British taste in, and knowledge of, tea

Ethan Kurland
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Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:41 pm

The infusion made from tea leaves is the foundation of the drink that is called tea, yes? Milk, sugar, spices, honey, fruit preserves, yak butter.....Water is elevated & different cultures & various classes within those cultures have their ways which reflect.....what's on hand mostly. Water that tastes bad plain or a need to keep warm or....
"English tea" in Asian countries is for the foreigners etc. who want a type of tea that they know, hopefully a brand they know prepared and/or served in a way that is also familiar. English tea is a way to make friends or $. Fine. One way or another most of us pay $ for cheap tea etc. whether we are from the upper or lower classes or from richer or poorer countries. Good that most of the time we don't know what we are missing, otherwise we'd be fighting over the small amounts of good stuff that we learn to appreciate.
Don't know what or why I am writing. Anyway,
When I had tea with the Queen, milk was poured into the cups first protecting her "China" not because it was cheap but because it was very precious and delicate, that is, show-off thin. (It was Earl Grey. that we drank.)
When I had tea with the old Prince & some of the Lords etc., the very large teapot had unflavored leaves inside which stayed there to continue to infuse the hot water in the pot beyond the time most of us would have emptied all of the liquid into a server. Drinkers took it "as it comes" or had hot water and/or milk added to their large, less-than-dainty cups. Oh yes, sugar was available & used. It was not so good this tea but drunk in quantity to wash down crumbs of cold toast stuck in our mouths.
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debunix
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Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:44 pm

i remember reading in one of history of tea that the US and Europe used to import more green than black tea until someone came across tea being dyed bright green with something toxic, and black tea was favored after that.

And drinking boiled water would have been healthier in a lot of times and places when the water was otherwise likely to carry infectious organisms.
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mbanu
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Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:07 pm

The UK used to like green tea; it drank plenty of gunpowder, Young Hyson, Singlo, Twankay; however, tea traders tried to make extra money by passing along stale green teas that had been kept green with poisonous dyes, which lead to a consumer backlash.

The UK used to love oolong tea; "bohea" was the king of teas during the 18th century, but because Chinese tea traders treated the British trade with a sort of gold rush mentality, the quality suffered, and by the 19th century "bohea" was slang for the coarsest, stemmiest, dustiest tea grade.

In both cases Chinese tea traders relied too heavily on China's then-monopoly on tea to coax extra profits out of the British importers at the cost of destroying goodwill. They were right, there was no place to go for other tea, so British tastes changed to try to keep ahead of this. After bohea, it was the finest souchong black tea that became popular; as it came to be more coarsely plucked, it was then Wuyi congou that became the tea of choice, and then as the entire Wuyi area became saturated with bad export teas, the whole region was abandoned for the new "North China congou" of Anhui and Hunan.

So by the time that the Brits started growing tea in India commercially, tastes in the UK were for black tea.

If you are interested in the pre-black period, this blog is a great resource: https://qmhistoryoftea.wordpress.com/
Last edited by mbanu on Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tjkdubya
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Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:11 pm

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Tillerman
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Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:18 am

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:41 pm
When I had tea with the Queen, milk was poured into the cups first protecting her "China" not because it was cheap but because it was very precious and delicate, that is, show-off thin. (It was Earl Grey. that we drank.)
Hey @Ethan Kurland, Her Majesty is on record as being a "tea firster."
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Tillerman
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Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:36 am

bentz98125 wrote:
Thu Sep 26, 2019 6:52 pm
Does anyone know of any histories eluding this tiresome description? (A simple "history of tea" search on this site delivers too many irrelevant hits.) Thanks!
Virtually all "histories of tea" written in English (or French) display the same Western European bias. The Dutch "discovered" tea, the English developed the commerce, the Americans dumped it in the harbor, etc., etc., etc. Even the recent 900 pager by George van Driem, "The Tale of Tea" is full of this western bias. One that isn't is "The True History of Tea" by Victor Mair (an academic at University of Pennsylvania) and Erling Hoh (a Norwegian journalist.) It has chapters on all the usual stuff but also goes into some detail on the Chinese history of tea, the tea/horse connection and other areas. It's a good read!

Kevin Gascoyne's excellent book was mentioned above; another very good one , but difficult to find in the US, is Will Battle's "The World Tea Encyclopaedia."
Ethan Kurland
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Sat Sep 28, 2019 5:28 pm

Tillerman wrote:
Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:18 am

Hey Ethan Kurland, Her Majesty is on record as being a "tea firster."
I can believe that. The very old butler took charge. She has outlived him & now with staff around that did not see her grow up, the Queen will command more freely. Too bad the old guy had not already passed when I was having tea. The guy was slow to offer seconds on the cucumber sandwiches. Also, maybe the Queen would have flirted with me, and I could be telling a better story. That butler's stuffiness was a real party-pooper.
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Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:17 pm

Bentz98125,
Although I don't quite follow this thread, nor your thinking, and wouldn't feel your exasperation with British taste in, and knowledge of, tea, in my misunderstanding I offer here a bit of Irish tea history .

"At one time tea was unknown on the island [Great Blasket Island], and when a cargo of the stuff floated ashore from a wreck it was used by one woman to dye her flannel petticoats (normally dyed with woad). She also used it to feed pigs. A neighbour was incensed that her husband didn't bother to salvage a chest of this useful stuff for her; she too had petticoats waiting to be dyed and hungry pigs to feed. She scolded her husband so severely that he quit the island without a word, never to be seen again. Later, another application for tea leaves was discovered and it became a popular drink for the human population."
- Tomas O'Crohan
An t-Oileánach (The Islandman), 1923, published in 1929.
lucylove
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Mon Oct 21, 2019 4:01 pm

I'd say the taste for builder's tea is becoming more of a middle-class affectation. I'm English, and I grew up drinking my tea strong (Yorkshire Gold), with milk and sugar. We start young...I started drinking tea at around aged 8, though it was served with a lot of milk. Drinking strong tea has certainly ruined my palette for more subtle black teas, though I'm slowly starting to appreciate them as I experiment with loose leaf blends. I never did like the other English favourite, Earl's Grey.
rdl
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Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:43 pm

From the BBC
"Are young Brits falling out of love with the cuppa"?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50101859
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Bok
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Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:14 pm

Seen the gold standard for tea is a PG Tipps or if you’re lucky Yorkshire Tea bag, it is not wonder - and also not a tragedy - that this is happening. Good riddance I say! :)
rdl
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Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:25 pm

I believe that means sugar and cream and flavors are added to coffee, and no real great gain of appreciation for the bean that receives this treatment.
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MmBuddha
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Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:24 am

I think as other's have said, whether you're talking about British tea culture or any other, the most meaningful distinction you can draw is between those who are genuinely passionate about tea as a broader interest, and those who just drink whatever teas are culturally ubiquitous and widely available. Here in the UK this is generally either blended or single-estate black tea, usually low-grade fannings in teabags, less often mid-grade loose-leaf teas, usually taken with milk, and sometimes sugar.

I think the use of teabags, tea fannings and the addition of milk and sugar, though depressing, is for mostly pragmatic reasons. Most of the UK (with some notable exceptions) has fairly hard tap water, which makes most tea taste bitter and tannic. With the addition of milk, however, those qualities pair with it especially well. As an experiment I've tried brewing tea in the common English style with good quality soft mineral water, and it came out tasting weak and less enjoyable once milk was added. If you grant that as a general truism, then tea fannings make sense: it's much cheaper, and they brew up stronger and faster, which is useful if you're absent-mindedly brewing a pot or mug of tea and adding milk before drinking. Better tea, of a higher-grade, takes more attention to brew, requires what looks like a comparatively large amount of leaf to achieve a similar strength, and unless you're attuned to such things, the benefits of better tea might not be immediately obvious once milk is added. And needless to say, teabags are the most convenient method of infusing such fine-grain, low-grade teas.

As I expect is also the case in the US, there are more premium loose-leaf teas available, even in supermarkets etc, but they're sold to such a generally clueless consumer base that value is left to be established almost entirely by branding and marketing claims, and most people aren't equipped to be skeptical about claims of 'exclusive teas' coming from 'the world's lushest gardens' yada yada. During my lifetime there has been a noticeable increase in the variety of teas available in shops/cafes/coffee shops etc, but it's usually a choice between a 'green tea' or a 'white tea', or if you're lucky, some 'gunpowder tea'. I think the idea that there are varieties of tea other than black, which are described by colour, and that there's some sort of tea called 'oolong', is about what the average British person would be able to tell you.

Saying all that, drinking traditional English black tea blends with milk is still something I enjoy, and no amount of better tea available to me seems to impinge on that. I'm sure childhood nostalgia has something to do with it, but I hold the actual appreciation of tea, and the milky infusion this island is famous for in completely different mental categories, and I do consider a good Earl Grey Tea or English Breakfast blend a genuinely pleasurable thing to drink at the right moment. And thankfully there are a few pockets of real knowledge and tea appreciation here, Postcard Teas springs to mind—who offer excellent teas from an unusually broad range of origins, along with high-quality versions of traditional English blends, and I think an approach like that represents an appreciation of tea cultures from around the world without the usual judgments and distinctions.

But yes, if you were thrown out of an airplane at random, and parachuted down somewhere in Britain, and found yourself landing in someone's back garden, you'd probably be consoled with a mug of blisteringly strong PG Tips with milk and sugar, and maybe a digestive biscuit, so make of that what you will. It's the thought that counts.
rdl
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Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:11 pm

MmBuddha,
Didn't Yorkshire Gold Tea come out with a particular tea blend for hard water, which was part of their fame?
I'm not British, but I thought the cream and sugar added was similar to a French café au lait in the morning. Coffee, cream, sugar, and in a bowl large enough to dunk a croissant in; the idea being something a little more hearty and invigorating to begin a long day with, a hold over until lunch time. Meaning it was a specific drink, rather than appreciating, a cup of tea.
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Victoria
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Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:53 pm

@MmBuddha elegant cultural exaltation of the tea bag in the UK. Enjoyed reading your post, thanks.
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