Tea
English Breakfast Tea sounds so simple. Tea that English people like to drink at breakfast time. And they do like it so very much, consuming a hundred and sixty five million cups nationwide every day, not just at breakfast time. That's an average of about three cups a day for every man, woman and child in the British Isles, so it's lucky that the latest research also tells us that drinking four cups of tea a day is good for you. I suspect I average six cups on a normal day in winter, so I'm doing my bit for the statistics.
When I was a lazy good-for-nothing teenager trying to avoid working any other job than my cushy 9am-1pm Saturday job at the local chemists' shop, I used to babysit in the area for some pretty good cash. Entertaining small children for a few hours before putting them to bed and then cosying up on the sofa with my book, a cup of tea and a borrowed dog seemed like a pretty good way to make money to me. It was here I had my tea epiphany. You see, until then I had only ever been exposed to generic tea. I had no idea that there were other kinds of tea out there.
The upper-middle class mother of the little darlings I was going to be looking after this particular evening was showing me around their gorgeous kitchen, letting me know where to find the biscuits and the crisps and the first aid kit and things like that. We got to my favourite part of the tour: the kettle. She leaned up to an overhead cabinet and brought down a basket full of teas of (it seemed to me) every colour imaginable.
"Tea's in here," she said, as if it were natural to own such a bounty, "and there's plenty of milk in the fridge." She replaced the basket, and then pointed to a tin, tucked away at the side. "Oh, and there's workman's tea in the tin if you want it."
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I smiled and nodded and she left to go out and I made peanut butter sandwiches and let the boys beat me into the dust on their video game and the younger one tried to teach me go and then we played "who can brush their teeth the longest" and the winner picked the bedtime story and finally they were in bed and I returned to the kitchen.
I looked first at the Basket of Wonder. I saw then that the colourful packets were not just for display. The basket was full of all these strange kinds of tea, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Prince of Wales, Assam, Orange Pekoe, Darjeeling... I had no idea what they were, what the names meant. What was the difference? Which one should I choose? Dithering in indecision, I opened up the tin of Workman's Tea, only to find there my beloved and familiar Tetley teabags, nestled together cosily. No snooty paper cases for them, no lah-di-dah, high-falutin' names. Just lovely, ordinary tea. Guess which I chose?
Since then I've had an unreasonable prejudice against all non-ordinary teas. I wouldn't even go near them and I had never to my knowledge even tried any of them until I came to Japan.
Let me explain a little about Japan. Japanese people love their own country and culture, but are also fascinated by other countries. However, their ideas of these countries may not bear much relation to the reality. When I first arrived in Japan and started talking to people about what it's like to live in England, some people were genuinely astounded to discover that we don't all talk like the Queen, and we don't hold tea parties every afternoon. The British accent, and that image of the English lady having tea in her house with her doilies and china and scones and cakes and tea-cosy is exactly what Japanese people think (and want to think) that Britain is really like.
So according to the Japanese, British people like tea, and they're not wrong. But more importantly, British people like elegant tea. Tea with beautiful and exotic-sounding names. Tea with names like Orange Pekoe and Prince of Wales. It's that kind of tea that the Japanese anglophiles want to drink, out of their hand-painted bone china cups. That's why my archenemies stared at me from the shelves of the Japanese supermarkets I visited, as they sat shoulder to shoulder with the green teas. My old reassuring friend English Breakfast was too ordinary to be seen among the Japanese ocha packets and the countless shelves of complicated coffee.
I missed it. It was agony without it. I didn't drink black tea at all for the first few months because it felt like being unfaithful. I grew desperate. I imported it myself in huge boxes of 100 teabags, which thankfully are light. I wrote pathetic letters to my Mum pleading for her to send more tea! I tried hiring a car and driving to the bulk-buy store an hour away to buy hotel-sized supplies. But I couldn't keep it up forever. I was weak. I needed my daily tea and I knew there was only one way to get it.
I gritted my teeth and went back to the supermarket to buy a box of mixed teas. There they were again, my old enemies, but this time in my home, and I knew I'd have to face them if I ever wanted to fill the space in my life left by my beloved English Breakfast. With a silent apology to my Tetley, I opened the first crisp paper envelope.
I despised upon my first cup the Prince of Wales, who tasted like a London pub before the smoking ban. Also hated were Lady and Earl Grey, who seemed a singularly bitter pair of individuals and didn't lend themselves to casual enjoyment. I made tentative friends with Darjeeling, whom I didn't care for one way or the other, but who provided a source of warmth and caffeine when it was sorely needed.
Orange Pekoe was gentle and reassuring, and clearly of a different breed from the aristocrats of the mixed selection box. I grew to appreciate Orange Pekoe in its own right, and I would probably still be drinking it today if the supermarket sold it on its own merit, instead of packaging it in with the teas who think they are better than everyone else. But then there was Assam, who was so much like my English Breakfast that I thought I was back there with that dog wedged down beside me on the sofa, listening for the sounds of the returning parents.
I've since discovered of course that Assam is a close relative of English Breakfast, and in fact English Breakfast contains a little of Assam, akin to having your father's nose, I suppose, or that family chin that my brother and I share. I suppose its because of that I've settled for now with Assam, it is Assam that I buy regularly from the supermarket, Assam that accompanies me to work daily and Assam that waits in my own tea basket when I get home from work.
But I'm sorry, Assam, you and I will not last forever. English Breakfast still has my heart, even if it is only simple workman's tea.
Data taken from the UK Tea Council Website. Quite entertaining, even if you're a heathen coffee drinker.