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alt title(s): A Spot Of Tea 
It really is, you know.
That’s Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You’re a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You’ve just been told you’ve got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT!
There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.
—Bernard-Paul Heroux
In 1660, King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland married princess Catherine of Braganza of Portugal. This union resulted in the import of tea to Britain from India, and by 1750 the British had fallen in love with it.
As it had to be imported across a great distance, tea was at first very expensive, drunk only by the upper classes. However, the increasingly powerful and influential East India Company was soon flooding the country with the stuff, and by the 1750s it was already a recognised national drink. Interestingly, a significant upswing in health followed as people boiled their water before drinking it.
Today, tea is one of the most, if not the most, popular drink in the UK (although some purveyors of useless facts will tell you that coffee is actually more popular, a statistic rendered all the more debatable by the ubiquity of the beverage euphemistically termed "instant coffee" in Britain). The great British author George Orwell ( Nineteen Eighty Four, Homage to Catalonia) was an avid tea drinker, even going so far as to write an article on how to make "A Nice Cup Of Tea". In general, the typical British attitude to tea is nicely summed up here .
British message boards sometimes host multiple-page threads on subjects like how to make the perfect cup of tea, why Americans don't get it (remember the Boston Tea Party?), and even ways of introducing Americans to the wonders of real tea (such as mailing PG Tips tea bags with instructions to American posters). Tea is such Serious Business in Britain that the British Standards Institution has a 6-page specification on how to make a cup of tea ( BS-6008); this document won the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature. A recently declassified document revealed that planners worried about failing tea supplies in the event of a nuclear war.
During World War II, Britain shipped, by weight, more tea to her troops than anything save bullets. Small arms ammunition, that is: the British army consumed more tea than artillery shells. By weight. Contemporary soldier Spike Milligan observed that they were damn lucky that Rommel never tried baiting minefields with tea.
This has obviously not been lost on TV writers. To an American, it may seem like massive quantities of tea are consumed in the average British Series. In fact, the number of cups of tea drunk is often quite normal in Britain, though even the Brits can exaggerate - for example, in the Doctor Who episode "The Christmas Invasion", the "free radicals and tannins" in spilled tea are enough to bring the Doctor out of a coma.
Whenever a British character appears in an American series, they will invariably a) drink tea, and b) describe at great length how wonderful it is compared to coffee - that is, if the character has heard of coffee before coming to America. In fact, the mere act of drinking tea automatically marks one as British; examples of this include Giles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Wesley in Angel, and Dr. Wyatt on Bones.
However, these characters typically drink tea from an ornate china set, whereas in Real Life, such things are reserved for special occasions. Most tea is drunk from a simple mug or cup with an assortment of biscuits (in the British sense: "cookies" to Americans. Bear in mind that what we do call cookies tend to be larger and softer than normal biscuits).
Strangely, Irish, Indian, Russian, Australian and Chinese characters are rarely shown drinking tea on American series, but it's just as popular in these countries, especially in China, which is the tea-drinking capital of the world. Even in certain regions of the United States, tea is quite popular, but it's of the iced, sweet variety. The ritual (and we do mean "ritual": Japanese tea ceremonies in particular are very elaborate and missing a step is a cause for great offense) is different in this countries: tea is generally drunk without milk in the rest of the world. The British tradition of adding milk to tea is likely due to British tea being "black", high in tannins and therefore very astringent, an effect which the addition of milk counteracts to some extent. It may also stem from the days when tea was an expensive luxury and milk was cheep, so lower and middle class Brits used milk to stretch the drink.
A popular trivia question concerns the relative caffeine content of tea and coffee. It's true that most varieties of dry tea contain more caffeine by weight than dry coffee, but a typical cup of tea still contains less caffeine than a typical cup of coffee.
Compare with Must Have Caffeine.
Examples:
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:Advertising
- Quintessential Englishman Stephen Fry brings his sheer... Stephen Fryness... to Twinings advertisments, which is often sent up on QI.
- Johnny Vegas and his woolly monkey show how most British people drink tea, without pomp and ceremony.
Anime & Manga
- Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima naturally likes tea, being Welsh and everything. He likes it so much that he and Fate almost came to blows over how tea ought to be served, with Fate calling Negi "A Tasteless Englishman".
- Fate later has a tea party. In the middle of a high-stakes battle. He warps reality so that Jack Rakan joins him. One minute Rakan is topless and punching, the next, he's holding a hot cuppa and wearing white formalwear.
- Evangeline is (probably) British, and one of two members of the Tea Ceremony Society (the other being Chachamaru.
- Lindy Harlaown of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha loves her tea, and has the quirk of drinking her Japanese green tea British style (adding two lumps of sugar and milk to it).
- In Axis Powers Hetalia, tea is one the very few foodstuffs that England (Arthur Kirkland) doesn't screw up.
- Subverted by the Britannian Beurling of Strike Witches, who prefers coffee to tea because of its stronger taste.
- In the Read Or Die OVA, the preparations for the British Library's "Operation Exterminate All I-Jin" cannot be complete untill The Joker and his staff have been brought their tea. He and Gentleman are frequently seen drinking it throughout the series.
- In Kurogane Pukapuka Tai, the first thing we see of the HMS Cutlass is a cup of tea; on the next page, the characters of Captain Ann and Commander Mary are established through their tea-drinking. Captain Ann grasps her teacup firmly in her fist, showing her earthy, aggressive nature, while prissy, ladylike Commander Mary grasps her cup daintily in her fingertips, pinky finger raised high. And then tea spills, nakedness ensues, and sex follows — it's That Kind Of Series.
- Kuroshitsuji is set in England, so you expect it. Unfortunately, Ciel's love of sweet demands that his butler stave off a diabetic coma in some cases, with tea. EVERY MEAL has tea. Even when his host, his family, and Sebastian were drinking wine, guess what Ciel was drinking?
- Pandora Hearts is...Europeanish. Sharon and Break are often seen having tea and sweets. Sharon, in particular, is often shown drinking tea. Break is eating the sweets. Everyone's sweets.
- Shinigami likes to hold teaparties. Once did so with Death Scythe in the middle of observing a very important battle.
Comic Books
- Asterix In Britain reveals that tea was actually brought to the British Isles in 50 BC, by Asterix. He used it as Bottled Heroic Resolve when he couldn't supply the Britons with genuine magic potion, and Chief Mykingdomforanos had it declared the national drink. Before that, they just drank hot water with milk and sugar.
- Not only that, but in its first page, it shows the Romans and the British in a brutal battle...until around 3:15, where a bell rings, the Brits check their watches, and drop whatever they were doing to pull out chairs and tables as they enjoy their
tea hot water. Then after it's over, they all go back in the exact position that they were in before and start fighting again.
Film
- Despite the title, the anthology film Coffee and Cigarettes has Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina (fail to) bond over a pot of tea.
- A Bridge Too Far — "We busted our asses getting here, half my men are killed, and you're just going to stop and drink tea?
- In Dog Soldiers, after the soldiers have barricaded themselves into the farmhouse and fought off the pack of werewolves (for now), Coop orders one of the lads to put the kettle on. "We could all do with a brew."
- In How I Won the War a British patrol crossing the North African desert stops for a brew-up. Their foppish lieutenant starts talking about how incredible it is that sand always ends up in one's cup — and the camera pans down the line of soldiers, each of whom dump another spoonful of sand into the lieutenant's cup before handing it to him.
- In The Queen, Prime Minister Tony Blair calls Her Majesty away from afternoon tea to serve her a hot dose of reality about the death of Princess Diana. Prince Phillips proceeds to flip out at the impertinence—"Bloody fool! And now your tea's gone cold!"
- In Time After Time, H.G. Wells time-travels to modern-day America. He eats at a Mc Donald's, parroting the incomprehensible order of the guy in front of him until, to his surprise and relief, he sees tea on the menu board.
Literature
- A Nice Cup Of Tea by George Orwell, as mentioned in the article. He also mentions some Serious Business debates popular in England; tea in bag, in a sieve, or freely floating in the tea? Milk in tea or tea in milk? Sugar or no sugar?
- Douglas Adams also rather liked tea. A Running Gag through all incarnations of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy is Arthur's inability to get anything resembling tea anywhere in the galaxy, no matter how carefully he describes it to the ship's onboard computer, getting something "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea".
- Adams wrote instructions to Americans on how to make a proper pot of tea (explaining that most of the reason Americans don't like it is that they've never had decent stuff), and these appear in The Salmon Of Doubt.
- The Infinite Improbability Drive was also created with a cup of tea.
- Naturally, comes up a bit in the Harry Potter series. Most notably, the trio usually have tea when they visit Hagrid. Dumbledore's drink of choice, however, seems to be hot chocolate.
- "The first part of the Ordeal of the Key is the nice cup of tea."
- In Johnny and the Bomb There Are No Therapists for bombing survivors, but there is tea.
- The most high-profile subversion of "the British drink tea" is James Bond, who (in the books) repeatedly states that he dislikes tea and prefers coffee (when martinis are not available).
- As a habit picked up from the Valhallans, Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) has developed a strong taste for tanna tea, and is often seen drinking it during meetings and when in his quarters. It is no surprise that the people recognize this habit of his and therefore bring tanna tea to meetings just because of this.
- It isn't Camellia sinensis, but in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner series the atevi drink a lot of different herbal infusions. Unfortunately, most if not all contain toxins which are fatal to humans.
- In the Liaden Universe, Liadens usually drink tea, while Terrans prefer coffee.
- Comes up in Discworld a few times, in particular Interesting Times with the Agatean (Fantasy Counterpart Culture of China and Japan) tea ceremony - "it takes three hours, but you can't hurry a good cuppa".
Live Action TV
- Star Trek The Next Generation - Captain Jean-Luc Picard likes his "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot". A strange choice considering he's French. But he is played by the most British actor in the world: Patrick Stewart. So...
- Possibly relevant: the French have a special blend of Earl Grey (which is tea flavored with the oil/peel of bergamont citrus); theirs adds flower pettals (verbena or rose pettals depending on who you ask) to the mix.
- Also possibly relevant: to explain away his very British accent, Patrick Stewart jokes that Picard was raised by a British nanny. This could also explain his liking for the stuff.
- Newly relevant: That's Sir Patrick Stewart, now. The tea obviously helped his 100% completion rating.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Giles drinks tea, but lampshades this in one episode when another character asks him why he is drinking coffee if he is British. He replies "Tea is soothing. I wish to be tense."
- Spike , snidely to Giles after a vicious fight with vampires: "Oh, poor Watcher, did your life flash before your eyes? Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea? (Never mind Spike is English too.)
- He knows what he's talking about then.
- He's also a vampire. I doubt tea holds the same place in his heart as the average Englishman's.
- Anthony is forever being asked to "make a brew" in The Royle Family.
- In an episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye gets upset that the British give their wounded tea...even when they have abdominal wounds, as this increases the chances of infection and death.
- On Merlin, Merlin and Gaius drink tea, which many claimed was an anachronism; however, the word 'tea' can be applied to infusions which aren't made with tea leaves, so it's best to assume that what they're drinking is made with some other herb.
- If they actually call it "tea" it is still an anachronism: we call those infusions "tea" now after the tea plant, rather than calling tea leaves that because they're used to make such infusions. Arguably acceptable as a Translation Convention, but for the record there is an English word (tisane) that more properly means "herbal infusion beverage of any source".
- As mentioned above, in Doctor Who the Doctor is revived from his post-regeneration coma by the mere smell of spilled tea.
- When the Doctor was U.N.I.T’s scientific advisor, the tea—lady was the only person not on the Brigadier's personal personal staff with special dispensation to go near or enter the Doctor’s laboratory unescorted.
- In the monologue that concluded the show's original run, the 7th Doctor discusses the various adventures that lie ahead: "Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold!"
- In one of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novels, there's a part where the TARDIS has been lost and the Doctor's companion Fitz is reminiscing about how they used to drink tea together when they did have the TARDIS. He goes on at quite some length about their little rituals and favorite types of tea. It's really quite sweet, not to mention the Ho Yay.
- Father Ted is a rare television example of the Irish fondness for tea, Ireland being the country with the third highest per capita consumption (after the UK and Turkey). Mrs Doyle has the famous catchphrase 'will you have a cup of tea father' and almost has a breakdown when Ted buys her a tea making machine.
- Adelle DeWitt on Dollhouse, although she tends to drink green tea.
- Although, she's just as if not more partial to vodka.
- The UK car show Top Gear often shows its presenters making or having cups of tea, usually in bizarre situations for the sake of comedy.
- Magnus of Sanctuary refuses to drink coffee, it's how she solves one of their cases.
- The Prisoner demonstrates the proper way to make tea as an excuse to empty his drugged cup, and slip drugs to the person trying to drug him.
- Dead Like Me has a scene where British expat Mason goes to great lengths to mooch off a dead old lady's tea while he's supposed to be reaping her soul.
- On Heroes Noah Bennet is trying to get information out of an English guy named Edgar. When he tries the Good Cop routine, he asks Edgar if he'd like some tea, then immediately remarks that, Edgar being English, there was really no need to ask.
Music
Radio
- Ned Seagoon, in the Indian quarter of Bombay, is offered "all the sensuous drinks of the Orient". His response?
Video Games
- The Cotton series of shmups has the apptly named "Tea Time" bonus stage. Of course, the tea cups are more for green tea than anything.
- Many of the endings for Touhou games feature its protagonist Reimu Hakurei having tea parties with other characters, especially those who were her enemies in the game.
- In the ending of each level in 8 Eyes, your protagonist shares tea with his opponent after beating them in a boss battle/sword duel.
- Tea Time in Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure allows the eponymous character to summon a giant steampunk robot to obliterate everything in sight with pure, unaltered Britishness. "Good Show", indeed!
- Giles from Red Alert 3 can often be seen drinking tea or referring to drinking tea. He is, to no one's surprise, the British CO in the Allied army.
- BlazBlue's Elegant Gothic Vampire Rachel practically obsesses over tea. Her most common entrance has her enjoying a cup before battle. She belittles Hakumen by ordering tea at the start of their Boss Battle. Her console story mode begins with a cup of tea, and ends with the same one in her Ragna Ending.
- Armed And Dangerous has Q, a robot that achieved sentience though his love of tea, tea can also be used to restore health.
- One of the minigames in Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box involves brewing up different blends of tea using herbs found in certain puzzles.
- Referenced by Cammy in Street Fighter IV; in her win quote against Guile, she asks if what she heard about the American military is true, that they don't allow brakes for tea.
Web Comic
- Occasionally referenced on Scary Go Round, in particular a T-shirt bearing the slogan Tea, tea, the musical drink, the more you sup the more you THINK.
- The page picture is of Professor Raven of El Goonish Shive, who is certainly British-themed if not actually British (he's half-
elf immortal, making him an elf).
- The yetis in Irregular Webcomic enjoys this, and also speak with British accent.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Iroh of Avatar The Last Airbender, whose passion for drinking tea reaches an almost obssessive level, risks personal health and safety for the sake of a good cup of tea. Naturally, his greatest dream is to open his own tea shop.
- He's not very British, though.
- Think about it... Dragon of the West or not, here's a guy who loves luxury and a pampered life, stuck on a years-long camping trip to keep his nephew from disappearing off the map like his son did. Tea is the most accessible part of his old life that he can get, up until the happy ending.
- On Pinky And The Brain, one of Brain's schemes is to freeze Big Ben at teatime, thus forcing the entire United Kingdom into inaction as they enjoy a teatime without end.
Theater
- Tea, its implications, and the snacks eaten with it are discussed in great detail in The Importance Of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde's frothy comedy.
- The Sondheim musical Pacific Overtures has an extensive scene of the Shogun of Japan taking tea (for about four days straight) when confronted with the American ships anchored by the shore. As his mother urges him, "It's an herb that's superb for disturbances at sea..."
Real Life
- On D-Day, the British troops started to make tea on Sword Beach almost as soon as they landed, even though they were still under fire. Later, after the beaches were taken and troops started to move inland, the Americans got upset over reports that the British stopped advancing to make tea, as the plan called for soldiers to advance until nightfall in order to capture as much ground before the expected German counter attack.
- This early post-WW 2 poster advertises food packages aimed at Americans with friends or relatives in poverty-stricken Europe Europe. Part of the standard care package offered is "1 lb. coffee (For Britain; 1/2 lb. tea)".
- The Other Wiki notes that British Tanks contain "a boiling vessel (BV) also known as a kettle or "bivvie" for water which can be used to brew tea, produce other hot beverages and heat "boil-in-the-bag" meals contained in ration packs."
- British Prime Minister The Earl Grey gave his name to an aromatic blend of tea, which is pretty much all that most people know about him. Given that his other major achievements were, you know, reforming Parliament to be in shouting distance of democracy for the first time, and banning slavery throughout the British Empire, this says a lot about the relative importance of liberty and tea.
- Well, c'mon, how many Earls of Grey are there? They keep naming them all the same bloody thing ...
- The one referred to is Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey. And he only shares his name with three out of six Earls Grey.
- In the North-East he receives considerably more recognition (being one of their more famous sons), having a large pedestrian street (equivalent, more or less, to Mayfair or Oxford Street), several pubs and a wacking great monument in the centre of Newcastle all dedicated to him. But most Geordies would still be hard-pressed to say much about him except for having a kind of tea named after him.
- During half-time during the FA Cup Final, extra power generation capability is online to cope with all the kettles being boiled. The Brits love plug-in, fast-heating electric kettles over stovetops or microwaves, a trend that didn't much catch on in the States except for college dorms (and more for ramen than tea).
- The same effect also apparently happens far more regularly at the end of soap operas: Britain from Above featured a segment showing a National Grid employee watching TV waiting for the end of East Enders (IIRC) in order to bring online the extra generators needed to cope with the power surge.
- Aurthur C. clarke recounted in his autobiography that during WWII, one of his jobs in the civil service was to coordinate the dispersal of tea stockpiles throughout the country, as the government feared civil disorder if the main warehouses were taken out by a chance bombing.
- In fact, it can be argued that a large part of British history was driven by tea.
- It's been cited as the catalyst for the industrial revolution, by enabling the dense populations needed for factories (Dense populations without good sanitation would suffer from water-borne diseases, until suddenly, the entire country is boiling their water in a mild antiseptic before they drink it.), increasing productivity and innovation by replacing alcohol with caffeine as the drug of choice.
- The UK even turned to drug dealing because of its love of tea. Buying tea from China was expensive, as it had to be exchanged for silver. In response to this, British traders found something that they could export back to China at a profit- Opium. When the Chinese government tried to stop the massive addiction problem by banning the trade, Britain invaded, seized the ports and enabled the trade to continue. Twice.
- In short- Do not come between us and a nice cup of tea. We get somewhat vexed.
- The gap that exists between the USA and the UK is immense, when it comes to tea. A vending machine in a gift shop in Norfolk can dispense a perfectly adequate cup of tea at the press of a button, and yet a cafe in the average American city can only produce a mug of some watery beverage that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. Perhaps if Americans learned to actually boil water, they'd catch on to what this tea business is all about.
- We figured that part out, smartass. The problem is that most tea sold in typical American grocery stores is either weak stuff like Lipton or stinky herbal teas.
- Oh you did NOT just insult herbal tea. It tastes good without turning you into a caffeine junkie.
- It still doesn't smell good.
- What herbs are you using? Different blends smell completely different.
- Tell me where to get a box of Earl Grey and I'll drink it. Otherwise, I'll take my tea iced, sweetened, without milk, thank you very much.
- I might get lynched for this, but my local Wal Mart's got a decent box of Earl Grey (admittedly, I've never had the luxury of importing the stuff from the UK, so).
- Actually learning to boil water is part of the problem, at least for tea you order in restaurants. Also many stores sell popular English (and Chinse or Japanese for Green Tea) brands of tea, for example I can find a great selection of teas at a store called Meijer that's found in the midwest and primarily the state of Michigan (Meijer is almost but not entirely like Wal-Mart, but the Wal-Mart near where I live has no imported goods, for some reason Meijer does).
- Foreign countries (or for that matter, anywhere north of Virginia or west of Texas) are hell for a Southerner used to drinking iced, sweet tea. In Japan I just got used to the taste of green tea; in my stay in London I had to add tons of sugar to all the tea I was served. I'm not sure I drank anything for two days after I saw milk being added to tea.
- Since McDonald's started selling sweet tea, the rest of the country seems to have begun picking up the Southern habit. As a Hoosier (person from Indiana) who loves sweet tea, this is a refreshing turn of events, no pun intended.
- On the other hand, Northerners are often put off by the amount of sugar in Southern sweet tea, and usually prefer their iced tea to be unsweetened.
- Either way, considering iced tea is mostly American and Southeast Asian, we find it rather amusing that iced tea is sometimes considered Foreign Queasine.
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