Monday, November 29, 2010

Sipping Tea -- Georgian Style



Five-Oclock-Tea walker cropped Is there no Latin word for Tea?  Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.
        Hilaire Belloc

No Latin for tea because tea didn't travel the silk roads all the way to the west.  In Roman times, tea was an entirely Chinese secret.  Tea only made it to Europe about 1600, the Dutch and the Portuguese carrying it home along with the other spoils of oriental trade.
 Galleon wii
It was the Age of Enlightenment. 
The Age of Exploration.  
The Age of Discovery. 
Europeans needed more than ale to fortify them for these earthshaking events.  They took to tea, coffee and chocolate like ducks to watercress.  
More at Word Wenches, here.

6 comments:

  1. Carol7:10 PM

    Lovely post at Word Wenches. Thought you were British so you would have drunk tea growing up etc. Am rereading Spymaster's Lady and yes I do love Adrian so. Can't wait for next book. Any book planned for Paxton?? or one for Severine? just enquiring.

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  2. Hi Carol --

    My mother drank tea, loose tea bade in a pot. She had a collection of the most lovely antique tea cups she'd bought all over the world.

    I always wanted to drink coffee though, taking after my father.

    I am not thinking about the next book, being deeply immersed in dissatifaction with this one. (sigh)

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  3. Four words: Publisher's, Weekly, Library, Journal. *g*

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  4. I am so rocked back on my heels by that.

    We always see the flaws in our own works. A friend said, "They don't know what you'd have done if you'd had more time. So they don't miss it."
    Or something like that.

    Which is a good general piece of advice about the difference between our 'book ideal', the book in posse and the book we end up with, the book in esse.

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  5. Christine9:36 AM

    You probably already know by now by Spymaster's Lady made the #20 spot on the AAR list of 100 best romance novels as voted by the readers. Congratulations! (It was #2 on my list- right after My Lord and Spymaster ;0)

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  6. Oh Good Heavens.

    I had no idea. I've been up to my gills in the manuscript, (still am,) and I haven't looked at the lists.

    How wonderful.

    Thank you for telling me.
    Thank you.

    I opened your message first thing in the morning, even before I had my cup of coffee, (though not before I fed the dog and cat.) What an utterly cool way to say hello to the day.

    I shall go brag about this.

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