Brownie Badge - making my first pot


My rose tinted memory glasses would have me believe that my relationship with making Tea started with a Brownie Badge, and not just any Brownie Badge. I was working towards achieving the Cookery Badge, for which I was required to cook Sunday breakfast.   

Dad was the recipient of my efforts, which I am sure were overseen by my Mum, and my success was dutifully documented in a report written by my Dad for Brown Owl.  Brown Owl needed to receive this report in order for the cooked breakfast to count as one of the tasks completed on the way to me achieving the badge.   

Brownies was tough.  One was not awarded a cookery badge for simply cooking one breakfast, there were others things that required cooking, or baking and my Dad did also love cake with his Tea... but I digress... the breakfast... What did I make? Was it a sausage sandwich, a bacon sandwich, did it include a fried egg? Maybe it did, but what I also remember is that the crucial component to the success of a good breakfast is timing; everything has it be ready at the same time! The tea must not be stewed and therefore the point at which the boiling water is poured into the teapot is critical to the tea drinking experience that  accompanies the eating of the breakfast.

Whether this was truly the first cup, or pot of tea I ever made I do not honestly know. I suspect I have probably conflated several tea related memories because alongside the breakfast making, I have another very distinct memory. .. I see myself one Saturday night during the  television advert break, entering the kitchen to make the family a pot of tea.  I was alone and recollect feeling very grown up.  Being tasked with this signified I was considered responsible enough to be in charge of boiling water, and indeed tall enough to reach the kettle and the teapot on the kitchen work surface.  I knew what I had to do as the tea ritual had been explained carefully to me: how many spoons of tea leaves to put into the pot, how long to let the tea to brew, the order – milk in the cup before the tea - and that everyone liked strong tea.

Looking back I see that this 'rite of passage' for the 7/8 year old me, was also one for my parents.  Once able to make tea, ta in bed on a Sunday morning became an expectation! 

I recall vividly the objects of the tea making; the tea leaves, the tea strainer, the silver tea pot, the tea caddy, and a silver sugar spoon   Beautifully crafted tools.  I must ask my mother where the sugar spoon is, as I know it is somewhere.

Oh yes there as also the  knitted tea cosy  made by my Nanna.



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