February 3, 2025
Community

Tea

At 4 o’clock in the afternoon it is time for tea. It is a very important part of the day and one that is never missed although there is always a general debate as to whose turn it is to get the tea for those in the office.

Hannah G is most particular about taste and colour so if you are the one in charge of making it – beware. At the flick of a finger, she will replay one of Maggie Smith’s funniest scenes in the film The Best Exotic Hotel Marigold when she explains exactly how to make a cup of tea and we are all keen to ensure we follow her instructions. It is a herb, it needs boiling water and it needs to be allowed to seep.

Tea is the most widely consumed drink around the world after water and rather more welcome and warming on a wintery afternoon at Highclere. Whilst it now has the reputation of being a very English tradition, it began rather nearer to where tea was originally grown in China and around the border of Myanmar before cultivation spread to India and Sri Lanka. Somehow along the way it became very English and now tourists travel across oceans to enjoy afternoon tea (tea with little cakes and scones) at Highclere or at the Ritz in London or at any number of cafes and hotels around the country.

Tea tends to be grown high in the hills where the plants grow more slowly in acidic soils and misty warm climates and it takes at least three years from planting a new shrub to harvesting any leaves. Officially called Camellia sinensis, this evergreen plant is probably the most widely grown Camellia in the world. Tea harvesting is an art and even today is largely done by hand so the bushes are pruned quite low to make it easier to collect the leaves.

Some teas are smoky, some lightly scented or floral… Whatever your preference, apparently 5 billion cups of it are drunk every day around the world which means that nearly 7million tonnes of tea have to be produced each year.  Ireland competes with the UK to drink the most “cuppas” per head.

It became widely consumed in the British Isles from the 18th century onwards but remained expensive until the latter part of that period. English drinkers preferred to add sugar and milk to black tea and soon black tea overtook green tea in popularity. A number of entrepreneurs such as Sir Thomas Lipton created successful businesses using marketing to proclaim that he was selling the best goods at the cheapest prices so that by the end of the 19th century he had amassed a sizeable fortune. As one of the pioneers of early advertising, his mantra was that you didn’t have to be an aristocrat to enjoy a great cup of tea.

There were also various claims for the medicinal benefits of drinking tea. In some ways however, the expansion of tea-drinking in Britain meant that people were consuming more boiled water. This was less likely to carry pathogens unlike untreated water which possibly helped reduce some causes of early mortality.

The increasing popularity of tea also led to a large increase in the demand for porcelain. teacups, teapots, and dishes. Being British, there then of course developed the debate about the correct way to hold the cup. If seated at a table, the proper manner to drink tea would be to raise the teacup only, placing it back into the saucer in between sips. If standing without a table, you should hold the cup and saucer and between sips rest the teacup back in the saucer at waist height resisting the desire to wave it around in the air, let alone extend any little fingers.

The novelist and writer George Orwell wrote, “tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country and causes violent disputes over how it should be made”. The question is whether to put the tea in the cup first and add the milk afterwards or to do the reverse. There are determined schools of thought….

Putting the tea in front of Hannah, you only need one look at her face and you know whether you have been successful or it is indeed the tepid cup of P*** against which Dame Maggie took such umbrage.