- guardian.co.uk, Saturday May 21 2005 00.30 BST
- The Guardian, Saturday May 21 2005
Still far ahead of coffee, its nearest rival, the ritual of tea-drinking remains a firm and hallowed part of the English scene. In places it has degenerated into the tea-break and often it comes out of an urn.
If the ceremonial has occasionally been relaxed, however, the rate of consumption has shown no signs of falling off since the war. Last year we drank the equivalent of 10 pounds of tea per head of the population. That is, 500 million pounds; and Lancashire drank at the highest rate.
We did not, however, always drink it well: often it was gulped without thought, sometimes it was ridiculously weak; and in addition to our lack of taste we did not pay nearly enough attention to style. Or so the Tea Bureau is at pains to persuade us.
For example many people did not heat the pot; or if they did, it was cold by the time the boiling water reached it. Or perhaps they neglected to ask those whom they were serving whether they liked milk before or after. Or else they boiled the water too long, not long enough or not at all. In an attempt, therefore, to reintroduce a set of tea-making standards into the British way of life the Tea Bureau decided to begin at the beginning. It chose the greatest tea-drinking area in Britain and it chose schoolchildren aged 11 and upwards.
For some years tea-making has been part of many school curricula: it crops up in domestic science lessons. But until yesterday in Manchester it had never reached the status of an examination. In the Gas Showrooms demonstration theatre a small audience of whispering schoolgirls watched 12 classmates taking part in a tea-making contest organised by the Tea Bureau.
One or two much-maligned aspects of the tea ritual were staunchly upheld. Heating the pot for example: naturally none of the girls yesterday morning failed to do this, but strictly speaking you should dry the inside of the pot before putting in the tea.
Then the question of when to put in the milk: a tea taster at yesterday's ceremonials could not see how you judged the strength of tea if there was milk already in it, and he was delighted when a small girl asked him in one breath: "Do you take your milk before or after and do you like your tea strong or weak?" She ended with 98 marks. The Tea Bureau believes that ceremony is almost as important as the tea itself. That is why it awarded 40 marks out of a hundred for "preparation of tray" and "etiquette in serving".
Only one of yesterday morning's competitors failed to let the pot stand for five minutes before pouring. Correctly boiling water may seem a frivolous test but too many tea-drinkers are deceived into thinking the water is boiling when big bubbles appear on the top. It should be boiling at the bottom, too, for which an extra half-minute should be allowed. Twice-boiled water is frowned on even more sternly.
• This article is drawn from the archive at the Newsroom
