Primeval fic: It is a Gentleman
Title: It is a Gentleman
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I wish I made money off this. Or that I owned it. Or both.
Rating: G
Summary: It's ubiquitous, but hardly uniform, preference.
AN: Firstly, the title has been derived from a quotation, to be cited momentarily. I figured, having sort of seen the tail end of the one teamfest and now done a piece for another, that I would go back and do everyone's tea tastes, as in One Lump or Two?. Therefore, I'm going through the teamfests from the top. And now the quote:
Tea, although an Oriental,
Is a gentleman at least;
Cocoa is a cad and coward,
Cocoa is a vulgar beast.
-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874-1936
******************************
Caroline Steele was an utterly modern woman. She drank both tea and coffee, one sugar, one milk, orange pekoe and regular columbian, and had no patience for people wittering on about the 'right' way to have either one. Then she met Connor Temple.
Although he defaulted to English Breakfast with too much cream and sugar, he could also make it in perfectly traditional style, loose leaf and proper teacups. For the first time she truly understood what people saw in taking the time to make it properly and matching honey or sugar, milk or cream, lemon or plain black, to the right sort of tea.
After they broke up and he refused to speak to her again, she found a little comfort in the stacks of tins filled with different teas and the little teapot with its own strainer he'd bought her as a gift.
***********
Christine Johnson despised tea. It was everything that was wrong with people these days. A holdover to British Imperialism and an idiotic clinging to traditionalism that rankled with her. She'd use such things to her advantage, knew all the proper things to say and do, but she disliked nearly everything connected to the institution.
If only she liked coffee she could dispense with it utterly. Unfortunately, she didn't like coffee in the slightest, found it a vile drink at best, and on a cold morning there was nothing better than tea. She certainly was not going to be caught with her hot drink of choice by her subordinates.
A grown woman in a position of power simply could not be caught with a mug of hot chocolate on her desk of a morning.
************
Claudia Brown loved her tea. She loved the comforting colour of a large mug with cream in it, she loved how it warmed her up and tasted like a Sunday afternoon at her gran's. The regular bags you got at the local grocery store were exactly what she thought of when she thought of tea. Something you could plop into a mug on a cold day and curl up with a good book to read by.
When Nick vanished into the anomaly, she comforted herself by picturing them together when he got back. Curled up together on the love seat in her living room, matching steaming mugs on the table beside them.
*************
Lorraine Wickes had never had any more profound feelings for tea than any other of her countrymen. She liked tea, it was the default drink for polite meetings at home and spending time with her mum, she'd drink it any old time when it was on offer unless it was truly too hot for anything hot to drink, but she'd never have called herself particularly tea mad.
James Lester broke her of that. The man was a martinet when it came to his tea. He wouldn't drink coffee most of the time, just demanding tea. And it had to be done correctly. She certainly couldn't tell if it had been bagged or not before, but somehow he could. The directions he gave were enough to drive you spare. Who measured millimetres to the brim of the pot and mililitres of milk to mililitres of tea?
After the mess with Leek, she simply couldn't even look at tea anymore without picturing James Lester's self-satisfied almost smile and the tea he'd demanded right after the gruesome show on the monitor.
**************
Sarah Page had grown up in the UK, but often felt her true home was in the Middle East, in Egypt and Syria, the places she studied and had half lived in as much as she could. Tea for her wasn't the anemic milk and sugared stuff you got in the shops. Tea was the strong bitter stuff you drank from India directly. It was the green and jasmine tea from China and Japan.
Tea should be an adventure, like life, and she drank it that way. Soothing teas designed for those reaching a higher state of consciousness, teas designed to kick you in the teeth like an irate donkey in the Egyptian desert and just something that brought her back to humid jungles and biting sandstorms.
If she wanted comfort in a drink, she'd have cocoa.
Read the rest of the Tea Set:
One Lump, or Two?
There is a Sublimity
And is There Honey Still for Tea?
Back to archive page
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I wish I made money off this. Or that I owned it. Or both.
Rating: G
Summary: It's ubiquitous, but hardly uniform, preference.
AN: Firstly, the title has been derived from a quotation, to be cited momentarily. I figured, having sort of seen the tail end of the one teamfest and now done a piece for another, that I would go back and do everyone's tea tastes, as in One Lump or Two?. Therefore, I'm going through the teamfests from the top. And now the quote:
Tea, although an Oriental,
Is a gentleman at least;
Cocoa is a cad and coward,
Cocoa is a vulgar beast.
-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874-1936
******************************
Caroline Steele was an utterly modern woman. She drank both tea and coffee, one sugar, one milk, orange pekoe and regular columbian, and had no patience for people wittering on about the 'right' way to have either one. Then she met Connor Temple.
Although he defaulted to English Breakfast with too much cream and sugar, he could also make it in perfectly traditional style, loose leaf and proper teacups. For the first time she truly understood what people saw in taking the time to make it properly and matching honey or sugar, milk or cream, lemon or plain black, to the right sort of tea.
After they broke up and he refused to speak to her again, she found a little comfort in the stacks of tins filled with different teas and the little teapot with its own strainer he'd bought her as a gift.
***********
Christine Johnson despised tea. It was everything that was wrong with people these days. A holdover to British Imperialism and an idiotic clinging to traditionalism that rankled with her. She'd use such things to her advantage, knew all the proper things to say and do, but she disliked nearly everything connected to the institution.
If only she liked coffee she could dispense with it utterly. Unfortunately, she didn't like coffee in the slightest, found it a vile drink at best, and on a cold morning there was nothing better than tea. She certainly was not going to be caught with her hot drink of choice by her subordinates.
A grown woman in a position of power simply could not be caught with a mug of hot chocolate on her desk of a morning.
************
Claudia Brown loved her tea. She loved the comforting colour of a large mug with cream in it, she loved how it warmed her up and tasted like a Sunday afternoon at her gran's. The regular bags you got at the local grocery store were exactly what she thought of when she thought of tea. Something you could plop into a mug on a cold day and curl up with a good book to read by.
When Nick vanished into the anomaly, she comforted herself by picturing them together when he got back. Curled up together on the love seat in her living room, matching steaming mugs on the table beside them.
*************
Lorraine Wickes had never had any more profound feelings for tea than any other of her countrymen. She liked tea, it was the default drink for polite meetings at home and spending time with her mum, she'd drink it any old time when it was on offer unless it was truly too hot for anything hot to drink, but she'd never have called herself particularly tea mad.
James Lester broke her of that. The man was a martinet when it came to his tea. He wouldn't drink coffee most of the time, just demanding tea. And it had to be done correctly. She certainly couldn't tell if it had been bagged or not before, but somehow he could. The directions he gave were enough to drive you spare. Who measured millimetres to the brim of the pot and mililitres of milk to mililitres of tea?
After the mess with Leek, she simply couldn't even look at tea anymore without picturing James Lester's self-satisfied almost smile and the tea he'd demanded right after the gruesome show on the monitor.
**************
Sarah Page had grown up in the UK, but often felt her true home was in the Middle East, in Egypt and Syria, the places she studied and had half lived in as much as she could. Tea for her wasn't the anemic milk and sugared stuff you got in the shops. Tea was the strong bitter stuff you drank from India directly. It was the green and jasmine tea from China and Japan.
Tea should be an adventure, like life, and she drank it that way. Soothing teas designed for those reaching a higher state of consciousness, teas designed to kick you in the teeth like an irate donkey in the Egyptian desert and just something that brought her back to humid jungles and biting sandstorms.
If she wanted comfort in a drink, she'd have cocoa.
Read the rest of the Tea Set:
One Lump, or Two?
There is a Sublimity
And is There Honey Still for Tea?
Back to archive page