Naturally, I prefer my tea made in the traditional English fashion, with tea-leaves placed in a warmed teapot big enough to produce the three cups I am wont to drink at one sitting, and kept at temperatures hot enough to burn your gizzard out. It goes without saying that I like milk and honey in my tea also, naturally enough as the aforementioned land of my birth is abundant in these substances. Try as I might, however, at the teahouses in these environs I am unable to procure anything like the cup that cheers. Insipid, tepid liquid that appears on my table with a tired old slice of lemon limp on the saucer, or accompanied by a microscopic vessel of what can only be described as white paint. Get out of my sight!

Japan is changing every day, of course, and of late, fashion in the kitchen has veered toward the concept of the teaset. In every little homemaker's boutique, rack upon rack of matching teapots, cups and saucers, sugar bowls and milk jugs are to be found. When I first arrived in Fukuoka, necessity being the mother of invention, I swaddled my teapot in dishcloths, no tea cosy did I have, nor could I discover. Now such a dazzling array of choice excites my acquisitive desires. Nevertheless, good, cheap packets of tea are hard to come by. What does it profit a woman if she should gain a completely matching teaset, yet use only teabags? The avid tea drinker is condemned to the fortnightly trip to the closest purveyor of imported leaves, there to pay handsomely in maintaining this harmless and happy habit. But when the robust aroma of a freshly brewed pot first assails the nostrils, and the first divine drouth washes against the soft palate, the addict and connoisseur -for aren't they one?- knows that setting a price on bliss is meaningless.

Panjandrum