An estimated 100 million cups of tea are drunk in Britain every day - that is almost 36 billion cups per year. Though coffee has continued to increase in popularity, it lags way behind tea which is still very much the nation's preferred hot drink. I myself drink four or five mugs of tea every day. I have mine strong with a glug of semi-skimmed milk and one spoonful of sugar. Like most British people, I don't go in for fancy teas - just the simple everyday tea that is now commonly referred to as "builders' tea".
I wrote this poem in praise of tea in the past forty minutes. I am sure that if a teacher was assessing it, he or she might well remark: "Could do better!". Perhaps I will try another tea poem some time soon.
💢💢💢💢💢💢💢
TeaLife has its ups and it has its downs
In rural parts and busy towns
But instead of crying “Woe is me!”
Head for your kitchen
To make some tea!
For tea is the elixir of human life -
A cure-all for every trouble and strife.
Make it at daybreak or late at night,
After drinking a cuppa
You’ll feel all right.
We drink tea at funerals when a human life ends
And it’s also the best way to welcome our friends.
It’s part of this nation’s proud history
Cos there’s nothing quite like
A nice cup of tea.
To make some tea!
For tea is the elixir of human life -
A cure-all for every trouble and strife.
Make it at daybreak or late at night,
After drinking a cuppa
You’ll feel all right.
We drink tea at funerals when a human life ends
And it’s also the best way to welcome our friends.
It’s part of this nation’s proud history
Cos there’s nothing quite like
A nice cup of tea.
I like iced tea (especially in Arnold Palmer drinks) but not hot. I did while pregnant, oddly enough, but not afterward. I'm a coffee drinker though like most PacNorthwesterners.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which product - coffee or tea - has the worst environmental credentials.
DeleteLove the poem. I drink about a dozen cuppa every day.
ReplyDeleteA dozen? You may need to go into rehab Karen!
DeleteTea is fine
ReplyDeleteFor thou and thee
But as for me
I'll have coffee.
Walt Whitman strikes again!
DeleteI like very strong clear tea...no additives. In the Arctic they stop to make tea often when they are on a trail or trip. This tea is boiled ands it's great.
ReplyDeleteDo they have tea plantations in The Arctic then?
DeleteThat's good except the last stanza? doesn't seem quite right.
ReplyDeleteYou are right sir. It didn't quite hit the nail on the head.
DeleteThat's a very nice poem. I'm not a tea drinker, preferring coffee, but I like it with too much sugar which I am now not allowed, so no more coffee for me. It's water for me now with one or two mugs of Milo on colder mornings and evenings. I have herbal teabags, which I have with a teaspoon of honey, but not every day or even every week.
ReplyDeletePoor young River! Are you diabetic now?
DeleteNo, just trying very hard to not become one. And it's working, my blood sugar level is coming down.
DeleteGreat poem..... and it rhymes! Just counted that I drink 6 cuppas ( mugs ) a day.
ReplyDeleteI guess a mug is equivalent to two cups which means that like me you are a tea addict Frances!
DeleteWhen it's raining and windy, blowing a gale
ReplyDeleteA nice mug of tea will do better than ale
Just sit round the fire as snug as can be
And all say "Here, have a nice cup of tea"
PS. I have a tablecloth just like that on my kitchen table.
Good effort JayCee! Nice to learn that when it comes to tablecloths you also have sophisticated tastes.
Delete7/10 - not a bad poem for a first attempt!
ReplyDeleteRarely drink tea, and can't remember when I last had a traditional English cuppa! I don't take milk or sugar, so these days settle for tea with lemon, or mint - my particular favourite.
Are you posh Carol? Sounds like it.
DeletePosh??? Nah, just awkward!
Delete"A cup of tea and slice of cake Aunt Sally." Wurzel Gummidge.
ReplyDelete“Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.” – Thomas de Quincey
DeleteAunt Sally in Wurzel Gummidge, the adorable Una Stubbs (1937-2021).
DeleteI always dreamed of bumping into Una at an afternoon Tea Dance in the Waldorf Hilton, sinking Gin Slings with her, and doing a slow foxtrot to Noel Coward's Some Day I'll Find You Again.
I became infatuated with Miss Stubbs when she starred in Johnny Speight's acerbic television comedy, *Till Death Do Us Part* (YouTube) though Una was 14 years my senior.
In the show Una was married to Tony Booth, the Welsh Git as Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell) called him, who would become the father-in-law of Tony Blair the Smarmy Git.
Tony Booth played Alf Garnett's son-in-law.
DeleteAlf called him *the Scouse Git* since he hailed from Liverpool.
Why did I write *Welsh Git* ?
I don't need the Welsh after my blood alongside the Scottish Nationalists.
If there was Welsh whisky I would drink it as I drink Irish whisky.
But is it Yorkshire tea?
ReplyDeleteNaturally. From the tea plantations near Todmorden.
DeleteEvery book I read set anywhere in the British Isles is absolutely filled with tea drinking. EVERY occasion calls for tea. Unless it calls for G&T's. Haha! No, true.
ReplyDeleteIf something dire has occurred, the person suffering must have strong, sugary tea immediately.
If the kettle's not on the hob, then it ain't England.
I'm deeply impressed that you can write a rhyming poem, something that eludes me. As for the tea, I prefer mine ice cold with some lemon.
ReplyDeleteVery uplifting poem, my friend. As I sit here drinking my 3d cup of coffee. Coffee till noon and then tea till night. Both with no additives. How I can then sleep like a baby is the unknown part!
ReplyDeleteI'm with Catalyst and River -- no matter how long I live in England I don't think I'll ever successfully adapt to tea. I'd much rather have coffee. (Three mugs per day, in fact.)
ReplyDeleteExcellent poem. It's so true about the curative effects of tea. Just hearing someone say, "I'll put the kettle on.", soothes my soul.
ReplyDeleteDecades ago I was in the home of an Old Gent who belonged to the Sanderson sherry family.
ReplyDeleteThis was in Bridge of Allan, the Auld Brig o'Allan.
The kilt is not customary dress in the Brig, but this man sported the Highland dress and sporran, even on that bitter February morning.
His wife brought us a pot of Assam tea and dry biscuits, which I eyed flintily, only because I yearned for real coffee.
Catching my flinty look Mr Sanderson spoke the nicest words in any language:
*Or would you prefer something stronger ... ?*
The large malt whisky he poured me hit the spot, and then he put on a record of a bagpipe's chanter. An applewood fire burned brightly to the chanter's drone.
To this day I associate whisky, Assam tea and the ghostly sound of the pibroch's lament (YouTube) with Happy February.
As for tea, I drink Clipper's Organic Green Tea (2 minutes in the cup) which tastes of nothing much and nicely adulterates the wheesky.
P.S. John Going Gentle has a wonderful video of a young woman and her wee monkey.
Ursula is in grand form too, a cross between Bette Davis and Brecht's Mother Courage.
I drink 'English Breakfast'(medium strength) but it always makes me giggle when people mention Yorkshire (good strong cuppa)tea. Now how do you put your milk in, before or after?
ReplyDeleteGoes without saying that it is Yorkshire Tea, I presume.
ReplyDeleteI have just one mug a day with my breakfast, two mugs of coffee and from lunchtime on just water. I used to drink more tea but I've gone off it recently for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI too like my tea, hot, strong & black with a good glug of whole milk - no sugar. I drink about 4 or 5 large cups per day and try to stick to one particular brand.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is a nice treat that I drink outside of my home because restaurants rarely manage to make a decent cup of tea!
In an odd little coincidence, just yesterday I read someone waxing lyrical about tea (I read so many things in so many places, I rarely remember the source)
ReplyDeleteAnyways, the venerated Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a "tea meditation" Maybe you would like it.
I'm more a coffee drinker , two to three cups a day but iced doesn't count :)
As my Brit mother always said whenever I was upset, "Let's have a cuppa. Cures broken hearts and broken legs." Still drinking plenty of builder's tea (PG Tips--sorry YP) in my eighth decade--my only other beverage is water.
ReplyDelete