A little healthy competition

Even before you start reading, I’ll be the first to admit: this week’s post is going to be a major stretch. I’m headed to the airport in about 1.5 hours to go see the sights and sounds of Italy and catch the tail end of Venice’s renowned Carnival. But (and though you’ll notice I’ll allude to many previous posts and much interesting pop and past culture) I made myself a promise that I would not miss a week, and even being in a different country does sound tempting, it has not become an acceptable excuse…so there will be no relevant pictures and I’ll just cut straight to the chase. This week’s ECTW (English Cultural Topic of the Week) is:

TEA

One thing I am still having trouble grasping is the English fascination with tea.
Asian countries drink green tea. Indian people drink spice chai. In Morocco they serve up a mad mint. In Italy, tea is drank with lemon. En France, ils aiment leurs cafés et ne s’inquietent pas avec les differents types de tées. In North America, they haven’t quite decided what kind of tea is the best, so you actually just get the choice whenever you order it. English people drink black tea (which, talking about world tea preferences, actually originally comes from India), but with milk or cream and sugar.

Now, I realize that I HAVE spoken on food in previous posts, but for English people, tea, though it is a consumer good and is ingested, is not a food. I’ve dubbed it a cultural topic because it is just that. England has a tea culture. Though not an official stat, I would estimate that nearly 40% of people wake up to a hot cup of tea, rather than coffee. In fact, it totally discredits Folgers advertising and how it being in your cup is the best part of waking up.

Now, personally, I drink my coffee black (unless it’s crap coffee and then I’ll put in some milk, but not too much, and I DO love a latte now and again) so I still can’t get over tainting a perfectly reasonably tasting black tea with milk. The main reason to add milk to coffee is to top it up, or dull down the strong, often bitter (yet ever so refreshing) taste of delicious, life-giving coffee. But many have accused me of being somewhat of a caffeine addict. I think they’re wrong. Point is, tea, not matter how black they claim it is or looks, does not have as strong a flavour as coffee. Coffee is still dominated by the all mighty Starbucks and is closely followed by Café Nero and Costa Coffee. These “coffee chains” also sell tea. Sellouts.

Having said that, upon arrival, I never understood why preparing tea would be an afternoon long event (and of course, when I finally figured it out, it was one of those “oh, I’m such a moron” kind of reactions.) The words tea and dinner are used interchangeably. What this means is that “having a Cumberland pie for tea” is nothing like “dunking your doughnut in your coffee”.

As mentioned in an earlier post, England is facing an obesity crisis and the daily free newspapers still have yet to give it a rest. England remains the third fattest nation in Europe, and the government is pushing toward healthier eating. There are currently two major health campaigns going on in England. The first being a health regime based on eating at least 5 servings of fruit or vegetable each day, the second being a push for herbal tea. This herbal (pronounced here with a hard ‘H’) craze is being lead by blueberry and passion-fruit teas, because in addition to being delicious, they also contain helpful cancer-fighting anti-oxidants.

Once upon a time a friend of mine told me that if you leave an anti-oxidant-rich tea bag in your tea for longer than about an hour to an hour and a half, the cancer fighting power can actually be eliminated and after a few hours can actually be counterproductive to the original cause. I thought this was bunk, but turns out it’s true after all. So watch out, coffee: there’s a new kid in town.

Want more facts about tea? In North America everyone takes coffee breaks at work; in England, they take tea breaks. One of the non-winter-countries’ passions is cricket; Cricket games last for days; though they take daily breaks to sleep and eat, part way through each day of play; players get a rest so they can drink tea (and probably talk about how great tea is). The Boston tea party took place in 1773 in Boston harbour and was a sabotage of a British tea delivery to those living in New England, who at the time drank far more tea than they did coffee. Much of England’s supply of tea is grown domestically in Cornwall. An English company, Tetley was the first company to commercially produce tea bags. Lipton Brisk Lemon Iced Tea, in my opinion is delicious. To American people, iced tea is just hot tea made cold. In Canada, we like it with sugar and lemon in a packaged drink can or bottle.

In England, rain or shine and regardless of whether the weather is hot or cold, there’s one thing you can bet your boots on: they’ll have their tea hot, black and with milk, cream and/or sugar.