Riza joined Diana helping with the food, for tonight small chicken legs and chili-con-carne with rice,
the drinks station in the kitchen,
Eric called in this evening with his girlfriend from China, Channel,
Mike of course was also here, the evening went swimmingly well, Eric had brought around amongst other things a bottle of red wine that went perfectly with the food, we talked a lot about China, Channel is a English teacher in China so her English was very good, we particularly spoke about that great export from China, tea and how an audacious plan by Robert Fortune (1813-1880) broke the Chinese monopoly of it, what Fortune did was change the wording on a official order for the growers to supply Fortune with tea seeds instead of mulberry seeds, it was a dangerous move, exporting tea or the knowledge of how to grow it in those times was death, but because of the short viable life of tea seeds he had to grow the seeds on board the boat he was leaving China in, he used a number of the newly invented Wardian cases, the inventor Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791-1868), is hardly known today, but horticulture has a lot to thank Dr. Ward for, going back to Robert Fortune his exploits have been made into a DVD, Robert Fortune the tea thief, then as our friends left it was time for bed.
1 comment:
Cogratulations for finding the extra "o" for the correct use of the word too. Overdue, but well done and please keep it up!
Post a Comment