Nice Cup Of Tea

Chinese Workers Memorial, Murphy's, CA

Even in the U.K., getting home to a nice cup of tea is something to be appreciated. Getting a good tea flavour is very sensitive to the water used, its temperature, length of steeping and, of course, the kind of leaf. This all means that the maxim "there's no place like home" goes double when it's paired with a decent cuppa.

Alas, when travelling here in the USA you can basically forget it anywhere except at home. Time and time again, in hotels the notion of "hot tea" is something completely alien to all those involved. The water delivered to your table is anything but hot - and most certainly not boiling as it needs to be - and likely as not is served in a jug that's held coffee on 99 out of 100 previous occasions. When I first moved here I tried pointing this out, only to be met with a blank stare, a shrug or a "never thought of that" response. Sigh.

Given the long history of Asian influences in the Bay Area I had rather hoped that hotels round here would have figured this all out, but alas not. Peet's, Starbuck's etc. seem to do OK but then given what they charge one might hope so.

Therefore, I've basically given up, closing my eyes and drinking anyway whatever is dumped in front of me. On the plus side, at least it gives me something else to look forward to about getting home.

Pioneer Spirit

As I mentioned, we were off at a family reunion last weekend that took place close to Murphy's in the Gold Country in California. On the side of one of the downtown buildings is a collection of ceramic plaques commemorating significant people, places or things tied to the founding and development of this area during the gold rush.

The particular man shown here commemorated in this way was Jedediah Strong Smith, and I quote:

"A great mountain man and trail blazer. He was the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevada range. In 1827 he and his men trapped in the general Mother Lode area - along Lone Tree Creek, the Calaveras, the Mokelumne and the Consumnes Rivers."

Hard now to imagine what that must have really been like ... except that there remain great areas of wilderness up there, and every year hikers get lost, and sometimes perish still, out in these mountains. To therefore have been the first non-Native American to cross the Sierras from the East, to have survived that ordeal and indeed to have flourished once reaching the other side is a truly impressive feat. Never was a man better labelled than to be given the middle name of Strong.