TWININGS IRISH BREAKFAST: FEATURED TEA OF THE WEEK



Being of Irish decent, I am deeply drawn to the country and people of Ireland…Dare I say, I don’t fully understand the tug and pull of my very soul to a land I’ve never known. Yet, it exists within me and I know that I will not be truly content until I see Ireland, someday very soon……

What I find very interesting is that Ireland has the highest per capita tea consumption in the world at 3.2 kg (7 lb) per head per year. Hum… my English ancestry combined with the Celts just might explain my obsession with all things tea and British Isle- related …With all that in mind, the featured tea of the week is Twinings Irish Breakfast. This is of course a blend of many black teas with Assam perhaps being the most prominent. According to James Norwood Pratt’s Tea Lover’s Treasury, there is believed to have once been a very strong preference for Assam among the Irish... Just why this was so remains a bit of a mystery. Also interesting to note is that the Irish are in fact among the most discerning tea drinkers in the world and in “regards to taste and leaf appearance, quality is an obsession.” Hum…and you thought I was joking about my ancestry playing a part in my own obsession……

In Ireland of course, the tea is not referred to as “Irish Breakfast”, just merely “tea” and is enjoyed throughout the day and evening. The taste is of a brisk full-bodied malty brew. It is often served with milk and sugar or sometimes only with lemon or with nothing added at all.

Since Ireland is on my mind these days. I want to share a song by my favorite vocalist, the Irish-Canadian Nightingale, Loreena McKennitt…The song, that you hear on the play-list, is a traditional Celtic one called Bonny Portmore…It is about the mourning over the destruction of the ancient Great Oak of Portmore…The words and music to this song are so haunting and melancholy …

BONNY PORTMORE
Traditional Music and Lyrics/ Arrangement by Loreena McKennitt

O Bonny Portmore I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the Birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying "where shall we shelter or where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash they all cutten down
And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.

O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore.
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The destruction of old growth forests has become an important conservation issue in recent years, but it is not a new phenomenon. Over the centuries many of Ireland's old oak forests were leveled for military and shipbuilding purposes. Only recently has there been an effort to reestablish these great hardwoods. The Great Oak of Portmore stood on the property of Portmore Castle on the shore of Lough Beg. – Loreena McKennitt