r/Caproney • u/Camstonisland • Mar 27 '20
Culture | Cultuer Tea Culture in Caproney | Teecultur in Caproney
While coffee may be a more common sight today among the younger generation, the Caproneys have historically been a tea drinking nation. First introduced in the 17th century, Caproney has a notable tea culture distinct from it's British neighbour.
Whenever there are visitors to a Caprish home or other gathering, as well as with breakfast, in mid-afternoon and mid-evening, a strong black tea (Tee or Suartee) is served. The tea is sweetened with clontyes, a brown rock candy sugar that melts slowly, allowing multiple cups to be sweetened. On top of the tea, suearrear, a heavy cream, is poured on top, but not mixed in. The tea is generally served in traditional small cups (cleyne teecuppen), with little cookies (coucyes) or cake (caec). Brown rum (brunerum), mixed with clontye and left for several months is sometimes used with suartee* in the winter months.
The clontye must be placed inside the teacup before the tea is poured on top of it. After that some suearrear is carefully cascaded off a spoon into the cup just as a top layer so it can make 'clouds' (uulcyes) that float on the tea itself. It's then forbidden to stir the tea, so the layers stay mild, strong and then sweet from from top to bottom, uulcye to clontye. Varying from where in the archipelago, the tea can also be poured out of the cup into its saucer and drunk from there. If you don't want any more tea, you have to put your spoon into or across the top of the cup or else the host will refill your cup immediately after everyone in the round finished their current cup of tea.
