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Drinks
The bubbling and loud hissing urn, Throws up a steaming column; and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each; So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
TEA. -COWPHR.
When the water in the tea-kettle begins to boil, have ready a tin tea-steeper; pour into the tea-steeper just a very little of the boiling water, and then put in tea, allowing one teaspoon of tea to each person. Pour over this boiling water until the steeper is little more than half full; cover tightly and let it stand where it will keep hot, but not boil. Let the tea infuse for ten or fifteen minutes, and then pour into the tea urn, adding more boiling water, in the proportion of one cup of water for every teaspoon of dry tea which has been infused. Have boiling water in a water pot, and weaken each cup of tea as desired. Do not use water for tea that has boiled long. Spring water is best for tea, and filtered water next best.
This is a working method for brewing a concentrate and diluting it at the table, which is how tea was served from an urn to a room full of people. Most of it holds up; the steeping time does not.
- Cut the infusion timeTen to fifteen minutes will make black tea harsh and astringent, since tannins extract long after the flavour compounds have. Three to five minutes is the working range for black tea; the recipe's later dilution with plain hot water may be part of why so long a steep was acceptable here.
- The tea-steeperA small lidded pot (the recipe specifies tin) used only for making the strong infusion, separate from the urn it was poured into. Any teapot works; the point is that it is warmed first with a splash of boiling water, which the recipe is careful to specify.
- Strength and dilutionOne teaspoon of leaf per person, infused in roughly half a steeper of water, then let down with one cup of boiling water per teaspoon used. That final ratio, about one teaspoon of leaf per cup, is still standard; the two-stage method simply lets each drinker take it stronger or weaker.
- "Hot, but not boil"The hinge of the whole thing. Tea held at a simmer, or reheated, turns bitter and flat. Keep the steeper on a warm surface or under a cosy, never over direct heat.
- Water that has not boiled longOld cookbooks are firm on this and modern tasters generally agree: water boiled hard or reboiled tastes flat, traditionally attributed to loss of dissolved gases. Fill the kettle fresh and take it off as soon as it boils.
- Spring waterMineral content matters: very hard water dulls tea and leaves a film on the surface, and heavily chlorinated tap water is worse. In 1877 the preference is likely to have concerned cleanliness as much as taste, which is why filtered water is named as the fallback; a simple household filter remains the practical answer.
- YieldScale by the drinker. For six people, six teaspoons of leaf and six cups of boiling water added after infusion, plus a pot of plain hot water on the side.
The verse is Cowper's, from The Task (1785) — "the cups that cheer but not inebriate" — appearing here as "COWPHR", a misprint. Its presence at the head of a chapter of drinks is not decorative: temperance sentiment ran strong through North American community cookbooks of the period, and tea was the respectable evening drink, the one that cheered without inebriating. The method itself belongs to the age of the tea urn, a large heated vessel that held hot water or diluted tea for a household or a church supper, which is why the recipe brews a concentrate rather than a pot. The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in 1877 by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada" in aid of the Hospital for Sick Children, and this kind of practical, scalable instruction reflects women who were used to pouring for a crowd.