Let’s Talk! – Tea Whistling

Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt during dinner tonight? You want to know about my thoughts on it? Here’s my take:

Have you ever heard tea whistling? Me neither. I bet the association with this prompt was a different one. I assume it was about a whistling tea kettle. Have you ever encountered one of those? Vacationing a lot in Northern Germany in my first four decades, I found that whistling tea kettles were a staple in most bed & breakfasts and vacation apartments. Not as fancy at the one in the picture – usually a battered looking metal one, sometimes the kind that had to be filled through the spout in lack of a lid. Which was one of the reasons why my mother never used those but rather boiled water in a regular pot – she didn’t trust what might lurk in the almost closed environment of such a kettle. I have to admit that I cringe at the thought as well that you can’t really clean an item like that.

Later on, when vacationing alone, I DID use such tea kettles, though. I simply enjoyed to be reminded by sound when my water for instant soups or for tea was boiling. Don’t ask me how may regular pots’ bottoms I have managed to burn through at home back in the day, just because I was totally immersed in a book or in a task. The shrill whistle of a tea kettle is simply not to be ignored.

These days, I have an electric water kettle that switches itself off automatically. It sure is a convenience, although I might forget that I was boiling water for something, just because of another wonderful read or being so into working on the next chapter of my current novel.

Tea and whistling … I have to admit that during this unusually cold winter, I have rediscovered the comfort of drinking hot tea instead of a glass of cold water. I have about a dozen of different kinds of tea in my kitchen pantry, as my husband seems to enjoy our new evening ritual as well. Some of them are herbal teas that serve a specific purpose and are only drunk when we’re dealing with an issue. Such as fennel tea for a hurting tummy, peppermint tea when the nose is stuffed, or licorice tea against cough. But there are so many fun kinds, too.

Have you ever checked the tea shelves in supermarkets during Christmas time? (Yeah, I know, you’ll have to wait a few months till next time …) When I get sugar cookie tea or candy cane tea, you bet I start humming Christmas songs. Maybe not whistle – I was raised that ladies don’t whistle (though I can, and I don’t consider myself a lady, after all, but a fun-loving old girl). But these fun teas are the whistling kind, I’m sure. Not because THEY do, but because they make YOU …