A cup of rosie with your home made cosy

I love tea. I estimated the other day that on average I drink around 2080 cups of tea a year and my work colleagues believe it's likely to be much more than this. Tea for me equals a breather. It's funny our little routines, my tea o clock schedule in the week goes a little something like this: 6.30am, 9am, 11am, 2pm, 4pm and then 7pm. And often there's a cheeky cup or 2 snuck in inbetween. I'm actually quite alarmed as I type this!!

Anyway, as I was drinking my tea today, I spotted my rather sorry looking tea cosy - a vintage one I picked up in a charity shop a few years ago. I would love to get a Jan Constantine tea cosy but at £66.50 and being into craft, it would seem a real shame not to make my own. And so I share with you this great little piece from the Guardian on How to make a tea cosy. Guardian online is great for handmade projects and you can keep online clippings of your favourites. I'll make sure I post a picture of my finished tea cosy!

The Perfect Brew

I've been archiving my uni work and came across my portrait collection "The Perfect Brew" of which I never had the chance to blog about or upload on Flickr. 

The photographic collection is basically all about tea. I love tea. It's so many things, all in one cup. A refreshment, an icebreaker, a peacemaker, or simply something to warm your cockles. As a beverage enjoyed by many walks of life, I looked at producing a beautiful photographic collection that celebrated the British institution of the cuppa and provided insight into the rituals of how to make the perfect brew by lovers of tea.

And so I scoured Hastings and St Leonards for tea lovers and produced the following collection of which I submitted as part of my graphic communication degree at The University of Brighton.

To follow are some of my favourites. To see the full collection visit my Flickr. 

The burbs

At the weekend I took a brief trip to London and was spoilt with the loveliest afternoon tea at The Orange Pekoe. I've been once before and it's most definitely one of my fave places for Afternoon Tea, especially because it's near where I used to live... ahh, I love the green burbs of London. Anyway, if you're ever in the Barnes area, a visit to the Orange Pekoe is a must! It's got a fantastic selection of luscious teas and they do to-die-for cakes.

Talking of cakes, where Uni is tailing off, I now have more time on my hands and so here's a little something I knocked up this very evening - so yummy:

Banana and Walnut Cake

150g softened butter

300g Self raising flour

3 ripe bananas

120g soft brown sugar

Dash of lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon of lemon rind

Handful of walnuts

2 eggs

2tbsp olive oil

I'm a lazy cook (life's too short for spending hours fussing in the kitchen) so I like to just chuck things together and see what happens. So where you should normally "fold" and mix in a "figure of eight", I kind of just bish, bash and bosh a recipe and more often than not, the results are truly tasty.

1. Mash banana with a fork until truly mushy.
2. Chuck in soft butter, sugar, lemon juice & rind, walnuts and mix thoroughly.
3. Add half the flour and one egg and fold until cake mix is wet again.
4. Add remaining flour and 2nd egg and mix thoroughly.
5. Mix in 2tbsp of olive oil (this will make the cake lovely and moist).
6. Place the cake mix in greased tin and cook for approx. 50 mins at 180 degrees.
7. Et voila.

Enjoy!!

We love tea

I'm looking to produce a beautiful photographic book for one of my uni briefs and I've been overwhelmed by how co-operative and generous the people of my town are. The book I'm looking to produce is all about tea, how it's drunk by all walks of life and how everyone has their own little way of having their tea. I've been here, there and everywhere photographing the lovely people of Hastings and St Leonards and I can't wait to show you the finished results! Here's a sneak peek at some of my photos so far!

2010 Jen Pringle