Time For Tea
Churchill liked Lapsang Souchong, Orwell liked the teapot warmed first and Queen Victoria liked it with a nip of whisky. When it comes to the nation's favourite cuppa it takes all sorts. Get the kettle on, it's time for tea…
Fancy a Cuppa?
Tea is the most widely consumed drink after water with around 20 billion cups drunk every day. In Britain we love our tea – with over 70% of us drinking more than 3 cups a day. The good news is that it's widely accepted now that tea counts towards your daily fluid allowance.
Feeling Flush
Tea comes from a plant called 'Camellia sinensis' – a close relation of the evergreen flowering Camellia bushes in many of our gardens. Only the top couple of inches of a tea plant are picked – just the top leaves and buds (or the flushes as they're called in the business).
Types of Tea
There are four types of tea that are commonly marketed – white tea, green tea, oolong tea and black tea. They can all be made from the same tea plants, but it's the length of time they've been processed that produces the different types, with white tea processed the least and black tea the most.
Herbal Tea
Herbal teas aren't from the tea plant at all – they're usually created by infusing fruit, flowers, herbs, seeds or roots. In fact they can be made from anything except tea leaves.
In the Beginning
Nobody knows for sure how tea was first invented. According to one story the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was boiling water in a cauldron when a gust of wind blew some leaves from a nearby tea plant into his pot. He loved the resulting brew so much he decided to spread the word.
Trading Places
We know that by 500 years BC tea drinking in China had become widespread. It reached Japan in the 6th century, carried by Japanese priests and envoys who had been to China. By the 16th century tea was being traded to Europe, the Middle East and Russia.
Bringing it Home
It's hard to prove when tea first arrived in England. As a rare luxury, its popularity grew slowly and it was served mostly to men. At the time it was known as Cha, the Cantonese slang for tea. It was renamed Tay, or Tee, when the main British trading post moved from Canton to Amoy, where the word for tea is T'e.
Causing a Stir
It was only when Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1662 that tea became fashionable in Britain. Although she wasn't an especially popular English queen she brought to court the custom of drinking tea. She's also thought to have introduced the fork to our shores too.
The Earl
Earl Grey tea is made of a blend of any type of tea leaf with bergamot oil. It's named after the 2nd Earl Grey, Charles Grey, who was British prime minister from 1830 to 1834. Although why it's sometimes also called 'Old Stinky' nobody seems to know!
Tea Sneaks
By 1750, tea was Britain's national drink and the tea trade was flourishing. But to avoid taxes large quantities of tea were brought in from Europe by smugglers. They sometimes even "cut" the tea leaves to improve profits, adding things like sawdust, sand and even floor sweepings to increase its volume.
Second-Hand Market
Tea lovers soon discovered that tea leaves could produce a palatable cuppa even after they had been used once or twice. That created a market in second-hand tea leaves; the aristocracy got the first cuppa, and their used leaves were then sold on to the poor at lower prices.
Tea Tax
Tea became the focus of rebellion in 1773 when the English government tried to establish a monopoly on all tea sold in the American colonies. Colonists resented this since it put local merchants at a disadvantage. The result was the Boston Tea Party, during which Americans tipped some 45 tonnes of English tea into the sea.
Tea Rules
Though tea drinking is an important tradition in Britain, it is a fundamental part of Japanese culture. The epitome of this is the elaborate tea ceremony in which almost everything follows prescribed rules, including the way the water is heated, the clothes worn by guests and the utensils used to prepare the drink. The longest ceremonies can last over four hours.
In The Bag
The tea bag was a bit of an accident. A New York tea merchant, Thomas Sullivan, decided to use small silk bags to send out his samples of tea – intending that his customers would cut them open before trying the tea. They didn't realise, dunking the silk bags into hot water to make their tea and the tea bag was born.
Tea Rooms
The first tea room in Britain was opened by Thomas Twining on The Strand in London in 1706 and it's still there. During the temperance movement they became more popular and by the 1920s there were Lyons Corner Houses or ABC tea rooms on nearly every high street.
Tea Stockpiles
In the Cold War, fears of a Soviet nuclear attack led to concerns about the supply of tea to Britain. Government officials said that it was vital to stockpile tea in case Britain was attacked as "tea is a necessity for survival."
The Big Sell
Tea advertisments have created some of the most enduring charaters on British television. Between 1956 and 2002, PG Tips produced dozens of chimp ads for the brand and in 2003 the PG Tips chimps were voted the most popular characters in advertising in a poll by Marketing Week magazine. The last chimp stars are now retired at Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire.
Read the Leaves
Tea isn't just refreshing – it can reveal your future too. Tasseography is the art of divination or fortune telling by reading patterns of tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. This became so popular in the 19th century that pottery companies produced special "divination" tea cups with internal markings to help fortune tellers decode the patterns.
Slam Dunk
The rich tea biscuit is generally considered the best accompaniment to a cup of tea. Made from wheat flour, sugar and vegetable oil with malt extract, it is claimed to be the perfect dunking biscuit. Its origins go back to the 17th century, when it was created to provide a snack between meals for peckish aristocrats.
Make the Break
The tea break is not just a fundamental part of British culture – even the rules of cricket specify an afternoon tea break – but it could play a key role in the country's industry. According to a survey by the UK Tea Council, 80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what's going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.
Tea is the most widely consumed drink after water with around 20 billion cups drunk every day. In Britain we love our tea – with over 70% of us drinking more than 3 cups a day. The good news is that it's widely accepted now that tea counts towards your daily fluid allowance.
Feeling Flush
Tea comes from a plant called 'Camellia sinensis' – a close relation of the evergreen flowering Camellia bushes in many of our gardens. Only the top couple of inches of a tea plant are picked – just the top leaves and buds (or the flushes as they're called in the business).
Types of Tea
There are four types of tea that are commonly marketed – white tea, green tea, oolong tea and black tea. They can all be made from the same tea plants, but it's the length of time they've been processed that produces the different types, with white tea processed the least and black tea the most.
Herbal Tea
Herbal teas aren't from the tea plant at all – they're usually created by infusing fruit, flowers, herbs, seeds or roots. In fact they can be made from anything except tea leaves.
In the Beginning
Nobody knows for sure how tea was first invented. According to one story the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was boiling water in a cauldron when a gust of wind blew some leaves from a nearby tea plant into his pot. He loved the resulting brew so much he decided to spread the word.
Trading Places
We know that by 500 years BC tea drinking in China had become widespread. It reached Japan in the 6th century, carried by Japanese priests and envoys who had been to China. By the 16th century tea was being traded to Europe, the Middle East and Russia.
Bringing it Home
It's hard to prove when tea first arrived in England. As a rare luxury, its popularity grew slowly and it was served mostly to men. At the time it was known as Cha, the Cantonese slang for tea. It was renamed Tay, or Tee, when the main British trading post moved from Canton to Amoy, where the word for tea is T'e.
Causing a Stir
It was only when Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1662 that tea became fashionable in Britain. Although she wasn't an especially popular English queen she brought to court the custom of drinking tea. She's also thought to have introduced the fork to our shores too.
The Earl
Earl Grey tea is made of a blend of any type of tea leaf with bergamot oil. It's named after the 2nd Earl Grey, Charles Grey, who was British prime minister from 1830 to 1834. Although why it's sometimes also called 'Old Stinky' nobody seems to know!
Tea Sneaks
By 1750, tea was Britain's national drink and the tea trade was flourishing. But to avoid taxes large quantities of tea were brought in from Europe by smugglers. They sometimes even "cut" the tea leaves to improve profits, adding things like sawdust, sand and even floor sweepings to increase its volume.
Second-Hand Market
Tea lovers soon discovered that tea leaves could produce a palatable cuppa even after they had been used once or twice. That created a market in second-hand tea leaves; the aristocracy got the first cuppa, and their used leaves were then sold on to the poor at lower prices.
Tea Tax
Tea became the focus of rebellion in 1773 when the English government tried to establish a monopoly on all tea sold in the American colonies. Colonists resented this since it put local merchants at a disadvantage. The result was the Boston Tea Party, during which Americans tipped some 45 tonnes of English tea into the sea.
Tea Rules
Though tea drinking is an important tradition in Britain, it is a fundamental part of Japanese culture. The epitome of this is the elaborate tea ceremony in which almost everything follows prescribed rules, including the way the water is heated, the clothes worn by guests and the utensils used to prepare the drink. The longest ceremonies can last over four hours.
In The Bag
The tea bag was a bit of an accident. A New York tea merchant, Thomas Sullivan, decided to use small silk bags to send out his samples of tea – intending that his customers would cut them open before trying the tea. They didn't realise, dunking the silk bags into hot water to make their tea and the tea bag was born.
Tea Rooms
The first tea room in Britain was opened by Thomas Twining on The Strand in London in 1706 and it's still there. During the temperance movement they became more popular and by the 1920s there were Lyons Corner Houses or ABC tea rooms on nearly every high street.
Tea Stockpiles
In the Cold War, fears of a Soviet nuclear attack led to concerns about the supply of tea to Britain. Government officials said that it was vital to stockpile tea in case Britain was attacked as "tea is a necessity for survival."
The Big Sell
Tea advertisments have created some of the most enduring charaters on British television. Between 1956 and 2002, PG Tips produced dozens of chimp ads for the brand and in 2003 the PG Tips chimps were voted the most popular characters in advertising in a poll by Marketing Week magazine. The last chimp stars are now retired at Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire.
Read the Leaves
Tea isn't just refreshing – it can reveal your future too. Tasseography is the art of divination or fortune telling by reading patterns of tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. This became so popular in the 19th century that pottery companies produced special "divination" tea cups with internal markings to help fortune tellers decode the patterns.
Slam Dunk
The rich tea biscuit is generally considered the best accompaniment to a cup of tea. Made from wheat flour, sugar and vegetable oil with malt extract, it is claimed to be the perfect dunking biscuit. Its origins go back to the 17th century, when it was created to provide a snack between meals for peckish aristocrats.
Make the Break
The tea break is not just a fundamental part of British culture – even the rules of cricket specify an afternoon tea break – but it could play a key role in the country's industry. According to a survey by the UK Tea Council, 80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what's going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.
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