THAT COSY FEELING

Helen Tidy’s going green with her cuppa

Is it just me that likes to make time for rituals in the midst of the everyday? I suspect not. And, in my experience, nothing quite beats the rituals of making tea. Not that I actually drink it. Well, not black tea that is. Apart from the occasional cup of Earl Grey, I despise the stuff. I suspect it is a long dislike of milk that has caused this ridiculously unBritish flaw in my character but there we have it. That said, I do like all manner of other teas. I say ‘tea’ but really, they bear no resemblance to proper tea. My staples are a green tea with mint and lime, and various rooibos options. Andy, meanwhile, enjoys proper tea. Builders’ tea with a dash of milk.

Like most people in the UK, we have generally favoured our tea in teabags. At least we did until discovering that teabags contained plastic. Thankfully many companies are changing their production and increasingly it is possible to buy plastic-free teabags. But how ridiculous that plastic has become so integral to our lives that we even have it in our teabags? Fed up with the search, I have been buying loose teas for some time. Andy’s standard tea comes from a plastic-free teabag company so that’s not changed. However, while I am happy to faff around with teapots when properly awake, I needed something simple to get me started with my first cuppa of the day. I am not a morning person, so something simple really was imperative. A homemade reusable teabag has become the answer.