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TEA FOR TWO TONY B'S

May 2007

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent comments on the British cuppa have prompted another Tony B to write to Number 10!

Chef/Proprietor of The Nurse’s Cottage in the New Forest village of Sway, Tony Barnfield has invited Mr Blair to visit his restaurant with rooms to take tea – if not stay the night!

“After all,” says Tony (Barnfield), “he will soon have time on his hands after handing over the reins of office to Gordon Brown.”

In the letter, Mr Blair is told:

Here at The Nurse’s Cottage, we pride ourselves on producing…a good cup of tea.

Winner of the AA’s Best Breakfast in Britain 2000/1 award and the HGCA (Home Grown Cereals Authority) Best Breakfast in the South 2005, we have scooped numerous other awards during the past fifteen years, all displayed on our website.

In a previous incarnation as a BBC Radio presenter, I took tea with one of your predecessors Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street on the only occasion when she was questioned about her then favourite television programme Yes, Prime Minister.

So, what makes a good cup of tea?

It should always be made from high quality leaf tea, infused using boiling (never stale) water, allowed to stand for four to five minutes, then served according to taste with milk and/or sugar and/or lemon. Any quality establishment should offer a range of teas, in our case English Breakfast, Assam, Darjeeling and Earl Grey. We use Twining’s Teas (also, Coffees and Fruit Infusions), Twining’s being a fellow Hampshire-based company.

“It’s all in the tea leaves,” says Sway’s Tony B, “so maybe we should consult a fortune teller to see whether No 10’s Tony B may be putting The Nurse’s Cottage in his diary of future engagements.”

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