pensnest | December Meme, Day Three: Tea (Reply)

ephemera asked for my thoughts on Tea and Table Manners.

Tea. So many wonderful connotations! The cuppa my Beast brings me in the morning to help me get my eyes to open. Putting the kettle on as soon as I walked into my Grandma's kitchen, because there was *always* tea(1). Sparkly weekends with hourly infusions to lubricate the brain. Most of this kind of thing is 'common or garden tea', the basic Tea that British people drink. Not the dust scrapings from the floor of the factory where tea is processed, but not anything so grand as to call itself English Breakfast Tea either. Although if one wants Tea in somewhere that offers highfalutin' stuff, English Breakfast is what to ask for.

Tea in our house, and in

nopseud's, is made in a teapot. With teabags, to be sure, because loose tealeaves are a nuisance, but a proper, pre-heated teapot. We Do Not Dunk Our Teabags in mugs. Unless it's a herbal tea, or something. If you are forced to this, for goodness sake do not put the milk in until the tea has had a chance to brew. And make sure the water is boiling. And heat the mug first. Just buy yourself a teapot!

I've never been in favour of Earl Grey and its ilk. Nor, I discovered at my Tea Tasting, do I care for smoked tea, ie Lapsang Souchong, which tasted of bonfires. These, and other more particular teas, are usually offered when you go out for a proper Afternoon Tea(2), and I must say, I don't think there is a more civilised meal than Afternoon Tea, which is properly composed of many small things, including sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, and cake. It is, in fact, a completely frivolous meal consisting only of treats—cucumber sandwiches do not count as Vegetables, and even a flapjack(3) cannot be classified as wholesome, however much roughage it may contain. And if you eat Afternoon Tea at, say, Chatsworth, or a fancy Brighton tea shop, or a seaside hotel, you had better skip either lunch or dinner, or both. It is remarkable how so many elegant little items add up.

Happily, table manners don't require any particular behaviour at Afternoon Tea that they don't require at any other meal(4). No nonsense about passing the teapot to the left, or how you hold your little finger, not these days. Traditionally, though, at an in-home Tea rather than in a public place, someone should be Mother and take on the dignified duty of pouring the tea. In the… (I think) 18th century, when tea as a Thing first started to happen in England, the tea was far too precious to be entrusted to the servants, so the hot water, teapot etc would be brought up and set before the lady of the house, who would spoon the tea leaves (from the locked tea-box) into the pot herself. A lot of status to be displayed with so-fine-they-re-see-through teacups. Presumably that's when some of the tea-related shibboleths arose.

Oh, and I'm firmly in the milk-in-first camp. I know it's non-U, but I know how much milk I want in my cup, and it's far easier to determine that I have the right amount by putting it in first. Also, the tea stays hotter if you put the milk in first.

(1) I knew she was dying when she didn't drink her tea.
(2) Note: Afternoon Tea is not the same as Cream Tea (which is tea with scone(s) + jam and clotted cream, and possibly butter). And you can have an afternoon tea break for a cuppa and a biscuit or a piece of cake if you are very fortunate, without it being Afternoon Tea. Afternoon Tea is special.
(3) an English flapjack is a slice made of oats, butter and golden syrup, not a pancake
(4) Eat with your mouth closed and don't talk with your mouth full. Don't reach across someone else's table space to grab the food. Don't take an unfair quantity of anything. Be alert to your neighbours' needs. Keep your elbows to yourself. Don't wave your knife about. All else—that I can think of—is decorative. I mean, I wouldn't cut up my dinner and then set my knife down and eat it with my fork in my right hand, because that's not how I was brought up. And if faced with an esoteric tool such as a snail fork, you can bet I'd be watching how everyone else used theirs before attacking my snail. But essentially, good table manners boil down to (a) don't be disgusting, and (b) be nice to the people around you. Works for me.