One day in South East Asia somewhere (although, there is debate about that) some bloke, well an emperor actually, plucked up the courage to munch on some old leaves he had knocking about his garden, with total disregard for the possibility they could render him very ill or even dead.
Luckily, he was strangely pleased by the taste & so decided (as you do) to boil the leaves up & see what the resultant drink was like.
Bypassing all clinical trials & safety checks, he had accidentally discovered something truly magical. He should have patented it there & then. He'd be minted now if he had.
& then in stomped the British, who then decided that it (along with everything else) was theirs.
Tea became something valuable. Something to trade with & something to tax & was even smuggled by people!
Special boats (tea clippers) were constructed to get it from A to B as fast as possible & a whole industry of tea chest manufacturing was born. To this day, some of us still have tea chests in our attics full of moulding cuddly toys & seventies porn magazines.
Hell, even those Bostonians tried to brew the biggest cuppa in history by chucking a ship load of the stuff into the harbour. All very good until someone realised that they hadn't actually boiled the water first & so all was wasted & inadmissible in the Guinness Book Of Records.

Tea was a way of life when I grew up. Everyone drank it & invited their friends around for it, like it was some sort of ritual similar to shamen eating dodgy mushrooms & heating themselves up to such a temperature that they started believing they were seeing flying reindeer & the exit from Ikea.
It was everywhere!
& it was a ritual too.
There was even a cub scout "tea making" badge, presumably to go alongside the "sausage cooking" badge.

The teapot was a creation, spawned by this elixir. Antiques Roadshow tells us just how valuable those bizarre, one hundred year old, fire engine or hot air balloon shaped vessels are (unless they have a crack in the handle of course) & we continue to use them, warming them before we add the tea & boiling water & leaving for the "cub scout standard" six minutes to brew.
We carefully pour the resultant nectar into a cup, through a strainer, so as to remove those offending bits of plant (unless you are a fortune teller) & savour the aroma of the dark liquid, before opting to destroy it with UHT milk & 4 sugar lumps.
We even made cosies for our teapots. Oddly coloured, knitted affairs that kept the pot (note, not the tea) warm. A labour of love indeed.

& so onto "modern" tea drinking…
As soon as some bright spark figured that you could put the tea into perforated bags, a race was on to be the one to make the perfect cuppa.
PG thrust it down our throats with their cute chimps pouring the stuff all over their brothers, while wearing a variety of stupid hats & we also had claims of round teabags making better tasting tea than square ones, as if geometry really mattered when immersed in a cup of boiling hot water. Did we miss some flavour from those pesky corners? I will write to my MP!

The teapot is now perhaps an endangered species. As teabags now come with string attached to them so that we are able to control our infusion of dried leaves & also feel as though we have been fishing & caught something in the shape of a soggy miniature pillow.
I blame hotels largely for this. The sachets of "Sir Morton" & the mini kettle really belittle the tradition of tea making & lay the path for all others to mimic this "fast food" equivalent.
& they do. Fruit tea?? What is that? Tea is supposed to taste like….well, tea really. How is it that kumquats can be associated with tea?
If you've ever been to a tea shop in China, then you would see some horrified faces if you asked for banana blend or apricot & lime bags. They would probably stop singing & usher you out into the street.
Tea is taken very seriously in China. & here we are back to "ritual" again.
The Chinese have sort of miniature teapots. A sort of mug with an insert in the top where you put your Jei or Song Lou leaves & then you pour not-quite-boiling water over them. Last step, put the little lid on so that none of that gorgeousness escapes the brew.
See. No pomegranates or kiwi fruits in sight. Simple (unless you happen to be a middle manager or Peaches Geldof)
No frills. Just colours. Green, Red, Black & white tea.

So simple that a ritual needs to be made out of it really.
Tea shops are a dream aren't they? I know a great place in Glasgow (Tchai Ovna).
Tucked away in a side street, it has a dazzling menu of absurdly named teas but the ritual is what you go for. & maybe a hookah for good measure.
They also do a bargain crack night for just 5 quid (I kid you not).
& guess what? They have teapots!! Yes they do.
In England, tea rooms are falling over themselves to offer you cream tea (urf) & scones laden with the sweetest jam in living history, that also has the effect of luring every wasp within a 50km radius to your table.

What do you drink it from?
I go for my CCC mug, personally, but cup & saucer is proper etiquette. Along with a shiny silver spoon to stir in all that sugary "goodness" & spoil the flavour that has been thousands of years in the making.
Some will pour the tea into the saucer & slurp it loudly. These people are usually the sort of folks most of us try to avoid, on the off chance we may lunge at them with something sharp.
& Biscuits!! How could I leave these out?
A famous commercial in the UK once (or perhaps many thousand times) stated, "A drink's too wet without one".
It's a drink innit? It's supposed to be wet!
Still. A dunk is a must! Even if half the bourbon cream ends up in the bottom of the cup as a sort of brown sweet sludge, tea & biscuits is good. Full of win.

When I watch UK tv, I still see the old tea traditions being borne out. Eastenders (a weakness of mine) appears to see tea as the remedy to all evils.
Had a heart attack? Have a cup of tea.
Discovered you are pregnant by the late, dead pub landlord, whilst discovering you are bi-polar & having a ginger boyfriend who appears to have a rash over his entire face?
Have a cup of tea.
That will make everything bad go away. Really.
& people really believe it does. Way back when I was first qualified as a first aider I was actually told that a cup of hot, sweet tea was good to go for someone in shock!
Nowadays, you can't administer anything more than a drop of water rubbed on their lips.
Screw that! Get the tea back. It works for everyone else doesn't it?
Plus it has the added advantage that you don't need to negotiate cold sores & other oral infections as you rub that, oh so yummy, water into your casualty's lips.

So. Whether you're a lapsang souchong fan or a pear & star anise officianado, tea is with everyone & everyone has their own ritual. It's a personal thing really isn't it?
Okay I'm going to put the kettle on. Coffee anyone?

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