From WalesOnline:
AND you thought it was just warm, tasty and calming...
Academics have found that the humble mug of tea actually performs a “culturally-rooted, symbiotic function between mind and body”.
The study by researchers at London’s City University investigated why a cuppa is the most common British response to a crisis. Nearly seven out of 10 people told the researchers that putting a kettle on was their favourite way of taking the heat out of a dilemma.
Two thirds said they brewed up to tackle a stressful day at work, more than half cited office politics, a quarter said they needed a cup of tea after an argument, while 21% said it could soothe a broken heart.
The academics were even able to put a figure on the amount of tea needed to restore calm: 1.6 cups of tea with milk and 1.5 sugars
Psychologist Dr Malcolm Cross concluded: “The ritual of making and drinking tea – particularly during times of stress – is at the very core of British culture.
How in heaven's name did I get situated in "the very core of British culture"? I blame the shockingly long list of English novels that I read in my impressionable teenage years.
I love the taste of tea, and the ritual of making tea is nearly as soothing as drinking tea. Tea with loose tea leaves, that is. The teabags don't do it for me.
I drink two mugs of tea in the morning, each with half a teaspoon of sugar and a little milk, a bit more than the optimal amount that the academics conclude is just right, and the occasional cup later in the day. I confess that the tea works quite well to calm my morning shock at having to wake up and face the day.
The tea in the picture would be weak tea, indeed, for me, so perphaps I'm not so steeped in "the very core of British culture" as I believed.
PS: Thanks to Ann for the link.
Mimi,
ReplyDeleteIs Archbishop Rowan Williams not drinking his tea? If that is all there is to it I would be happy to send him a few loose leaves. He could then brew it or smoke it but one way or the other it would "repair him".
Publish first; edit afterwards. That's my motto.
ReplyDeleteFred, something's missing with the ABC. Maybe he switched to coffee or just plain orange juice. Great mistake!
Or perhaps he lets the help or Jane brew the tea now and misses the ritual.
I sometimes have tea in the morning, but I find there's nothing so wonderful as making a pot to sip in the late afternoon. I don't do the sugar and milk bit, but just making tea in a clear glass teapot and watching the leaves unfurl is soothing. In winter I love a cup of lapsang soochong with its smoky flavor. I've often wondered how it would go with a dash of peaty single malt.
ReplyDeleteTea comes in bags?
ReplyDeleteThe caption on the scan is "Cup of tea, Scotland",Mimi. Maybe it's whisky, which would account for the color.
ReplyDeleteCoffee produces an interesting response if smoked, Fred.
ReplyDeleteIn my teen years, my best friend's grandmother always had a pot of tea ready for any visitors. Of course this was in the cold, cold north US. Now that I live in the steamy South where hot tea really only works for about two months, cold tea just does not carry the same sense of calm. May have something to do with grandma's presence as well......
ReplyDeleteLapinbizzare,
ReplyDeleteWell actually, the tea (see 1960s definition) I was referring to did many things for one including loss of memory and a rather peculiar sense of self.
Maybe it's whisky, which would account for the color.
ReplyDeleteLapin, it just goes to show that I'm not that steeped in British culture. Do the Scots consider themselves British?
Brian, tea works for me in my air-conditioned house in the steamy South. I find that iced tea does not have the same calming effect. And I'm sure that your grandmother's presence had much to do with the effect.
Fred, the mother of a friend, a little old lady from rural Tennessee, near 100 if she's still alive, astonished us one night, telling us that as a child she had smoked coffee - don't know whether, like Mimi, she had a corncob pipe (newer readers will miss the point of this observation) - and rabbit tobacco. Her son, who was adept at rolling substances into cigarette form, obliged us with a coffee example. The taste was amazing. It bridged the gap between the wonderful aroma of fresh-roasting coffee and the slight let-down that is the taste of the finished product. Unfortunately, this led all of us to smoke quite a bit more than was good for us, since this is a far more efficient mode than drinking of introducing significant quantities of caffeine into the bloodstream. Even though I had drunk rather more alcohol than I would nowadays consider good for me, I was wide awake at 3:00 am, eight hours later, eyes staring, heart pumping wildly.
ReplyDeleteI have not repeated the experience.
So if you try it - and for the taste alone I recommend it - once - do it early in the day and do it in moderation.
Do the Scots consider themselves British? Depends, Mimi, though a short answer would be "only when they can make money by it". There was a to-do recently, still resonating on marginal nationalist blogs, about an NYT op-ed piece entitled "Keep Your Hands Off Our Haggis". The subject of the piece is the proposition, new, apparently, to its author, though not to food historians, that "haggis, the Scottish national dish, is not really Scottish, but English".
ReplyDeleteI will not quote further from the piece, which I have linked above and which you can read for yourself, but will, in reply, cite the unanswerable Oxford English Dictionary's description of this dainty dish:
"A dish consisting of the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, calf, etc. (or sometimes of the tripe and chitterlings), minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, etc., and boiled like a large sausage in the maw of the animal.
"(Now considered specially Scotch, but a popular dish in English cookery down to the beginning of the 18th c.)"
The OED then quotes citations relating to the haggis in an English context, from 1420 through the late 17th c. What we have here is a dish so awful that even the English cuisine, notable for dishes like Toad in the Hole (good, actually) and Spotted Dick (almost as disgusting as it sounds) spat it out more than 300 years ago.
Someone has too little to do this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteLapin, I'm quite often pleased and astonished at the bits of esoteric knowledge that you drop into the comments of my wee blog. How else would I ever know these things? And some of the bits are truly need-to-know type of information.
ReplyDeleteLapin,
ReplyDeleteI will, more than likely, work on your suggestion. Though I gave up smoking about 25 years ago (all substances I will quickly add) I have never given up coffee. Your suggestion is worthy of much consideration.
Thanks, Mimi. Are you still smoking that corn-cob?
ReplyDeleteLapin, I never did. I grew up in the city. I'd have been laughed out of town.
ReplyDeleteI like my tea like I like my men, strong and sweet.
ReplyDeleteSorry I only drink tea to be polite when visiting, compare it to dishwater. However I cannot do anything except turn on the computer until I have had my first cup of coffee - black and strong.
ReplyDeleteCounterlight, strong is good, but only a little sweet for me.
ReplyDeleteBrian, are you drinking good tea?
I drink coffee, too, sometimes, but I now prefer tea.
Almost any kind of good loose leaf tea is my personal choice.
ReplyDeleteI have always been a tea drinker since I was raised with it from my first visits with my grandmother who had it from the time she was a little girl. With our shared Irish history it has always been a personal time alone for thought, or sometimes a something special to share with others.
There are others of us besides the British for whom tea brewing (the ritual) and tea drinking constitute an essential ritual. I didn't learn it from the British but from the Indians, who have their own therapeutic and social tea rituals. Besides the morning, afternoon and evening cuppa at home, there are the many cups at the office that lubricate the business of the day. But still more memorable are the cups brewed over open fires at little village tea shops, with the leaves boiled in a mixture of water and milk with whole spices (cinnamon, clove, cardamom, etc.) and plenty of sugar. No one should die before having had a cup of tea (similar recipe) on an Indian Railways train, handed up from the station platform in a cup and saucer or in a disposable earthenware cup.
ReplyDeleteThe 1.6 cups measure is not too far off for me. I like it strong, made from loose-leaf teas (we mix our own combination of South Asian teas), brewed in a proper pot and steeped under a cozy, poured into a china cup through a silver strainer, with milk and a spoonful of honey -- not just any sort of honey, but Really Raw Honey (TM) made by local bees and packed here in Baltimore.
Remember the recent case of the (US American) lady whose husband came home in a rage and shot her through the head, and once the poor rascal had gone out back and shot himself she sensibly phoned the police, put the kettle on and offered a cup of tea to the responding officers? I rolled on the floor laughing (even while feeling terrible for the poor woman) 'cause that would totally be me. As long as I am conscious and ambulatory I know where to begin to address life's troubles and conundrums.
Mimi, I am looking forward to the day when you visit me in Baltimore and I have the opportunity to prepare you a proper pot of tea!
I love it when Lapin has a slack afternoon.
Ciss, I was raised on strong New Orleans coffee with chicory, but as children we drank café au lait. I began to drink tea many years ago when I had the flu, the bad flu, and I had no taste for coffee while I was sick. Someone had given me some good tea, and I thought that would be just the drink while I was sick, and it was, along with being soothing and healing. I liked it so much that I never went back to coffee as my regular morning drink. If I'm traveling, and I can't get a good cup of tea, I'll drink coffee.
ReplyDeleteMary Clara, you go the whole nine yards with the ritual. I make my tea with the loose leaves in a Brown Betty everyday teapot, and unless I have company, I use a mug and my pewter strainer. I have a silver strainer, but that with a china teapot and teacups are for company. I have a collection of teapots, but I've stopped collecting, and yet people still give me teapots.
Yes, I read the story of the poor woman shot in the head, who had the tea ready for the police officers.
I hope one day to visit you and enjoy a grand tea ritual with you, but I take a tiny bit of umbrage in your implication that I don't prepare a proper cup of tea. ;o)
Do the Scots consider themselves British?
ReplyDeleteI think you may encounter a variety of opinion on that one. Go to Youttube and put the following words in the search to discover one.
mcglashan absolutely
Hi, Mary Clara. Nice to hear from you. Thanks. Don't encourage me!
ReplyDeleteOh, Mimi, please forgive me if my phrasing was clumsy. I didn't for a moment mean to imply that tea prepared at your house would be anything short of PROPER! The thing about tea rituals is that everybody has his or her own quirky house standard. Being fussy about the way you brew and drink your tea is part of the therapeutic and cultural value of the custom. Sort of like the family recipes (cherry pie, tuna casserole, and dare I mention barbecue?) that get savored and passed down.
ReplyDeleteLet me put it this way: It is delightful to know that this is another thing we share -- the love of a good cup of tea -- and that if the fates permit someday I could have the pleasure of entertaining you in this way.
TheMe, that's a really sweet video. How is Beloved?
ReplyDeleteMary Clara, there are differing rituals for making tea, and who's to say which is best? It's sort of like the theology of the Trinity.
I am a constant coffee drinker. I start about 5:00 AM and stop about 9:00 PM. But then I am a systems sort. We live on the stuff -- the combination of concentration, energy and creativity needed to do good systems work requires huge amounts of energy.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
Jim, if I drank coffee at 9:00 PM, I'd be awake all night.
ReplyDeleteRight now, I'm teabagging it, because I didn't order a new supply in time. It's not the same!