea Bag in a Mug!

"Army Tea:~What was there about it?"~~~~Reputedly the Bromide!!!

[PhilB]

Army tea does acquire a certain je ne sais quoi when coming off stag at 3am, having been brewed at 10pm and delivered to the guard room in an insulated container. Phil B

[delta]

Brewed as late at 10 PM! you were spoiled - more likely 6.00 PM

[Rob B]

Let us not forget that key to this secret is the recipe. The tea is tenderly poured in a Hay box then covered in sugar and condensed milk to reinforce the sugar. Boiling water is then poured over it and stirred vigoursly with a metal long handled spoon. This brew is left for at least four hours before drinking best served at 3am with a fag-restorative or what!

Rob

[nfh249]

The 3 most important (simple little) things I always valued; clean dry socks, a chance to brush your teeth and a mug of NATO standard (milk & two sugars) Tea.

Neil.

[Rob B]

Clean dry socks-(deep joy) but the fag and tea at sunrise after stand down in the slit trench always set me up for the day.

Rob

[Glosters]

I was talking to a Falklands Para veteran who was describing what it was like to be under fire. He told about being stuck behind a small hillock with 8 men. They tried each side of the hillock and were met with a hail of gunfire, they tried going over the top and with the same result. They decided to wait a while and then someone noticed another para crouched behind a bush to their right. He was making a brew

Steve

[delta]

If in trouble or in doubt

Get the **** brew can out

[Arnie]

In Malaya tea was always made to the same old soldiers recipe; boiling water, condensed milk and plenty of sugar. However the recipe could be enhanced with the rum ration to turn it into'Serjeant Majors tea' aka 'Gunfire'. We also made a massive tea bag out of a shell dressing rinsed out. This enabled you to use the tea twice when neccessary. Of course the Aluminium mug would not allow you to drink the tea unless you placed tin foil around the rim of the mug of the, to prevent burning the lips

Arnie

[Arnie]

Sorry PS

At the begining of WW2 the British Government bought the whole worlds production of tea to ensure there were no shortages

Arnjie

[Guest geoff501]

The only Great War tea story I have encountered is in Edwin Campion Vaughan's Some Desperate Glory:

"February 9 (1917) Day spent in the same way as yesterday. We had no food or water, but Dunham got a large chunk of ice out of a shell hole behind us, so we had some milkless tea. I was a little dubious about using shell-hole water, but it was perfectly white and I should think any germs would be frozen.

.

.

.

April 24 (1917) Was delighted today to be sent back with Pepper to salvage the old trenches at Bianches. I had been longing to look around our old positions from the enemy side.... .. I had a look at one old shelter behind Desirée and saw that the one from which Dunham had got ice for our tea, was full of green water in which lay a rotting Frenchman - yet our tea had tasted quite good."

[Alan_J]

Just reading a memoir by a soldier who served initially in the ranks with the 4/Gloucesters. His description of Army cooking and tea is not quite so rosy!

He describes how two dixies were used, for the tea in the morning and the evening, and at midday to cook stew. They were never washed and so the "tea was flavoured with onions, and the stew tasted of tannin". Further, the lids of these dixies were used as frying pans for bacon, then put back on to act as lids when the tea was boiled, so the tea contained the congealed fat that then dripped back into it! The men had to wash their mess tins in a muddy stream then dry them with their hankies!

He does say that they used to shave with the tea, as they couldn't get hot water.

Never been a tea man, I'll stick to latte.

Alan

[Owen D]

What was it we used to say?

"Only Yanks and poofs drink coffee."

I know that's not PC but it shows what we thought of that drink.

Tea and Wadworths 6X only things worth drinking.

[Guest geoff501]

Tea and Wadworths 6X only things worth drinking.

Agree, if it is Rooibos tea and you're right Waddy's 6X (AKA canal water) is OK

[SteveB]

Excellent thread this. Love my tea. Following my example , virtually the whole of my work follows me in doing a brew at 9.30, 11 ish and at 3. You can almost set your watch by it.

Read a book by an American para from WW2 who complained that when the British Army were racing through Holland to attempt to relieve Arnhem, the British tankers would always stop for tea at 3, much to his frustration!.

SteveB

[Jimothy]

I have read much of the restorative powers of Army Tea and, in those readings, its issue and consumption seem to have been a much bigger event for the Tommy than coffee was to a GI. As I am from the US, I admit to not knowing my tea from cricket rules, and in fact have just discovered that what we call tea here consists mostly of the sweepings from the tea factory floor.

So what was it? Was it the type of tea, or the method of brewing, or the strong cultural influence of the beverage? Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Drummer

As Captain Mainwaring would probably say, "good grief man, we're British. What else could we possibly drink?"

As someone who spent 20 years working in the rail industry (for those who don;t know, British Rail was run on tea and f*** it!) I can categorically say that there is nothing in the whole world quite like a nice cup of tea. It is the cure for all ills.

[healdav]

In, I think, Cornelius Ryan's Longest Day, there is an old sergeant brewing up on the beach on D-Day.

A young, keen officer comes along and asks incredulously what he thinks he's doing.

"Look, Sir, this isn't an exercise, come back in five minutes and have a cup".

He did.

[AndyHollinger]

One aspect of the answer of course is that Tea for British or Coffee for Americans is a break from both the exciting part and tedious part of war ... it is also a tie from/to home.

Maybe it's my advancing years ... but I remember my Spec 4 driver warming up Army Coffee by putting several canteens (okay I'm an old **** and that's when canteens were metal) in the engine compartment of the M60A3 and running it up and down a couple of hills ... the coffee smelt and tasted a bit like diesel ... but it was coffee ...

I remember supervising a platoon cleaning tanks at 2:30 AM on a March morning in Ft Knox ... and everyone ... breaking for coffee - freshly made from the maint areas "borrowed" pot ... and the entire platoon sighing ... while some strumpted up Bird strutted and tore my butt a new ... over the work stoppage ... but it was worth it ...

It is both a symbol and a real piece of ones life linked to tastes and smells ... I can still smell the mixture of spent 120mm and hydralic fluid (that sticky red stuff) and mud and human smell that is the inside of a M60A3 ... or of diesel in the morning ... a Lucky Strike worn for hours and finally smoked while one squatted off the back of your tank (rank knows no bounds if ya gotta go)

My suspicion is that Army Tea is something like the taste of the particular Coffee taste of 3 day old but longed for Joe ... or that cigarette (when we were allowed such things) ... others ... the Jam tin in real C-rations ... the Chocolate bar in such things ... the taste of a shared cigarette on a frigid morning huddled under the tank ...

Lots of them ...