A high consumption of tea has been a feature of English daily life for a couple of hundred years - but is now not so common, nor such a central feature, as it once was.
Except in my house...
The Inklings - that Thursday late-evening writing group of such importance to CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien - was characterized by the consumption of tea; as is evident in the histories of its deliberations.
Another Inklings member Charles Williams stated that, if compelled to choose only one beverage, tea would be his choice; since it had the status of a necessity in his creative life, rather than the pleasant luxuries of beer or wine.
Barbara Pym's novels from the middle 20th century are similarly permeated by tea drinking; at home, in afternoon parties, and punctuating all forms of social event - whether Parish Councils, or Anthropological lectures.
Indeed, one of her recurrent minor characters, Esther Clovis, is represented as having been at the centre of a dispute over tea that led to her leaving one learned society for another - it seems she made the tea using hot water from the tap instead of boiled water - a heinous crime...
Of course, coffee has, especially over the past forty years, grown to displace tea and dominate the consumption of hot drinks in England as elsewhere - especially in public meeting places. My aunt and uncle who would punctuate an afternoon shopping trip to the city (Newcastle) with At Least two cups of tea, is a thing of the past - anyway café coffee is currently far too expensive for that kind of high frequency consumption.
Nonetheless, my wife and I do our best to continue the tradition (albeit modified to suit our needs); with a chronic regime of At Least four pint mugs of weak, Earl Grey, tea with milk - per day.
4 comments:
As Bertie Wooster once put it:
"Tea, tea, tea -- what? What?” I said.
It wasn’t what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good deal more formal, and so on. Still, it covered the situation.
To tea or not to tea, that is the question
Likewise, several pints of tea power my daily toils. And indeed, using hot water from the tap to make tea merits a police investigation at the very least.
Tea has a much wider variety of flavors than coffee. Taiwan oolongs are an entire world of their own, rare white darjeelings uniquely mate lightness with heaviness, and if some people think flavored black teas are déclassé, well let me wallow in the gutter.
My childhood tea drinking was steeped in British tradition, and sometimes I even add milk to oolongs, which widens the eyes of my Chinese friends. But usually I have black tea with heavy cream. I have a very beautiful teapot handmade by a potter/artist friend and I will note that tea cozies really work to keep the tea hot for longer than one would think.
Nothing humanizes work meetings like making a pot of tea and sharing it with the participants. It always leads to more personal disclosure and a bit of family feeling.
>she made the tea using hot water from the tap instead of boiled water - a heinous crime...
Another crime involving water from the hot tap, this one of the elf-and-safety variety:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UoqHSvv4g4
Though I have to say 'health and safety' does seem to have been put on the back burner lately. Not due to genuine common sense and reform but because they really don't care about our safety any more.
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