Tea and Coffee in Spain: The Tea Bag Spain Boiled Alive

MICHEL DOES SPAIN: THE TEA BAG SPAIN TRIED TO BOIL ALIVE

Thirty years ago, Spain offered coffee three ways, tea almost no ways at all and brandy whenever anybody fancied it. Michel arrived in red lipstick, impossible heels and a cloud of Giorgio—then attempted to explain a proper British brew in her very best Spanglish.

When I first arrived in Spain thirty years ago, I suppose you could politely describe me as something of a party girl. Polite was not necessarily the word everybody used.

I had always worked largely in the company of men and could drink even the most battle-hardened rugby players under the table. And frequently did. In the newspaper business, nobody knew what time the paper would finally be put to bed, whether there was any point going home or whether morning might arrive before we did.

We would leave the office at whatever ridiculous hour we had finished, refresh the red lipstick, spray enough Giorgio Beverly Hills into the atmosphere to alter the local climate and go straight out.

Giorgio was my signature scent throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Mine had been brought back from Rodeo Drive by a wealthy wannabe suitor who, sadly for him, made considerably less of a lasting impression than the perfume.

That fragrance never entered a room quietly. It kicked open the door, ordered champagne and demanded to know who was in charge.

Preparation was everything. I kept clean underwear in the car and at the office, along with a crisp white shirt and heels requiring scaffolding and full planning permission to put on.

It was perfectly normal to drink through the night and return to work before the bosses, looking industrious in yesterday’s mascara and tomorrow’s headache.

So, when I arrived in Spain, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Not merely fallen in love—head over those structurally dangerous heels.

When Coffee Came With Brandy

Spain appeared to have achieved something Britain had never even attempted: it had removed the line separating drinking hours from all the other hours.

Bars served coffee and brandy from morning until night, often for around 100 pesetas—roughly sixty cents after Spain adopted the euro.

Today, sixty cents will not buy you the foam on a cappuccino. Back then, it bought coffee, brandy and possibly a detailed conversation about the waiter’s entire family.

The coffee menu was gloriously uncomplicated. You had café con leche, café solo or a carajillo—coffee with a lively splash of brandy or another spirit.

Coffee with milk. Coffee without milk. Or coffee that made the rest of the working day somebody else’s problem.

Nobody asked whether you wanted oat, almond, soya, coconut or milk extracted from a plant nobody had previously realised possessed udders.

There was no flat white, skinny latte or coffee served hot but not too hot, strong but not bitter, with foam but not enough foam to disturb your emotional balance.

Spain gave you coffee. You drank it. The relationship was beautifully uncomplicated.

The Great British Tea-Bag Incident

Tea, however, was another matter entirely.

When I first arrived, nobody in Spain seemed to drink tea. Obviously, somebody somewhere must have done, but I never met them.

Being British, I carried my own tea bags in my handbag—not because I was precious, but because I was desperate.

I would present the offending tea bag to the waiter and attempt to explain, in my finest early Spanglish:

“Agua muy caliente. Leche fría… al lado.”

Boiling water. A small drop of cold milk. On the side. Simple.

Or so I thought.

The waiter would hold the tea bag between two fingers as though it had been recovered from a crime scene. He would disappear into the kitchen, consult several members of staff and eventually return carrying an enormous cup of boiling milk.

Floating miserably in the middle was my tea bag.

Not hot water with a little milk. Boiling milk with a frightened tea bag fighting for its life.

The milk slowly turned the colour of a surgical support stocking. The waiter pulled a face while serving it, and I pulled an even worse face while receiving it.

Neither of us understood why the other was being so difficult.

To him, I was the strange Englishwoman who had arrived with a dried leaf in her handbag and expected witchcraft.

To me, he had murdered a perfectly innocent cup of tea.

Michel Does Spain remembers trying to order British tea and coffee in Spain thirty years ago.

The British have started wars over less.

Spain Learns to Make a Proper Brew

Oh, how Spain has moved on.

Today, the average Spanish café has a coffee list longer than the departures board at Málaga Airport.

You can order café solo, café con leche, cortado, americano, manchado, bombón, cappuccino, flat white, decaffeinated, double shot, extra hot and foam arranged with the precision of the Sagrada Família.

Tea is not far behind.

English Breakfast, Earl Grey, green tea, red tea, white tea, mint tea, fruit tea, camomile tea, tea to wake you up, tea to send you to sleep and tea promising to detoxify organs you did not realise were in trouble.

There are now enough tea bags behind the average Spanish bar to wallpaper a small apartment.

Nobody can ever tell me Spain is not obliging.

She may initially stare at you as though you have escaped from somewhere secure. She may shrug, sigh and discuss you loudly with the person standing beside you.

But eventually, Spain adapts.

She learns how to make the tea. Then she gives you seventeen versions, asks whether you want oat milk and charges an extra euro for the privilege.

That is Spain. She may arrive slightly late to the party, but when she finally gets there, she brings the entire bar.

From Red Lipstick to Coconut Water

These days, tea, coffee and industrial quantities of coconut water keep me going, delivered by my best friend Amazon in amounts suggesting I operate a tropical resort.

When I am feeling reckless, I have a Red Bull Light on the rocks.

Try to control yourselves.

But I have never lost the energy of those newspaper nights. I still trip over things when there is nothing there, simply because my legs cannot keep up with my brain.

My mind races like a Ferrari around the Monaco Grand Prix while I attempt a million jobs, usually with a pencil in my hair and my hands flying around at ten to the dozen.

I cannot speak unless my hands are involved. Tie them behind my back and I would temporarily lose the power of language.

If I hear music, my feet tap. If there is a dance floor, I am on it. If there is no dance floor, I create one.

Perhaps that is why Spain suited me. She was noisy, dramatic, slightly chaotic and never entirely convinced that tomorrow needed to begin before today had properly finished.

Thirty years ago, I arrived carrying red lipstick, towering heels, Giorgio Beverly Hills and emergency tea bags.

Spain looked at me, pulled a face and dropped one of those bags into boiling milk.

We did not understand one another at first.

But Spain and I are very similar. We both adapt, we both make an entrance and neither of us believes life should be served lukewarm.

Today, I can order a perfect cup of tea almost anywhere. It arrives with boiling water, cold milk on the side and sometimes even a tiny biscuit wrapped in plastic as though it were jewellery.

Spain learned.

Of course she did.

Because Spain may not always understand what you are asking for—but give her thirty years and she will improve it, put it on a saucer and offer you six varieties.

And somewhere, in a little bar from all those years ago, I suspect my original tea bag is still floating in that boiling milk.

Still fighting.

Still British.

And still refusing to surrender, both me and the tea bag...