the award winning blogger lyndsey young has picked up on the cup of tea challenge and featured the activity on her queen of easy green blog.
we met lyndsey through the eden project’s big lunch extra programme and she’s really got on board with the idea.
we thank her for backing our endeavours and look forward to seeing how the challenge is met.
the cup of tea challenge is launching in june and we’ll be at the belper goes green festival to make a short presentation about the project.
the project gives us an opportunity to explore a few ideas. the first being how to get the ongoing information out to you. our plan consists of social media, this blog and a monthly update in the transition belper newsletter. if you’re not already a subscriber, the subscription page to the newsletter is available here.
once you’ve completed your challenge you can share your pictures and video using social media with the hashtag #OurCupOfTea or if you’re a post capitalist #ourcupoftea.
the project will be live for three months.
we hope you’ll give the challenge a go and share your storey with us. one last thing … if you’d like to write about your challenge and share it with us for publication on this blog, we’ve set up a special email address for your contributions which is
cupoftea (at) corridor-arts (dot) org (dot) uk (it’s been written in the long form so to avoid spammers.)
so happy cup of tea challenging everyone !
we challenge you to make a cup of tea ……. with a twist. A twist of lemon ?
…..not quite. the twist is to use a method you would not usually use to heat the water for a nice cup of tea.
inspired by a family response to a tea time power cut, we’ve been considering different ways to heat up some water. we’ve had so much fun we thought we’d issue the challenge to see what other methods you can arrive at to make a super cup of tea. to help you, we’ve prepared the cup of tea challenge FAQs listed below.
Our cup of tea challenge is looking for fun, unusual methods of heating water and enjoying a lovely cup of tea and we’re hoping you’ll share what you do with us via instagram, twitter and facebook*.
* other social media channels available.
the challenge runs from june 1st to the end of august 2015. regular updates on this blog and in the transition belper newsletter.
cup of tea challenge FAQs
how long does the challenge run for?
the project is live from june 1st to the end of september 2015.
can we use anything to meet the challenge?
yes. be creative and adapt stuff you have around you to rise to the challenge.
do i have to make a hot cup of tea?
no. we’ve found a recipe for cold brew tea you can try.
does it need to be a specific tea we use?
no. have you tried green tea or herbal tea, or infusions of leaves and herbs. You may prefer tea bags or loose tea, with milk and sugar or without, tea in a pot or straight into a mug. The choice of tea is totally yours.
is there a limit to who i can work with to meet the challenge ?
not at all. in fact we will go as far as suggesting it might be easier to work in a group so please work with as many people as possible.
can i use a kettle?
if it’s powered from something other than mains electricity or on a mains gas hob, why not. do bare in mind though that we are looking for eccentric solutions to the challenge …. so let your imagination run free amongst the bluebells and the meadows.
should i take risks in meeting the challenge?
we feel that in some risks there are benefits and we advise you to consider both your own safety and those with you at all times. the challenge is looking for inspirational stories of methods used to reach a nice cup of tea. we’re not after stories of injury and harm because of attempting to do something too risky.
what hashtags can we use?
we have a list.
first one:
#ourcupoftea
or
#OurCupOfTea
or
#ocot (maybe not use this – ocot seems to be some sort of electrical safety thing in canada)
how else can i share my storey?
if you’d like to write about the experience and have it published on this blog you can send your storey to us at :
cupoftea(at)corridor-arts(dot)org(dot)uk
do you have any tips?
yes. measure out the water you’re going to use. there’s no need to heat up any excess water.
be adventurous…. how many people can you make tea for via the method you use.
have fun meeting the challenge. if it’s not fun, please don’t go any further with it.
so there is the cup of tea challenge. we wish you every success and mucho mucho fun ! xx
Whilst searching the internet for ideas for the Cup of Tea Challenge, Tony learnt about Cold Brewed Tea. The advantages of Cold Brewed Teas is that you do not need to boil water to make and it tastes a lot better than iced teas.
By steeping leaves in cold water for 5 10 hours you extract a less caffeine and the tea is less bitter than tea made with made with hot water and then iced. Cold brewed teas are easy to make, here’s how to do it:
1. Fill a glass jug with half a litre of cold water ( a measuring jug is ideal)
2. Add two / three teaspoons of looseleaf tea of your choice (it has to be loose leaf tea).
3. Cover your jug and leave in the fridge for between 5 10 hours (overnight is best or make it first thing in the morning).
4. Pour the tea through a tea strainer, serve and drink.
5. Add sugar, sweetener (honey, maple syrup) at this stage, if you like that sort of thing do not add milk.
6. For tea connoisseurs, this works with most black teas, white teas, green teas and oolongs. However, please note some teas like purehs and non tea teas (herbal infusions) and teas with added flowers etc. may harbour bacteria so it is best not to cold brew these. (if in doubt ask your supplier).
7. Let us know how you get on share your pictures or ideas with us on twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #OurCupOfTea.
there comes a time in the lifecycle of a developing project where as a group the decision needs to be made about what activity to focus on. for us this has been made more challenging as we have not worked on identifying any particular funding stream to work with yet. it’s felt that the big energy project is rather out there in terms of intention.
with so many potential ideas the decision came down to selecting an activity that would catch the imagination of many and be relevant to many also.
according to the uk tea and infusions association there are 165 million cups of tea are drunk each day in the uk. quite often we reach for a nice cup of tea as an aid to think, relax or simply to be with friends and chat.
for ages i wanted to see if our hydro electric chums could rise to the challenge of producing a hot cup of tea by harnessing the energy of belper’s coppice brook. i still want to see this. in teasing the hydro guys what was actually happening was the development of the cup of tea challenge.
the cup of tea challenge is simply to make a cup of tea. there is of course a twist or it wouldn’t be a challenge.
the challenge we’re setting is to use a method to make a cup of tea that is unlike the method one currently uses. what we’re setting is either to heat water by an alternative method to using a kettle or to find a method to make tea that doesn’t require heat.
sound simple? how would you attempt the cup of tea challenge? does your method still use electricity or mains gas ? we’re looking to be impressed by the imaginative ideas that totally gets away from either mains electricity or gas.
we plan to launch the activity in june and it to be live for several months. during that time we’re going to encourage the sharing of stories, images and videos via the hashtag #OurCupOfTea on your favourite social media channel.
while in pre-launch we’re talking about it and spreading the word about the cup of tea challenge, so we can really get to know what the idea is.
i’ve made my first attempt…
we take safety seriously so are in the processing of preparing guidelines for those of you wishing to use fire safely to meet the challenge.
there’s also a document that we’ve prepared about how to take part and i see now finding somewhere to host that might be a good idea …
so do you fancy meeting the challenge ? to get you started … here are the first three questions to consider ….
we are so looking forward to see in what you get up to and don’t forget to share it …. #OurCupOfTea .
so here’s a thing …. describing the big energy project …. because let’s face it …. what is the big energy project ? well in it’s simplest form it’s an ambitious idea and in it’s most complicated form it’s a set of activities.
it’s been said it might be a life’s work.
being an ambitious idea there are multiple activity ideas making up the whole big energy project …. imagine a large circle and within this are smaller circles with multiple connections …. like a mind map. that’s the big energy project ….
as well as a simple way to describe multiple activities the big energy project is about that feeling one gets inside when doing or being involved in something that really makes you happy … a big energy feeling inside.
big energy is also seen as what happens when people come together to do something.
to make the big energy project happen there needs to be activities happening underneath the umbrella term …. the first of these is the cup of tea challenge it’s being planned and worked on for this year…
i was woken early this morning by the question “where’s all the water gone?” “? ! uuugh ?” i wasn’t very awake to form anything like a cohesive reply.
after collecting thoughts and spectacles and other such accoutrements i checked the severn trent we site and wandered downstairs. there was a water outage showing with approximately 6 hours for a fix time. i could’t tell when the information had been posted.
ok.
adaption required.
what do we need….. ?
water for tea.
shoes on, coat on, trek to local shop…. score water … back home ….
agh a nice cup of tea 🙂
ok. next…. ummm …. do we have any water to take care of the toilet ?
from the dehumidifier …. ?
alas not ….
calm …. drink tea …… count to 10.
we’ve not experienced an unscheduled water outage and it did come as a big shock. getting the bottled water certainly helped, a morning without a cup of tea was way worse than not having any water to the house.
the really bizarre thing though was last night i noticed the hot tap dripping and when it does that i causes the boiler to fire. the water being off was like a message to get new tap washers and repair the taps.
after my tea my mission was to get a bit more bottled water and some tap washers. i can reflect now that my purchase of three more bottles was a little over the top, as reasonably quickly i got a text telling me the water was back on.
after collecting some washers back home and take the taps apart.
they are in a state but i’m not too worried as we have plans a foot to renew the kitchen sink. replacing the washers is pretty straight forward and very rewarding.
seeing the used washer next to the new demonstrating why.
with a few hours the day had settled back into the rhythm of thursday and the waking up to no water was a mere memory and blog post waiting to happen.
a failed kettle yesterday was our first sign of a power cut. the repeatedly clicked kettle switch and the incessant alarm sound outside confirmed the power outage. the realisation came at about 2pm. still light and still warm.
we made suitable arrangements of what to do in this unexpected cut in our electrical dependancy. my option was to take the dog for a walk. this gave me an opportunity to chat to a near neighbour and he confirmed their non power situation too. we last experienced a non power moment last may. then it took about 4 hours to restore power so there seemed no need to worry about the evening.
returning from the walk i noticed the power was back on. great i thought it’s all back to normal. this was to be short lived …
somewhere in a cupboard we have a small single ring gas canister powered heater we use when we camp to make tea and heat beans. still being light and not knowing how long the power would be off i put myself to the task of unpacking the cupboard to find the stove.
to my surprise i found it quite quickly.
luckily the children were all out doing their own thing so we didn’t have to help them adapt to the lack of electrical power. cheered up by finding the little stove we were able to have a cup of tea.
i knew we had candles, tea lights and a wood burner so if the cut went into the night we would be able to remain warm and see to read and chat. i readied myself for the prospect of getting them all revved up.
we hung on till about 5 o’clock until we lit the candles and the wood burner. there’s something very special about having the living room lit by candles. the wood burner took a little while to really get going. we’ve not had the burner for long so we’re still getting used to how the outside atmospheric conditions affect how well the fire draws.
the first of the children returned and we explained the situation. they awed at the living areas lit by candles and i think i can safely say they quite liked it.
the power came back on and we readied for making some food.
off went the power again and on and off. the candles absorbed this fluctuation and we observed the power fluctuation via the neon on a 4 way shoe.
it settled down and we cooked tea.
the living room warmed up nicely and the candles gave the whole area a beautiful warm feeling.
having completed tea the children prepared to go to bed. all was going well until we heard a shreak from the bathroom. the power had once again gone off. the slightly traumatised child on the loo was helped back down stairs via the use of a torch. the prospect of going to bed with no power was met with much excitement. we adjusted the candle positions and the children settled down to go to sleep.
we felt good. we’d all eaten, children were settling down and the laptop even had enough power left in it to be able to listen to a cd. a really old collection of john lee hooker tunes accompanied our saturday night in with candles and our visual entertainment was the stove. i’m getting better at judging when i can close the air ways down so the stove does that flame along the roof thing. if you have a burner hopefully you’ll know what i mean. if you don’t have a burner please do go and visit a friend who has one and ask to see the flame in the air effect.
i’m not too sure what i was hoping to get from twitter. what it did do though was lead to ringing the power distribution company just in case we were the only house who did not have power as each time i went outside to look at the neighbours i saw their houses with electrical light.
having been reassured that we were not alone in having any power and finding out what the problem was with the supply … we turned to answering the challenge of making a cup of tea.
this time the small gas stove was easy to find, placed just inside the cupboard door. i filled two cups with water, poured them into the kettle and lit the burner.
in almost no time we were sitting snuggly on the sofa with our cups of tea. 🙂
very contently we sat and chatted in the knowledge that we’d managed to carry on without electrical power, we’d remained warm and were able to carry on around the house and even championed in the cup of tea challenge.
when the power returned i felt very relaxed and didn’t feel the need to watch or do anything other than take myself to bed and enjoy a good nights sleep. the power cut lasted 8 hours and it was actually good to have a break from electrical energy dependence.
the big energy project 