Anna-Kaisa Takkinen and Laurence Brenig-Jones, a couple living in
London, visited in Helsinki for a weekend. Anna-Kaisa is an old friend
of mine. We have known each other since we were only few months
old. Our mothers were acquaintances and lived in same village up
north, called Kiiminki. We went to the same comprehensive school
and high school. We have also shared an interest in music. Laurence
is an English guy originally from Ipswich (Suffolk) and now based in
London – as he said in Finnish: ”Olen kotoisin Ipswichistä.” He has
taken some Finnish lessons recently. That's a challenge to be
honoured! Last summer Anna-Kaisa moved to London to share her life
with Laurence. They live now in Twickenham, southwest of London.
Their get-away-weekend in Helsinki consisted meeting friends and
family and having a picnic in a park enjoying 'glögi' (that's similar to a
mulled wine) and 'joulutorttu' (a sweet plum pastry served specially
during the Christmas season). What a nice idea! Laurence is a
strategy analyst in strategy team of head office in Waitrose, a big
supermarket chain in UK. Anna-Kaisa is an interior designer and
works now part-time in London in an office which designs jewellery
shops.
We decided to meet in Café Aalto which according to hearsays has a
quite nice tea collection. Café Aalto is located in Akateeminen
kirjakauppa, a large bookshop at the corner of Keskuskatu and
Pohjoisesplanadi in central Helsinki. A famous Finnish architect Alvar
Aalto designed the building called Rautatalo, an Ironhouse, in 1955
for business and office purposes. This café has been in this building
since 1986. Its architect was Roy Mänttäri. Part of the furniture has
been designed by Arne Jacobsen and the other part by Alvar Aalto.
That's where the name is derived from. The café is owned by a family
company.
Café culture in Finland is very young. The European habit of drinking
coffee and tea in cafés arrived here in the 1980s. The culture for
teahouses and teashops is even younger. Only in recent years have
there emerged a few in Helsinki and in some other cities.
Laurence ordered a pot of black tea (it was not mentioned in the
menu, which kind of black tea, though). Me and Anna-Kaisa shared a
common interest in the jasmine tea, which had a beautiful flower in
the tea cup. To accompany the tea I had a piece of cheesecake. Anna-Kaisa
and Laurence respected the Finnish traditions and chose
Karelian pie (savory pie made of rye with rice inside). I should have
chosen better as the cheesecake was too sweet with jasmine tea.
Anna-Kaisa also thought that the Karelian pie wasn't any better
match. Maybe something lighter and more fruity would have been
better. We all agreed that you have to think more carefully what to eat
with tea; almost everything goes well with coffee. Although with an
traditional English tea most of the sweet and savory dishes tastes
good. Already after some months Anna-Kaisa has adopted the tradition
of drinking English tea. She likes it! She has already changed her
regular mornig coffee to a morning black tea with milk. That's a good
sign! I think she will get on well living in England. Laurence prefers
PG tips tea for his morning tea, which is a traditional English brand.
For afternoon he likes to have Earl Grey. For afternoon and evening he
likes Whittard teas, which is also a traditional English company.
As a real Englishman Laurence added some milk into his tea – a habit
I never learned to like when I lived in London for couple of years! The
traditional English way of enjoying tea is to have it very strong (that's
black tea, of course) and add milk. The pot of tea Laurence now
ordered wasn't very strong so he admits that it could also have been
OK without milk. He thought his tea was very refreshing and light.
The interior of Café Aalto is also very light and simple, thought
Laurence. As both coffee and tea, with other beverages, are in offer,
Laurence and Anna-Kaisa both agreed that this place is better for
drinking tea. The café athmosphere is dignified and smart due to the
architecture and furniture desings, thought Anna-Kaisa. Laurence
noticed that the black real leather chairs are very heavy so that
creating an impression of an expensive environment which.
The cute lamps above the tables warmly lit the area and produced
a safe and intimate feeling. Due to the fact that the café is in a bookshop,
both agreed that this place is ideal for reading! You could just buy a book
and come here to read it while enjoying a cup of tea or coffee.
Akateeminen kirjakauppa is one of my favorite places to just come
to browse the books and be inspired.
While Laurence was having his cosy pot of black tea with milk, me
and Anna-Kaisa agreed that we had flown over to the other side of the
globe with the tastes of jasmine tea! We both had this image of a
garden and waterfall somewhere in China, maybe back in the time of
Song Dynasty where the jasmine tea originates. Only if that could
have been true! Nevertheless, this is a cheeper and faster way (and
probably the only one) of getting there... Though my choice of
cheesecake and Anna-Kaisa's Karelian pie was a confusing twist on a
way there. Laurence was happy with his choice of Karelian pie with
his black tea, he thought they matched very well. You could say too
that of a connection of English and Finnish relationship. Apparently
that works well, that's now been proved true!
In his freetime Laurence plays in a football team called FOBAFC
(Fitzwilliam Old Boys AFC). The football team is an old boys team by
old boys. People who use to go to same school or university in this
case in Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge, where most of the players
used to study. Laurence studied in Jesus College Cambridge. They
play in Richmond. Sometimes on the weeks Laurence plays also for
the team of his work.
Anna-Kaisa likes to run in parks, swim and just joined in a Finnish
London. Currently she is learning to know London and its' many treasures.
She enjoys to visit museums and recommends the exhibition of Gerhard Richter
in Tate Modern which she enjoyed greatly.
Finally my guests gave their plea for a good cause, as I asked them to
do. Every guest of mine here will give a plea of his own choice to do
some good in world and make this a better and happier place for all of
us. At least I have promised to do good according my quests' pleases
and hope that the readers would be inspired to do so as well!
Both Laurence and Anna-Kaisa had their own personal pleases to
introduce. Laurence has a very committed custom to donate every
month to a two different charities. His donate will always go straight
from his salary. Due to his previous work for charities he noticed that
regular help is more important for them than larger donations one at
a time. Regularity donations will help the charities to plan better
financially. At the moment he is donating for breast cancer charity
and for charity for kids who were born deaf and blind and who are
dropped out of government's help.
Recycling is close to Anna-Kaisa's heart every day; taking care of
dividing the waste of papers, plastic, glass, metal etc. That's a
challenge for her as well because she lives now in England and the
recycling systems are different for what she used in Finland.
So, through AnnaKaisa's and Laurence's pleases I have now
promised to recycle everyday and be careful what to throw away. Also
ry' – that's a trust for children and adults with inborn heart disease.
The trust's main aim is to protect all treatment for research and
opearations on people with inborn heart disease.
Our little tea time passed on nicely discussing football, badminton,
sport injuries, playing music, charity and of course tea. Then this
lovely couple had to hurry to their flight back home in London.
