GEORGES
FAVOURITE
TEA

This hot little number in the Tea World is evidently grown in Kenya which resides in that great continent of Africa. It concerns the 'tips' of the leaves, supposedly not the best part of the plant in the benevolence stakes, for rumour has it that most of the goodness is in the rest of the leaf. Oh dear. However, if its taste ones after, the tips are tastingly tantalizing, and i'm hoping that they contain at least a few droplets of elements that may protect my weak and feeble body from destruction.

Anyway, these tips are shipped to Britain where they are processed for customer consumption, the teabags are in the novelty 'pyramid' shape, a cracking 3-D effect that obviously gives the Tea grains more motion in the pot, thus, one assumes, creating a juicier brew. Ive not made any comparative tests, but let me tell you, ive supped enough gallons of this stuff, enough to fill oil tanker, and its jolly good.

I've tried so many different brands and types of Tea over the years and i've always come back to this. Heaven knows whats in it, but i'm happy enough with what it does for me. It would be nice, by the way, that after all these many years loyalty, those chaps at PG would at least throw me the odd free Teabag. But no, they just want to take my cash. They know im addicted, that i'm a slave to the Tea dealers. As long as I pay up, they'll leave me here on Tea Skid Row, begging for money for that next desperate Tea fix. Have they no heart?

The tragedy is, my favourite tea produces my favourite long running TV commercial here in Britain. Since the Sixties, these adverts have involved a gathering of little chimp 'actors' playing out a dilemna which always (that is, thru a sales pitching chimp script) ends with our heroes defering to a nice pot of PG Tips. This is more than a stroke of luck.

Here is a frame from a 1971 PG advert. Its the vignette called 'Mister Shifter', and the plot involves our intrepid removal men advancing the new piano upwards only to be destracted by the lady of the house offering an impromptu tea-refreshment. This leaves our boys with no alternative: They let go of the monsterous instrument to see it fly groundwards so that they may immediately collect their tea reward. The punchline, "You hum it son... i'll play it", is a milestone of Tea campaigning history. Its a little known gem that the chimps are offered chewing gum so that their mouths move during the take, this is great foundation for the human voice overdubbing that appears on the final cut.

A photograph of my Tea & Toast making central. Well, would you believe it. My beloved Kettle blew up, after nearly 20 years of faithful service. So it was out to the Argos store to get a new (cheap) one, which is very unlike my old Swan Kettle. The now dead Swan was of majestic classic kettle style, and we went through some tough times together. The new one works OK, but is less of a stunner. It boils water to a tea-making wamth, but so what?

I must also report a recent change in Teabags, that after a lifetime of PG tips, I dedided that I would rather have a real cup of mud. I wanted something really ghastly to drink, where you could taste the tree bark rather than the tips. And for this effect, I chose Tesco's Red Label Tea, which as well as being more economic, almost blows ones head clean off with hits hard hitting taste, especially if you leave it to brew for some time. Marvellous.

Dont worry, however, for I still use my old cracked china teapot, and hopefully always will. The Teapot mat is in tatters, and needs to be replaced. The old faithful red mug is chipped, but serves me well, and is the only one left from a bygone age. I do miss my 'smarties' china mug, which bit the dust about 10 years ago, after falling from a not so great height. The Argos toaster is an old workhorse, and gets a bloody good workout everyday, just to keep it match fit. I never get tired of tea & toast, it's marvellous !