Misused: Spot Of Tea

For an entire society?

If they're not a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to the British, then it certainly doesn't belong under the trope it's currently listed under. If you don't think it fits Trademark Favorite Food either, then I guess it can be removed.

"East Asians like tea" would have to be a separate Sister Trope to Brits Love Tea. That example could go on some sort of 'foreign culture manners' trope but I'm blanking.

I'm surprised we don't have a Tea Ceremony trope, but do have UsefulNotes.Tea And Tea Culture...

Japanese Politeness is indexed on A Polite Index.

Culture Clash is an index, and Protocol Peril might be useful?

Edited by Malady on Feb 10th 2022 at 10:55:13 AM

Drink-Based Characterisation? National Stereotypes?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 10th 2022 at 11:51:14 AM

Alright, I'll remove it for now. Might try to collect the examples for other patterns of usage to see if we can spin them off to their own tropes.

Adding a "South African" and a "Russian" example in Fanfic would have been defensible as long as the trope keeps the non-country-specific "A Spot of Tea" as title. But renaming the trope specifically to cover British tea drinking means these examples would have to be deleted or preferably moved. (Neither could be defended by a British Empire connection: the Boers fought like Hell not to be imperial subjects and the Russians are, well, Russian).

So the question is - what about the Irish, a nation that floats on a sea of tea but who very emphatically are not British. The Saffa thing about rooibos tea, and samovar culture for the Russians? Not to mention India and China/Japan, the Asian and Far Eastern version of A Spot of Tea.

A sister trope for tea addiction elsewhere in the world to absorb these non-British variants, perhaps?

Well, what meaning would "tea drinking culture" have in general? And there's Must Have Caffeine to cover the addiction.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 11th 2022 at 4:06:21 AM

This trope was about British stereotypes even before it was renamed. There aren't any South African or Russian examples.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 11th 2022 at 3:08:37 AM

Yeah, "character loves tea because they're Chinese" etc. has been misuse from the get-go.

If there were several examples in the check that discussed entire cultures that loved tea, then an argument could be made to expand it to that. But the majority of usage is just "character likes/drinks tea".

And, again, I'm not sure what a non-specific supertrope would even mean. Why does it matter if country X loves tea?

By that logic, wouldn't that make this trope equally pointless? Brits Love Tea can also be lumped under National Stereotypes, so why is "loving tea as a British stereotype" more tropeworthy than "loving tea as a Chinese/Japanese/other country stereotype?"

Because tea is such a stereotypical and exaggerated part of British culture, in part because they genuinely do drink it all the time and because to coffee-crazy Americans, tea tends to be seen as more refined and traditional, which ties back into other stereotypes about the country.

But, ccountries enjoying tea in general is too broad as to be completely meaningless.

Tea is also a big part of East Asian culture (some might even say essential) though, hence why China, Japan and Korea have all those tea ceremonies.

I'm not saying we should lump them in this trope, but I think dismissing it as "not tropeworthy" out of hand is a little unfair. It could work as a separate trope if there's enough examples, in a way that's not just "people of X country + tea".

Well, sure, I'm not disputing that an Asian version of the trope could have meaning. That's still more narrow than "unspecified culture drinks tea", which includes more than just Britain and Asia.

India/Japan/Russia may be known as tea fans, no other county gets so much association with tea in fiction like Britain, to the point thag tea is sometimes considered like human fuel there even IRL. Any other portrayal is likely be based on those or parody British Stuffiness in some way.

Trademark Favorite Drink and Fantasy Counterpart Culture works for the rest as tropes quite nicely, and Tea and Tea Culture could be potholed in context text. The only thing that could work as a trope that we don't have is Sacred Tea Ceremony, and TLP can work on it on their own.

At any rate, this trope was for British cases to begin with, so the rest are outside of the thread's point. If there can be a solid Sister Trope for other countries, TLP is free for anyone.

If other countries' tea consumption is the subject of stereotypes, then that would be a matter for TLP or the Trope Idea Salvage Yard, not this thread. This thread is only concerned with stereotypes associated with British tea drinkers.

A Spot Of Tea redirect is done and knocked out Main/ for Spot Of Tea, 997 wicks remaining.

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 13th 2022 at 2:13:06 PM

Down to 887 now.

Down to 808 because I knocked out every remaining namespace up to Fanfic/ (going in alphabetical order) with the exception of Characters/, since I'm saving that one for last.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 6th 2022 at 5:41:12 AM

Took care of some of the Characters/ wicks, and some other subpages. By the way, where should an entry like this be moved to?

• Spot Of Tea:
  • Greg considers tea such Serious Business, he disqualifies Josh for adding milk first.

I would cut or move to Serious Business unless it's mentioned that they reason they take it seriously is their Englishness.

I have started a draft for tea-drinking Asians.

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 6th 2022 at 12:14:44 PM

It sounds like Trademark Favorite Food if they aren't British.

Hmm, I just re-checked and the show is British, so I suppose it can be moved to Brits Love Tea

You'd still need to add that context.