Tea in Spain

This blog post is going to be about a very important topic which has been grating on me for the last five months… TEA in Spain!

Being British, I must first make a disclaimer that we are as precious about our tea as Italians are about pizza. Faced with the prospect of making tea in a saucepan for a year, one of the first things I bought when I arrived in Tarragona was a kettle for our flat, as there wasn’t one provided (I maintain this is one of the best decisions of the year as it allows me to have at least one decent cuppa per day…).

One of the funniest things that came out of this kettle purchase was the fact that Valentina’s mum said to her “of course she bought a kettle, she’s English, how is she going to make tea otherwise?!” So thank you Valentinas mum for being so understanding! Valentina just laughed! 😔

In our break times at school, my fellow teachers and I head over to the nearest cafe to get away from the noisy adolescents and to have our second breakfast, of course. My regular order is a black tea with milk, which I’m sorry to say has absolutely nothing on a strong brew of Yorkshire Tea! The only saving grace is that the biscuits are usually Lotus-style caramelised biscuits or crispy chocolate wafers which are both pretty tasty (although still wouldn’t beat a digestive or a hobnob).

Over the course of 5 months I have seen at least 3 different members of staff give me very odd looks when I ask for a tea with a dash of milk, either shocked that I want so little milk or shocked that I want milk at all with my tea! The most disappointing is when they give me warm, frothy cappuccino milk and not what they call ‘natural milk’ 😔 (I have since worked out that I have to ask for black tea with a little natural milk to get the closest resemblance of a proper cuppa).

However, I cannot complain too much because at the end of the day it is still a cup of tea, and even if it doesn’t quite satisfy my tastebuds as much as I want it to, it keeps me going until I can get home and get a proper brew, and it’s only €1.40!