I had two meetings last night and was so sick of the computer that I didn’t have the mental energy to write, but tonight, I baked (finally!!) and am actually feeling pretty good because I thought I failed but I did not.

I’m also done with A Social History of Tea (waiting time for the cake to bake), which means that I’ve covered the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty first centuries in American and British tea history. Some of the subjects I liked:

• Different authors and how they treat tea – Jane Austen was mentioned and this made me want to buy Tea with Jane Austen again!
• Tea’s connection to the suffrage movement
• The tea rooms in America – I forgot they were a thing! I always associate afternoon tea with the UK so it’s good to be reminded that the UK didn’t have exclusive domain over this practice
• The steep decline of tea in the twentieth century, which happened as the cost of tea got lower. Lower prices of tea means it’s more accessible, but at what cost to the appreciation of tea?

I’ve read a few more tea books since I first read this, so I also noticed some things that I don’t quite agree with – for example, they mentioned that when Lu Yu wrote the Cha Jing (Classic of Tea), there was only one word for tea. Actually, the word cha (茶) might have been coined for this period where tea became popular throughout China, moving from the south to the North. There would be a few words, such as 荼 (tu) which could mean tea or other herbs. So to say there was only one word for tea is not quite true – tea was undergoing its birth around that time and things probably weren’t quite as clear cut as the word was formed and adopted.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this! I like all the research into how tea was taken in various families, both rich and poor, and how it moves between the tea scene in America and Britain.

Today’s Bake

I just snapped this shot so sorry for the harsh lighting! It’s a self-saucing chocolate pudding! I will write more about this soon (hopefully? If I can make cookies on Sunday, I don’t know why but I like to have three bakes before I talk about them) but basically, I thought that I failed because of the streaks of sauce on top, but I found the chocolate sauce in the middle so it’s a success and I’m all pumped up.

To be honest, I was feeling a little down because I’m meant to go to Japan today and then the pandemic happened, so I posted a little mopey post on Instagram (although looking at photos of my past trip cheered me up) but this baking success has lifted my spirits considerably.