And the superiority of various tea blends and their origins!
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When I was a kid, we had the pulleys, from the back porch to the power pole in the alley. And a bucket of wooden clothespins. In the winter time, we hung clothes on lines in the basement, near the furnace. But I’ve never seen a pulley clothesline with any kind of brace. We just had turnbuckles at both ends that you could tighten up.
In soggy coastal Alaska, everyone moved to electric dryers as soon as they were affordable. 100 inches of rain a year, but it’s green energy when we dam it long enough to generate power.
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I have one of those old fashioned clotheslines and a guest recently complimented me for being environmentally friendly. There is a dryer, too, though.
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Had a clothline with pulleys as a kid in upstate NY. Move out west to a community that considers laundry hung outside an eyesore. No visible clotheslines allowed. Been here 28 years - thanks for the memories.
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#lapsangsouchong 
Now that’s settled.
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In a few years it will be the sign of environmentally responsible, highly intelligent people.
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I’m not a tea drinker but I do offer a tea kettle for my guests because I remembered older folks in my family that hated to heat up water in the microwave.
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can we now start the milk in first or last debate? Closely followed by the hot or cold milk one? Brit living in Europe. Tongue very much in cheek …
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Water heated up in a microwave? And here we are, we have to hear about the “greatest nation on earth” yet Americans don’t know how to heat up water.
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I had a British friend I was visiting one day and I went to make a pot of tea for us. After taking a sip, he informed me I had “burnt” the water. I had no idea such a thing was possible.
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Where I come from, microwaves are newfangled things suspected of causing cancer. You use them only in emergencies, to defrost things, or (at a push) to practice waterless cooking of vegetables. Or if you have to, to make a mug cake.
Now tea: you make that in a pot, which you pre-warm, and which you keep warm over some heat source. And you use loose-leaf tea, not that sandy stuff they put in bags, which are bleached. You pour freshly boiled-in-a-kettle water over the leaves. And when it’s properly brewed, and only then, you pour it out into your cup. Which you have also pre-warmed. You use a tea strainer. And if you have milk, you pour that first.
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OK, y’all, prepare to be horrified: I toss a commercial tea bag in a big cup of water, and put the WHOLE THING in the microwave for 2 1/2 minutes.
I’m really a coffee drinker, tea is usually reserved for when I have a stuffy head, sometimes with a shot of whisky added in.
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As a person from a Commonwealth country, I am sitting here utterly appalled!
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Re microwaves- anything that cooks food from the inside out is just too weird for me. Never had one in my life.
P.S. Not all tea bags are bleached these days. I keep tea around for guests, but like @dpfromva, I’m a coffee drinker- I might occasionally have a cup of tea on a cold winter night, or if a guest is making tea and asked if I want a cup, but otherwise never.
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My father, a lifelong smoker who passed away in 1988 at the age of 66, wouldn’t allow my mom to have a microwave because he thought it was dangerous. I just have to shake my head to think that all these years folks are still perpetuating old myths about microwaves.
I’m an equal opportunity beverage consumer. Coffee until 2 or 3pm and then tea until 7 or 8pm when I switch to wine with dinner and then whisky afterwards. 
It’s not a myth that taste and texture changes when cooked in a microwave. It has to do with how microwaves cook things, it’s unavoidable. I understand that it doesn’t bother some people but I’ve never been able to get past it.
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Yeah, my comment was is in reference to them being dangerous (which is an enduring myth). I thought it was ironic as my dad sat there and smoked himself into an early death that my mom was denied a convenience that would make her life easier. But after his death she enjoyed nearly a decade of microwave liberation.
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Oh, I don’t think they’re dangerous. But of course they are surveilling and recording your every move for the deep state.
Of course, I’m joking. And I get where you are coming from. Everyone tends to be at odds with their own health decisions - a lot of denial in general. But at least you didn’t have to eat microwaved food growing up. That could possibly have an effect on your current health. I don’t think microwaves cause cancer directly but there is plenty of evidence to show that destroy a lot of nutrients that we need from food to ward off cancer.
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I grew up eating plenty of friend foods filled with saturated fats, sugar, and salt. Fresh veggies were rare, they were usually canned and of limited variety. Whole grains were unknown. We find our ways.
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