ロンドンでは、お茶をたくさん買いました。パリでも買いたかったけれど、時間切れ。

We bought a few packets of tea leaves when we were in London. We would have liked to get some in Paris also but ran out of time with our hasty exit last week.

これまでは週末の4時に夫と飲む以外にはそう頻繁にお茶は飲まず、1人で飲むときやお友達と飲むときのお茶は決まっていて、せっかくお友達に美味しいお茶を頂いたり自分で旅行先で買っても飲みきれず古くなっていましたが、夫が退職してからはほぼ毎日１度は飲みますし、わたしひとりのときもシンガポールではよく飲んでいた冷たいガス入りのお水より暖かいお茶を飲むことが多くなり、茶葉が減るのが早くなりました。シンガポールで残っていたものは人に差し上げたり処分しましたし、田舎では欲しい茶葉は簡単に買えないので、前回も今回もロンドン滞在中に色々買い求めました。

Until we moved to England, it used to be just on weekends when my husband and I would have afternoon tea. Although I would have tea alone or with my friends during the week I would mostly use just Earl Grey or Strawberry tea, which are my favourites. My friends would often give me tea as presents and I used to buy some myself, too, but the majority used to go unused. However since my husband retired we have tea in the afternoon almost every day, and I sometimes have some on my own as well, instead of the cold sparkling water that I used to drink in Singapore, as it’s cold here. I didn’t bring a lot of the tea that we had from Singapore and good tea isn’t easily available if the countryside where we live, so we bought quite a lot on our last two visits to London.

今回は、この6種類と抹茶。フォートナム&メイソンのクラシック・アールグレイ、ワイルドストロベリーティー、どちらも大好きで我が家の定番。他にやはりフォートナム&メイソンのパール・ジャスミンティーとガンパウダー。そして、今回初めて行ってみた、Jingというお茶専門店の台湾烏龍(梨山)と静岡の玉露と写真に撮り忘れた抹茶。今日はどれにしよう、と迷うのも楽しみです。

This time we bought 7 different teas altogether. Classic Earl Grey, Wild Strawberry, Pearl Jasmin and Gun Powder, all from Fortnum & Mason, as well as Taiwan Oolong, Shizuoka Gyokuro, and Matcha (no photo) from a Tea Shop called “ Jing”. It gives me a little pleasure to have a few different tea and trying to choose one at each tea time.