A Cup of Tea
Photography: Beehives.
I adore coffee, and I have loved coffee for much longer than I would even drink a cup of tea. Coffee stimulates, coffee concetrates, and coffee surpresses lethargy. Coffee is great to wake up to, its great to revise to, and its great to write to. Yet on a Sunday afternoon, with the news-sites open, and a laptop poised for leisure, I feel like the anti-christ with a cup of coffee by my bedside.
This summer I have had a temporary job as a ‘General Assistant’, amongst other jobs serving tea and coffee was one of those duties. Throughout the furore of complaints about the sub-standard coffee, the noise from teamakers always came out on top; all in desperate need for a ‘good cup of tea’.
The good cup of tea is about as steeped in British tradition as one gets; Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ would be considered entertaining material, if it wasn’t for the fact that he is amogst millions that take tea making, very seriously.
I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial.
He writes before his page-long essay on the ins and outs on a perfect Orwellian cup of tea. Indeed I agree with him on a lot of points, but where I fall down, and this is a point that my summer of tea making has also reiterated, is my desire to put sugar in tea.
Lastly, tea—unless one is drinking it in the Russian style—should be
drunk WITHOUT SUGAR. I know very well that I am in a minority here.
But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover ifyou destroy
the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally
reasonable to put in pepper or salt.
Orwell would be proud of today’s tea climate, unlike his post-war Evening Standard audience, contemporary Britain seems devoted to the lack of sugar.
Indeed my addition of sugar is not something I do to retract from the taste of tea, moreso it combines my love for sugar and all things sweet. My coffee has two and a half sugars, my Earl Gray only has two. Yet re-reading Orwell’s essay now is making me recosider the merits of trying something new. I know very well that I am now in the minority, and so perhaps I will take a leaf from his essay, and try it for a fortnight without sugar.
My journey with tea has only been existent for a couple of years, I am by no means a tea-snob (for how can I be when I take sugar with my tea?), nor am I an expert, but I’m excited about where my future with tea goes. The subculture and even culture of tea and tea-drinkers is suprisingly encompassing; everyone has an opinion, everyone knows an anecdote, everyone has their own special way. I’m looking forward to exploring more, and in the mean time I’m going to have my first cup of Earl Grey; milk, no sugar.
George Orwell’s ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ (orig. 1946 - Evening Standard)
