More Tea Please, We're Sherlocked

[wellingtongoose]

A short, tongue-in-cheek guide to the British national obsession: TEA! In answer to several questions I have received over the last three weeks about Sherlock and this beverage.

I explore:

• why everyone in Sherlock is obsessed with tea.
• "tea" is more than just a drink: it's also the word used for the evening meal or a certain type of afternoon meal.

Comments

[mymuseandi]

I have been loving all your metas so far, and this one is both adorable and funny. I'm not British, but I'm in a country that was once a British colony, so I guess the tea-making skills do pass on to us, since I make tea the same way you've just described! :p

I want to know if you have any guesses as to how the Sherlock characters take their tea? Do you think John takes his tea without milk or sugar? I think Sherlock puts milk in him (from what I could remember in Reichenbach Fall) but nothing else.

[wellingtongoose]

Thank you!

I seem to remember that Sherlock told Molly he liked coffee: black, two sugars. I assume he still takes milk in his tea but he would also like sugar (maybe just one sugar as tea is quite as bitter as coffee). As for John I'm convinced he has lots of sugar (and milk) - just to keep him going throughout the work day!

[shezan]

Seriously, the definitive piece on how to make a proper cup of tea has been written by George Orwell and never bettered.

[wellingtongoose]

Oh well I can't beat George Orwell, though he was much less inclined to brandish his methods as the only way to make tea. I assume he, like me, wrote it as a jaunt to add to the thoughts on tea drinking not to be the one and only piece.

[eglantine_br]

My MIL told me once that milk in tea was an English thing. She said the Irish do not put milk in tea. I am a USA-ian. (So is she.)

Is this true? Are there any sub-groups implied by milk in tea? I like milk in my tea. She does not.

[wellingtongoose]

I've had tea in Ireland and I got milk added without asking. Perhaps the real Irish people don't put milk in tea - they just serve milk to the tourists.

Most of my Irish friends always have milk in tea. The only one who does not is lactose intolerance. I don't know if spending too much in Britain has corrupted them or if they emigrated because they had such subversive tea drinking habits ;)

I'd say milk in tea is pretty ubiquitous across Great Britain: England, Wales, Scotland, though there are always regional variations and personal preferences.

[wellingtongoose]

Oh yeah I totally forgot about green tea - for some reason it doesn't really register as tea for me. Anyway no milk in green tea or in chinese tea for that matter or some herbal or fruit teas either.

[cleflink]

*laughs* My parents are British and this is exactly the way we observe tea in my house. I learned how to make a cup of tea before I was old enough to have the arm strength to lift the kettle; it's definitely a vital part of the day (all mugs around here, though).

I recently heard someone describe tea as the British solution to awkward silences, which I find humourous and rather accurate.

Also, that gif of Lestrade is hilarious. Don't talk with your mouth full, sir!

[wellingtongoose]

I definitely agree tea is the best social lubricant: it tastes good and leaves you sober. If you have nothing to say, drinking is a good way of making your moth otherwise occupied.

[arianedevere]

It's not clear whether Sherlock adds sugar to his tea during his confrontation with Moriarty in 221B. We see him add milk but if he does add sugar, he does it during a cut-away to Moriarty. I have sugar in coffee but not in tea, so he could do either. What I love is that he doesn't offer the sugar bowl to Jim even though it's on the tray - so not only does he hand him the cup and saucer the wrong way round so that left-handed Jim has to swivel the cup around in order to be able to pick it up, but he insults him even more by not offering him any sugar!

[wellingtongoose]

Yes he's really going for it with those little insults.

[bugeyedmonster]

but he insults him even more by not offering him any sugar!

I'm in Texas, so we drink lots of sweet iced tea here. But the sugar bit made me laugh, as I remember an old lady (when I was a kid) saying that if you didn't like someone, you didn't put any sugar in their "sweet tea."

Which had to be a bit of a process, as I'd always heard that when you make sweet tea, you put the sugar in the water BEFORE you boil the water, before the tea is even added.