Arthur Dove Tea Company – Club Tropicana
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Arthur Dove is a Nottingham-based teamonger and proprietor of the Biscuit & Brew Tea House. He is also a musician. Combining tea and music seems to be a particular interest of Mr Dove and he offers a whole selection of teas based on his and other people’s music.
I shall be reviewing the pairings of Arthur Dove’s own songs with their accompanying tea in due course. For my first venture into this synaesthetic experience, I thought I would make it easy for myself and start with a tea based on a song that I am already familiar with. So here we have Club Tropicana, a fruity tisane containing apple, rosehip, coconut, hibiscus, pineapple, banana and orange inspired by Wham’s 1983 hit.
In order to experience this beverage the way that I assume the teamonger intended, I watched the Club Tropicana music video as I sipped.
Well, there’s a lot to unpack in this video, isn’t there? I like how the opening and closing credits are a slightly pretentious addition to what basically looks like a holiday home video shot on a 1980s VHS camcorder.
We start with a couple of ladies arriving at Club Tropicana. These ladies are not as I originally assumed Pepsi and Shirlie. Well, Shirlie is Shirlie. But the lady who isn’t Pepsi is Dee C Lee, Shirlie’s original partner who quit the duo at some point between the creation of this video and teenage me becoming aware of their existence. Wham are already at the party, partying it up party-style: rubbing shoulders with the stars, bobbing around on lilos and bafflingly tipping the complimentary cocktails into the pool. Why? Look, I know that at Club Tropicana drinks are free, but there’s no reason to get silly.
George and Andrew are quite taken by Shirlie and Dee, and the video shows its protagonists eyeing one another up in a variety of scenic locations. Because you see, this is 1983 and George loves the ladeeez. Then – plot twist! – it turns out that the boys are actually airline pilots and the girls are stewardesses (these being the gender-based career assignations considered right and proper in the 80’s). Actually, I’m not even sure this is supposed to be a plot twist. This part of the storyline is, I feel, not as fully developed as it might be.
The really puzzling thing about this video is the ambiguous nature of the sea in relation to Club Tropicana. The chorus cheerfully tells us that “all that’s missing is the sea” (but don’t worry, you can suntan) and yet the video quite clearly shows George and/or Andrew standing on a beach, looking at a not-missing-at-all ocean. Despite the chorus’s protestations, the sea is actually mentioned elsewhere in the lyrics.
Watch the waves break on the bay
Oh soft white sands, a blue lagoon
The video was filmed at Pike’s Hotel in Ibiza. Then owner Tony Pike can be seen playing a bartender in the video, wearing a hat, a pornstar moustache and very much looking like he should be on some kind of register. I’ve been to Ibiza. And what was it being a small island in the Balearics and everything, I can confirm that the sea is not in short supply there.
That’s all well and good, Em, you’re probably saying by now. But what of the tea? Well, it’s fine. It’s a purely fruit-based blend without any actual tea in it. And these things generally lack excitement. Fruity tisanes usually tastes of hot squash or of nothing at all. In the case of Club Tropicana, it’s the former. In fact, it tastes just like Um Bongo, that other 1980 stalwart.
Overall, I am quite satisfied with Club Tropicana tasting like Um Bongo. It seems like a good call. And yes, the realisation did lead me to look up the 1980s Um Bongo advert on YouTube but I shall spare you another lengthy digression. (How did the elephant find apricots in the jungle though?)
Today’s featured book is the Ladybird Book of the Student because we were all students in the 1980s, right?
