5 o'Clock Tea with Anne Barone

A tranquil spot, a cup of tea, a book, and something to nibble. Afternoon tea is my favorite time of day. Please join me for Thé de 5 Heures.

A Lyons Tea for the Holidays

|| 23 December 2018

Often in those classic English mysteries I love someone is taking tea in a Lyons tea shop. When I saw Lyons tea available on the English Tea Store, I ordered a box of the Original Blend. I thought Lyons tea was tea that was served in the Lyons' Corner Houses of the British J. Lyons & Co. Begun in 1909 those establishments have not been around since 1977, I learned. Oh dear! I was confused.

Now I know that Lyons Tea is an Irish tea, begun in Dublin in 1902 and since 1996 owned by Unilever — and is not the tea of the Lyons' Corner Houses. Though adding to the confusion, I suppose, is that the Lyons tea that I purchased and have been drinking recently is today blended in England, not Ireland.

One way to keep the teas straight is that the Irish tea is Lyons Tea and the British tea was Lyons’ Tea with an apostrophe after the s.

thé du jour / today’s tea

The Irish Lyons developed this tea to for optimum taste with the water from limestone sources in Ireland. I found this tea tasted best if I brewed it using purchased spring water from a limestone source. I don’t enjoy the Lyons tea flavor as much if brewed with water I have filtered in my Britta water filter. That brew doesn’t have the smoothness that I get with the spring water.

The box of Lyons tea you see in the photo is not special packaging for the holiday season. Red and green is the color scheme for the original blend packaging. But since red and green are signature colors of this holiday season I thought it was a good time to have A Lyons Tea on 5 o’Clock Tea.

Tea Accessories: Items from family friends and Christmases past.

These days, for me, the holiday season brings memories my holidays in previous years. I have chosen for this Lyons Christmas tea a cup and saucer that previously belonged to a family friend who received a set of four when she married circa 1910. (A handsome actor with a traveling theatrical troupe — but it turned out happily.) The tea cozy on the teapot was handmade by another family friend, an expert knitter, who made several tea cozies for me — as well as sweaters and afghans.

For decoration I added a ceramic Christmas tree my son made, an elementary school art project; also a Santa that is actually a bell a party favor from a long ago holiday luncheon. Santa is holding a sign that says: Blessed Noel. I am sure my fondness for it is because it has the French word for Christmas. Then there is some faux holly that once sat atop a wrapped gift, but always comes in handy to stick somewhere in holiday decorating. All these icons of Christmases past arranged across the table runner that centered my mother’s dining table for so many years of family Christmas dinners.

le casse-croûte / the snack: Made in France brioche.

I first found this brioche (baked in France and shipped to the USA) in the 2017 holiday season at — of all places — Walmart. I thought the store did not stock it this year. But with persistence I found it. This year Walmart packaged it under their house brand label. But the brioche label still says Made in France.

Susan in Hamilton reported several weeks ago that she found similar Made in France brioche at an Aldi store. Does it taste like French bakery brioche — or like the brioche I made myself after someone gave me fluted brioche pans? No, but this Marbled Chocolate Brioche does taste nice with a cup of hot Lyons tea.

à lire / to read: France’s Yellow Vests Reveal a Crisis of Mobility in All Its Forms

This New York Times column is an even better analysis about what is going on in France with the yellow jacket protests than the article I previously suggested. As the author pointed out, the protests are against a lack of mobility — both geographical (for work and shopping) as well as social mobility.

The decline in small French towns and villages this article describes happened decades ago here in the USA.

Yellow Vests Reveal a Crisis of Mobility

top image: Lyons tea package and cup of brewed tea on red table runner with pot of tea covered with red, white and green tea cozy

second image: Made in France chocolate marbled brioche with silver server

Index to 5 o'Clock Teas