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On 30 Dec 2003 11:01:53 -0800, (Matthias Scholz) wrote:

>THE English way is:
>"What is Darjeeling? I only know some grocery store brands with Earl
>Grey tea bags, Tetley and PG Tips, and I always take the cheapest!"

I'm surprised that I seem to be the only Brit-resident Brit around
here. Still, that's not a bad description of the current state of
British tea drinking 8-)

British tea is drunk in several styles these days; Locally they're
known as Builders', Anarchist, ******* and Posh. (I do happen to
know a posh anarchist ******* carpenter, and they generally drink
builder's).

Builder's Tea is the typical drink of the masses. It's made as
Matthias describes - bag in the mug, milk added later. The tea is
cheap nameless dross from the supermarket, but it's usually based on
Assam, to give a strong brew in no time. Real builders will add the
regulation four sugars, but most people don't take it.

Despite its proletarian origins, this is a decent brew. It's made
(unlike American tea) with boiling water and most of our mass-market
tea (PG, or especially Taylors) is quite drinkable. Happy Shopper
brands and Tetleys (arguably) border on the undrinkable.

Builder's Tea is easily ruined by adding the milk to the mug first,
then trying to brew it with the resultant luke-warm fatty water.

True Builder's Tea (amongst builders) exists as a guild ritual as much
as a drink. The labour of preparing it is performed by the most junior
apprentice, who has also had to walk to the nearest garage (where the
British now shop for groceries) to buy milk. Whether the Gaffer
reimburses them for this, and how generously, is a mark of the
apprentice's status and performance - effectively a variable pay
bonus. The Guild Initiates themselves reinforce the mutual bonds by
sharing the single Teaspoon of Brotherhood amongst them. Other guilds,
such as the Lodge of Mechanics may favour other implements, such as
the traditional ring spanner (the perfect stirrer and teabag lifter).

Anarchist tea takes its name from The Proudhon Shop-Lifting Tea Joke.
It's the brew of Grauniad readers - basically Builder's Tea made in
the mug, but the tea is a better grade and usually FairTrade these
days. Milk is semi-skimmed and it's not sugared.

******* tea (sometime Vegetarian Tea) is a derisory term for any
tea-like infusion without tea in it. The fruit infusions that are so
popular in Germany are also popular in the UK, but with a smaller
sector of the population. Don't offer it to people who don't want it -
it's just not thought of as "tea".

Posh Tea is the only one brewed in a pot. It's also the only one where
the ritual still dominates over the beverage - posh tea is as much an
activity as a drink - _really_ posh tea (like what The Queen drinks)
is as complex and stylised as anything in Japan.

Post tea requires utensils, and often the new girlfriend's mother.
It's served on a tray, and perhaps a tablecloth. Although Anarchist
tea can cheerfully be slurped in a reclined positon on the sofa, Posh
Tea must only be drunk whilst seated erect, at a table. You face the
vessel and talk over it, never talking or being distracted whilst you
place the tea down to one side. Surprisingly, proper tea may be
served in a mug (so long as it's brewed in a pot) although it's the
only place where you're still likely to find a teacup or saucer in
use. A milk jug is essential. Serving milk from the bottle used to be
accepted (with some tutting) from bohemians in their early twenties,
but cartons no longer cut it. Similarly for sugar from a storage jar
rather than a bowl, but never the packet.

The tea is chosen for the quality of its label, its distinction from
everyday Assam, yet its reaassuring familiarity. So Darjeeling is
popular, as is the entirely inappropriate Earl Grey. The tea itself
may also be quite disgusting. The different strength of Darjeeling
leaf compared to dust Assam may confuse inexperienced brewers, so it's
sometimes stewed and of excessive strength, to try and colour match
the familiar. An affectation for the rituals of Posh does not signify
any understanding of the culinary aspect.

Biscuits are common, although these will be from a packet (displayed).
More elevated forms serve the biscuits from a storage jar (hiding the
packet to preserve a pretence of home-baking) or offer cake.
Individual biscuits offered on the saucer are ridiculous though, and
seen as a serious failing in understanding the boundaries of good
taste.

There's also Irish Tea. Ireland is the last outpost of traditional
(1950s) English tea-drinking. It's made in a pot, it's usually
assam-based, it's unfeasibly strong and it's drunk with full-fat milk
and probably sugar too.

Non-family members will be forced to eat cake with it (the rituals of
competitive cake-offering potlach outside the tribe could fill a
book). Not regularly home-baking is a major social gaffe. Even elderly
bachelor uncles will be delivered with regular parcels of home-baked
cake, not for their own consumption, but so they can be offered to
passing vets and farm inspectors without provoking comment on offering
"a poor spread".

--
Congrats to STBL on his elevation from TLA to ETLA