Drinking tea in England
England is often called a nation of tea drinkers… Fancy a cuppa? In this English culture lesson, I’m going to teach you about drinking tea in England. We’ll explore the long history of drinking tea in England going back to the eighteenth century when tea was an upper class drink. I’ll also teach you the difference between ‘posh tea’ and ‘builder’s tea’, which has to do with the different preferences for drinking tea that correspond to the different social classes in England. And finally, I’ll teach you some expressions and sentences related to drinking tea so that you know exactly what to say the next time an English person asks you whether you’d ‘like a cuppa’.
TAKE THE QUIZ: https://www.engvid.com/drinking-tea-in-england/
MORE VIDEOS ABOUT ENGLISH CULTURE:
English Culture: Manners & How to be polite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hV7lJyC3Eg
3 popular slang words in British English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0JUlo0ETZY
Welcome to London - Tour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpnDAGVEeZg
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to talk to you about drinking tea in England. You probably know that we drink a lot of tea over here in England, and we have been drinking tea for a really, really long time. Tea started to come here in the 18th century, and that was the time when the British were exploring the world and trading, and bringing back... Bringing back the things that they found in other countries and selling them to people in England. So tea was once an upper-class drink, and you had to have a lot of money if you wanted to drink tea. And back then there was a place for you to keep your tea, it was called a tea caddy, a box, and often they had locks on them because tea was so expensive back then. Obviously it's a very different story now. It's not like that about tea. And back then when... In these older times when the upper-class people were drinking tea, one of the ways for you to display your wealth, and status, and how much money you had was by investing money in your tea sets, lovely... Lovely little cups that you can drink your tea from, you drink it very, very slowly and drink your tea like this, and pour from the teapot ever so slowly. That's how they... Tea was a whole social event back in the 18th century, and it was a way for women to get together with their friends in the afternoon and spend time talking, so tea was a... Tea was a big change in the upper-class culture back then, and ever since those times we've been drinking tea, but now everybody drinks tea in England. Well, maybe not everybody because it could be the case that the... The golden years of tea drinking in England are over. The years that tea was the most part of English culture, because now lots more people drink coffee. And even when I was younger, like 20 years ago, not so many people drank coffee. And if you go around in London now you'll see lots and lots of coffee shops everywhere. People do still drink tea, but it seems to be changing that they drink tea at home or they drink tea at work, but when they're out walking around or they stop to get a hot drink somewhere, then they drink coffee. So times are changing in England, but yet it's still very useful for us to know about the language of drinking tea, and something about the culture of it.
English tea is also an experience that people coming to England like to have as a tourist experience, so they might want to go out for afternoon tea, which means to go to a lovely hotel somewhere and have tea. You know, like the old times when they use the teapot and you drink it all slowly like this, you can still drink like that today in the lovely hotels that we've got in London. They're very posh. Very posh, expensive hotels. You can still drink tea that way and it is a really nice experience that I recommend to anyone if they're coming to England or specifically London on a holiday and you'd like to do something a bit different.
Okay, so let's start by talking about posh tea. What is it exactly? Now, I know the English are famous in many countries for ruining their tea, and drinking it in the worst way possible because in many countries they cannot imagine that people would drink tea with milk in it. To them it's a disgusting idea. Why would you do that? Well, that's the way most people drink their tea in England even today. Except if you are very, very posh and you have a very, very, very expensive tea, then it's probably the case that you don't drink it with milk. So, instead of having milk tea or milky tea, you drink your tea black just with the tea leaves, no milk, or you would drink that tea with a slice of lemon. And if you drink it this way without the milk, some people would say you get more of the true flavour of the tea and you're not spoiling it with the milk taste.