Drinking a cup of tea in the place where the tea was grown and harvested was a unique experience yesterday.

Tregothnan tea used to be a treat when we lived in London. Swanky afternoon teas were sometimes unavoidable. Some swanky places served shockingly bad afternoon teas and some swanky places were shockingly bad at serving good afternoon teas. But if the actual tea served was Tregothnan  then the tea at least was of a fabulous standard.*

Odd then that it took us until yesterday to visit the Tregothnan Estate to drink a cup of tea with zero air miles. 11,000 steps in a beautiful Spring Garden in Springlike weather felt like just the right level of exercise to work up a thirst.

*Today’s ponder,triggered by a good cup of tea, ponders the oddest afternoon tea ever. We were at a hotel opposite the BBC’s headquarters in Langam Place, London on a very dull winter Saturday. We were there to celebrate two birthdays with some new friends.  Close to where two of us worked. Afternoon Tea service was in full swing, maybe even exceptional full swing. We had ordered Tregothnan Tea, but that was about as fancy as our order got. Our waiter was rather too attentive, but not fully concentrating. My work colleague, Mark, was twinkling a little. An enormous Birthday Cake was circling the room, the room swelling, with that somewhat difficult to sing birthday melody. The cake circled the room twice, nobody owned up to the birthday or the cake.  In a flourish our waiter called the cake over to our table, we had birthday cards opened. So he came up with a plan. The cake was delivered to our table, we were told to pretend it was for us. Four slices were served and apparently we then generously donated the rest to other diners who might want to share it.

When we went to pay our bill we pointed out again that the cake was not ours. Apparently it had been sent out during the wrong afternoon tea session. The whole room benefited from the error, Mark’s twinkling had just alerted the staff to birthday cards on our table where the cake could be delivered, masking the error. What happened at the session when the cake should have been delivered is anybody’s guess. It was not the sort of cake that could be whisked up  in a moment or any number of moments. It was not Colin the Caterpillar.