Guest columnist: Pepper

I dreamed about the Big White again last night, covering the world with its fluffy pillows and blankets. I know it wasn’t just a dream because when I checked before breakfast there was still a little piece of it up at the back of the garden where the Master had made a big pile with his shovel, still cold and crunchy. Proof that the whole crazy thing was real.

New World

It started with a change in the air. I knew something was coming, but wasn’t sure what. The next day there was white dust falling out of the sky and blowing all over the garden. It looked like the stuff the Master puts in his tea, but it just vanished in my mouth when I tried to taste it. The Mistress seemed quite excited about our morning walk, which isn’t always the case. The dust was flying everywhere, gathering in corners, forming into little mounds and ridges that flurried away as soon as they appeared. It felt sharp and gritty when it blew into my eyes, but I only had to blink and the bad feeling went away. In the park I hooked up with Jasper and Pansy for a brief nose-to-tail. The dust had got them a little bit excited, a little bit nervy, just like me. After due consideration we agreed that it probably wasn’t harmful.

Back at the house nothing was quite normal. The Master came home surprisingly early and in a very jolly mood, then the Mistress told him something that made him less jolly and he had to squeeze through a little doorway into the roof with a hot air blower and some old blankets. The white stuff kept on falling for the rest of the day, and it was still coming down when I went for a last pee before lights-out.

It’s nice when things are quiet, but you know how sometimes it can be too quiet? You have to make a noise by scratching at something with your paw to check your ears are still working. That’s how it was when I woke up. No wind. No bottle man. No wheelie-boxes rumbling by. And no one stirring upstairs. I had to ring my bell several times before the Mistress came to let me out. I think we were both a bit surprised when she opened the back door because there was a new wall right outside, as high as my nose. Beyond the wall, the garden was completely covered by smooth mounds of white. They reminded me of the sand hills at the place with the salty water until I tried running over one of them and almost buried myself alive. After breakfast the Mistress stayed in her nightgown for what seemed like a very long time, but it was worth the wait because when we finally set off on my walk the Master came too, which almost never happens.

It’s hard for me to describe how much the world had changed. The most remarkable thing was the smell, or rather, the lack of it. All the usual odours had been scrubbed away, even that oily, burning stench that the wheelie-boxes belch out when they’re rolling. I wondered if this was what it was like at the very beginning of the world, before the first smell was made… Not to say that there were no smells at all. Some of my friends and acquaintances had clearly been out and about, leaving their marks here and there on the white carpet. The unadulterated crispness and purity of their leavings revealed subtleties of character that I had not been aware of before. I noticed, too, that many of the humans were wearing clothes that carried a distinct aroma of old cupboards.

The white dust was tingly to sit on

All the usual boundaries were gone. Pavement blurred into road blurred into park. Instead of doing the usual circuit we left the park at the far end, onto some roads I wasn’t sure I knew. One of them was quite steep and there were young humans sliding down it on items of kitchenware. It looked like fun and I wanted to join in, but the Master wouldn’t have it. I didn’t have long to mope though, because at the next corner I got my bearings and realised we were on our way to see one of my favourite people.

The Young Mistress squealed with delight when she opened her door and saw that it was me. I ran past her and leapt into the arms of her mate. He’s really cool and knows how to scratch behind my ears exactly right. He wasn’t sure about me to start with, but I won him over with my cuteness rays and now he lets me lick his mouth and everything. Top human. I don’t see nearly enough of him. On the way home the white stuff started falling again, tidying up the bits that had got dirty. It made me feel happy and, in that moment, I though that this clean new world might last forever.

It didn’t, of course, and even that last bit of white stuff up at the back of the garden has gone now, leaving no trace. But I know to the very tips of my whiskers that it was real, and I’m going to keep believing in the hope that one day, when the wind turns and the nights get cold again, the Big White will return.

A fall of moon dust?

Isambard Kingdom Brunel didn’t do ‘adequate’. The celebrated builder of gorge-spanning bridges, nation-spanning railways and ocean-spanning ships valued excellence over expediency in all things, and thus would have been squarely disappointed, as I was, by Marks & Spencer’s official response to my letter regarding the proven inefficacy of round tea bags (see previous entry).

Here’s the inelegant nub of it, as penned by an M&S office functionary who I won’t embarrass by naming here:

“The tea leafs [sic] contained in the Luxury Gold teabags are smaller than that within the loose tea products, as such they wouldn’t benefit from being in the larger pyramid bags.”

In other words, the round bags are adequate. They could be better, but they’ll do, rather like compressed mp3 music files that are mere shadows of the original recordings but perform well enough when played through cheap ear-buds whilst jogging past some roadworks.

CIRCLE OF STRIFE
The good news is that, unlike an mp3 file, the round bag is a lossless format. All the flavour of the tea is there, it just can’t get out. Try cutting one open and brewing a loose leaf cuppa and a bagged cuppa side by side: all else being equal, you’ll almost certainly detect a difference in the flavour – unless you’re using the tea to wash down mouthfuls of pickled onions and anchovies.

It should come as no surprise to learn that removing the tea from the bag is the best way to release the flavour, but then you’re stuck with all the mess and inconvenience that you were trying to avoid in the first place. The logical solution is to decant the contents into a more spacious bag, for example, the handy t-sac produced and distributed by an innovative Hanover-based company. Plenty of brewing room in there.

If all that sounds like a bit of a faff, you might want to opt for a less invasive approach. I have found that agitating the hot water with extreme vigour during the brewing process can yield significantly improved results, as shown below.

And there you have it. The proverbial silk purse from a sow’s ear, no thanks to M&S.

BREW OF THE WEEK – Darjeeling Badmantam First Flush
Early summer is the perfect time of year to enjoy a new season first flush Darjeeling, and the 2015 offering from the Badamtam Estate does not disappoint, delighting the taste buds with its delicate yet robust bouquet and flavour. To enjoy this tea at its best, add the hot water just before it gets to the boil, remove the leaves after steeping and enjoy the deliciously scented liquor just as it comes, no milk or sugar required. It’s also an excellent choice if you fancy some home-made iced tea. Double the amount of leaf that you would normally use, pour the brewed tea into a jug filled with ice cubes (adding a few wedges of orange or lemon if required), and drink within 24 hours for best results.