British Tea Culture – Solace, Snobbery and Sharing the Love

The British are famously obsessed with tea. It was described by the author, George Orwell, as “one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country.” During World War I, tea was one of the few items that escaped rationing as the British government feared that a lack of tea would lower national morale. During World War II, they stockpiled tea in warehouses located away from potential bombing targets. During the COVID-19 pandemic, tea was one of the items included in emergency packages provided to extremely vulnerable individuals in isolation. For two centuries, a cup of tea has represented comfort, solace, friendship, hospitality, and relaxation to the British people. Quite simply, love in a mug.

These gentle attributes belie the violent extremes to which Brits were historically driven to satisfy their tea habit. Robbery (they stole and smuggled tea plants out of China to cultivate them in their empire). Drug dealing (they trafficked opium into China to undermine the economy so that they could get a better deal on their tea – the Emperor wrote to Queen Victoria to complain about it). Exploitation (acres of forests were felled, and thousands of families were transported under conditions similar to the trans-Atlantic slave trade to create and work the vast tea plantations that helped to fund the British Empire.)

But let’s put all that unpleasantness to one side for the time being, and concentrate on the love. After its turbulent beginnings, tea became so ingrained in British culture that many of the terms used to refer to it don’t even mention tea. It simply goes without saying that a “cuppa” is a cup of tea. If someone asks, “Shall I put the kettle on?” everyone knows that it means you’re “brewing up” or “making a brew.” And by that, it’s understood that you’re brewing tea, not beer (though interestingly, in the 19^th Century, tea replaced beer as the British breakfast beverage of choice, since plain water was unsafe to drink). And to reinforce tea’s nurturing image, saying “Shall I be mother?” is another way of offering to pour the tea from the teapot.

Brewing the Builders

Many Brits aver that their favourite beverage is “builder’s” – signifying a strong, no-frills tea in a mug. The term suggests that this is what working class people would drink, and implies a degree of reverse snobbery. Because snobbery is as central to tea-drinking as the tea leaves themselves. When it first entered Britain, it was a delicacy exclusive to royalty and the aristocracy – but the common people got such a taste for it that they were willing to buy the leaves that upper classes had already used to brew their tea. 

Eventually it became democratised to the extent that every kitchen cupboard in the country contained tea in some form. No British sitcom would be complete without someone offering someone else a cup of tea – whether it was to a neighbour popping round for a chat or to the survivors of a devastating house fire, marriage breakdown or road accident. 

But the snobbery remained. Orwell laid out precise steps for making tea correctly; a ritual almost as elaborate as a Japanese tea ceremony;  warm a teapot with a little boiling water, put in one spoon of tea leaves for each cup required, plus one “for the pot”, pour freshly (re)boiled water straight onto the leaves, let it brew for at least three minutes and then pour it through a strainer into the cup. (I won’t even get started on the milk-in-first/milk-in-last controversy.)

Sadly, as the pace of modern life has accelerated, this leisurely paced tradition is dying out and has been reduced to the hasty pouring of boiling water onto a tea bag in a mug. But, crude though the tea bag system may seem by comparison with the Orwellian ritual, Brits are as outraged by any foreign deviation from the procedure as their tea-pot-wielding grandmothers would be by their tea bags.

I’ll give you an example. A few years ago, a well-meaning American lady and her daughter made a video claiming to demonstrate how to make a cup of “British” tea. She proceeded to fill a mug with cold water and put it in the microwave to heat up,  then added milk and only then put in a tea bag (and then poured – not spooned – in sugar). The poor woman could not have anticipated the furore that her efforts prompted. There was a social media melt-down with Brits all over the world condemning this barbarically false representation of how they make their tea. “Treason”, “heresy,” and “abomination” are just some of the (more repeatable) phrases from their comments.

The Afternoon Tea Phenomenon

One afternoon in  1840, Anna, the Duchess of Bedford – one of Queen Victoria’s Ladies-in-Waiting – experienced a “sinking feeling”. It had been a long time since lunch and dinner would not be served until 9 pm. So she ordered a pot of tea with some buttered bread and cakes. Later, she invited friends to join her in this decadent meal between meals – and it has since become a firm British tradition. It provided a focus for women to gather and socialize, and even spawned new fashion trends.

Nearly 200 years later, the phenomenon of Afternoon Tea is enjoying a resurgence in the UK and beyond. There is a whole website devoted to the subject, guiding you to the best hotels, restaurants, and cafés in Britain to enjoy it. And there are so many ways to enjoy it! It has evolved from that pot of tea, buttered bread, and cakes into a virtual art form. The tea must come in delicate China tea pots and be poured into cups with saucers. The bread and butter must come in the form of tiny, dainty sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The cakes must be exquisitely picturesque. And there must always be scones with cream and jam. And these edibles must be served on a tiered cake stand.

The British charity Breast Cancer Now has been encouraging supporters to host Afternoon Tea parties to raise money for research into breast cancer for many years. In 2024, it released a report on afternoon tea trends. This revealed that Millennials and Gen Z (people born between 1981 and 2012) are “more likely to have an afternoon tea than Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), citing “trendy new flavour combinations” as one of the reasons.

Another reason for Afternoon Tea’s popularity with young people is that, according to Breast Cancer Now’s Afternoon Tea manager, Georgie Gibbons, “it’s incredibly ‘instagrammable’”. The image-sharing social media platform Pinterest saw user searches for “afternoon tea party ideas” up 165% in 2024. The dramatic presentation of the tiered cake stand, the nod to refinement in the multifaceted tea set, and the visual impact of the colourful cakes are part of the story. But the other part is that as long as these basic rules are adhered to, the sky is the limit when it comes to themed afternoon teas.

Afternoon Tea themes have included  everything from Sleeping Beauty (the Disney version),  to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (from Alice in Wonderland), to William and Kate’s Wedding and Bridgerton. To give you an idea of the lengths people go to to make these themes special, for the latter, a bespoke pastry called ‘The Social Butterfly’ was created. It was “a handcrafted jeweled pistachio and mandarin mousse encased in an emerald green glaze, biscuit base and gold leaf sprinkles… finished with an edible gold butterfly tuile representing the symbol of Penelope [Featherington].”

Because it’s a celebratory meal – rather than one that is required for pure nutrition – Afternoon Teas can become more decadent still, with the addition of Champagne or cocktails that complete the theme. They are particular popular choices for groups of women celebrating Mother’s Day, baby showers, birthdays or ‘hen nights’ – where a bride-to-be celebrates with her female friends before the wedding.

Most of these are unlikely to follow the elaborate guidance offered by some websites on the proper etiquette to follow when attending a formal tea party. These include how to fold your napkin and where to place it, the correct order in which to add milk or (never ‘and’) lemon and sugar, how to hold the tea cup (the infamous raised pinkie is not mandatory), and not to blow on your hot tea. However you and your friends behave at the tea table, Afternoon Tea can provide a colourful, playful and indulgent escape from these uncertain times, creating a momentary feeling of luxury amid our worries about the cost of living.

This is not to be confused with “high tea,” which is a proper meal and occurs later than afternoon tea and earlier than dinner when neither of these is available. In the North of England, the evening meal itself is referred to as “tea.”

A New Wave

But Britain’s long, tempestuous love affair with tea appears to be cooling off somewhat. In 2023, coffee pipped tea to the post as the UK’s most popular beverage. But although the classic black tea with milk and sugar may be slipping down the popularity chart, tea continues to tempt the new generations of Brits.

Multicultural Britain is now embracing a myriad of different ways to drink tea from the bright young things slurping tapioca balls through giant straws in their sugary, complex-flavoured bubble tea (containing homeopathic quantities of actual tea) to a growing chain of Chaiiwala cafés selling sweet, milky, spiced Indian chai (and variations thereon – such as chai latte) with Indian street food snacks.

Another new British tea culture – accompanied by its own form of snobbery – that is now on the rise is the Speciality Tea culture. Its denizens are connoisseurs who not only know their Assam from their Earl Grey, but can sniff out an oolong of a Lapsang Suchong a mile off. They imbibe their Sencha or Pu’erh from delicate little gong fu dishes and can pinpoint the exact garden where the leaves grew, were steamed, and hand-rolled to perfection by an ancient artisan. And they would remortgage their homes for a few grams of purest First Flush Darjeeling.

These connoisseurs would never dream of pouring boiling water on a tea bag in a mug. They will heat their (filtered) tea water to a precise 80 degrees and steep it for exactly three minutes. They will raise the cup reverentially to their lips, close their eyes and savour the aroma of the tea, then take a slow, savouring sip – revelling in the different flavours flitting across their tongues. Like wine connoisseurs, they can identify earthy, floral, or vegetal notes and, as they let the precious liquor slide down their throats, they are confident in the knowledge that no chemicals are piggybacking on it into their bodies. Instead, they know that the antioxidant effect of its phenolic compounds and countless other minerals is working its magic on their immune systems, their mental agility, wakefulness, their metabolism, and their general holistic well-being.

Featured image by Christian Lendl on Unsplash