Misused: Spot Of Tea

By the way, I noticed that some examples are of tea as a symbol of status (e.g. she drinks tea because she's The Ojou) rather than a national stereotype, and made a draft for High-Class Tea. Feel free to add relevant examples there.

Edited by Adept on Apr 8th 2022 at 3:14:05 PM

Another question, do we have a trope for "tea used to calm people"? Does I Need a Freaking Drink cover that?

Edited by Adept on Apr 16th 2022 at 12:52:56 AM

I Need a Freaking Drink does mention Brits Love Tea as end as a possible variant so maaybe we can fold it into that if it's not worth making a tea specific variant.

Hot Drink Cure says it doesn't cover emotional distress and links to Comfort Food for that.

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 15th 2022 at 1:16:06 PM

I Need a Freaking Drink does not come across as being applicable to how the British use tea as a coping mechanism, nor how we use it in media for that purpose. That's because we have both the tea version and the alcohol version, and they unfold in different ways and create different moods or consequences.

The British use of tea for stress situations is more about Dissonant Serenity than I Need a Freaking Drink. If there was a trope where Dissonant Serenity meets I Need a Freaking Drink because of Stiff Upper Lip, then you'd have the I Need A Cup Of Tea version of I Need a Freaking Drink. It would also be a stock phrase because that really does get said in real life.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 18th 2022 at 10:49:29 AM

It's not Dissonant Serenity. Dissonant Serenity is about being serene, as it sounds. Drinking tea in this situation is about actively taking the effort to cope with a problem. Someone could be very upset and also want to drink tea to cope with it.

The point is that tea is a very different coping mechanism from alcohol with almost the opposite connotations. "I cannot handle this if I'm sober" vs "I cannot handle this without a ritual of clear-headed normalcy".

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 18th 2022 at 4:46:55 PM

I've collected several examples where tea is used to calm down nerves after a stressful/traumatic event. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to TLP it.

I didn't say it was Dissonant Serenity, I said what it evokes is akin to Dissonant Serenity (plus two other tropes). The "drinking tea" trope I'm talking about is about that character who is almost in a "zen" state as they sip their tea. The "drinking alcohol" trope is about the character looking like the stress they're suffering. People look at that character knocking back the drink, or saying the line, and know that character has had a bad day. The character sipping tea as a result of the same situation evokes the opposite reaction. It's "why does this person seem so calm? Why aren't they as stressed as the rest of us?" It's because they're drinking tea. It creates that protective bubble between them and the stress. This is very common in parody and comedy (and adverts), but not limited exclusively to that.

That's why I also mentioned Stiff Upper Lip, which is also about this sort of thing. It's a place where the three tropes I mention meet.

What you're talking about is closer to the real life situation for British tea drinking, where the response to stress is "I think we need a cup of tea" or "I'll put the kettle on" or "I need a cup of tea" (etc.). It's still very downplayed and "calm" compared to how I Need a Freaking Drink is described, but I wasn't talking about real life; I was talking about fiction, and how the path the person goes down once they've said "I Need a Freaking Drink" or "I Need A Cup Of Tea" unfolds in different ways.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 19th 2022 at 4:06:08 AM

Draft for Calming Tea is up. Feel free to post relevant examples you come across during wick clean up there

Just launched Tea Is Classy. Do we still need to list the broader Drink-Based Characterization on the disambig?

I think there are non-“classy” characterizations, like being a warm person. Or being from the American South and chugging sweet tea.

Fanfic/ and Film/ are done.

I got the rest, so closing.