SAVE money on expensive peppermint teabags by simply brushing your teeth before your morning cuppa.
That’s a funny message posted on the internet site Twitter, but we must be serious for a moment: it’s not based on truth; peppermint teabags aren’t expensive.
Recently, I ran out of milk. And we know that’s an unsolvable problem – I’m not, like, a cow or something. So I had simply no choice – no choice at all – but to forgo my usual cheap and nasty breakfast blend, and in its place to mainline peppermint tea, which doesn’t need to be taken – nay, which strictly must not be taken – with a splash of anything to mask the unpleasantness. Sure, I like peppermint tea – that’s why I have it around – it’s especially excellent for settling one’s innards after some suspicious prawns or dubiously warm yoghurt – but maybe it’s not nice all the time, so you should feel my woe.
Well, now the supply of peppermint teabags is dwindling, and soon I’ll be left with just the bunch whose attached pieces of string with paper labels (pictured) are all mutually and irreversibly entwined (not pictured).
Strings attached
Now, in the land of proper teabags – which it is customary to rescue from the drink after a while – I would greatly appreciate such a miniature rope to excuse me from scalding my fingers, and from the attached anxiety about melted fingerprints leading to my being accused of murder. But only a ruddy savage would ever need to lift out a peppermint teabag, because in their case the stewing process only in fact enhances the ravishing flavour.
Which makes it all the more frustrating that the quite rare (in my experience) little string-and-paper tails are these days only ever found at the ends of particular teabag varieties where they can only ever be damn nuisances. It’s the worst thing about modern Britain.
All of which waffle is just a barefaced conduit to showing this video:
From The Little Paris Kitchen: Cooking with Rachel Khoo (BBC Two). (Here is a direct link, because computers are foolish so that dingus might not work.) Maybe try the recipe at home (but without so much sugar).