British Tea Culture · Tea Epicure (2024)

British Tea Culture, we all know it exists, we all know it’s important, but what exactly does it mean? I set out to figure this out by interviewing over 110 people from the United Kingdom about their tea habits. I wanted to see what makes their tea culture uniqueacross all social classes. I deliberately did not ask teaconnoisseurs, for we know that the “connoisseurcrowd” is a common stripeamongall tea cultures.

Assumptions made: British Tea is a black tea, mostly a blended black tea. Teas blends are commonly made up of teas from India (Assam), Sri Lanka, or East Africa.

The following is a tag cloud of words that I gathered from asking the question “what does tea mean to you?”:

My favorite response:

“If the day is a sentence, tea for me is the punctuation.” –Andy Callaghan

Hearing a lot about how tea is considered a small meal or a time of the day in Britain, I asked the respondents whether tea was a time of the day, a meal, or supper. I realized later on that it was probably a mistake to ask if tea was a beverage as well, as most responses included this as an answer. It was possible to choose more than one answer.

50% drink tea with biscuits

27% drink tea on its own

9% drink tea with cake

The term “biscuit” is used a bit differently in the UK than in America. Typically,rich tea biscuits, digestives or hobnobsare consumed with tea. They are ahard biscuit that can be dipped in tea.

Tea bags seem to be a favorite with 71% preferring them as opposed to 13% loose and 15% other (whatever that means). Of those that answered loose, steeping methods ranged from the most common answer “strain the tea once steeped” to “use of a filter while steeping.”

When asked whether they steep tea directly in a tea cup or mug or in a tea pot, I wassurprisedat how few people use tea pots:

69% brew tea in a tea cup or coffee mug

19% brew tea in a tea pot

12% use something other than tea pots or cups/mugs

I’ve read about the use of brown teapots called “brown betty” teapots, the interwebs seem to think that these are widespread throughout the UK, however only 17% of respondents had actually heard of them and 6% actually owned one.

Most remember drinking tea as a child, in fact:

The average age that Brits remember drinking tea is 9

9% of respondents could not remember the age at which they begun drinking tea but answered “for as long as I can remember.”

Now we move into touchy territory,preparationpreferences. I asked “how do you take your tea” and gave four options: with milk, with sugar, with milk and sugar, and other. Here are the results:

Another personal preference that has sparked many a debate is what to add first, milk or sugar.

67% add milk first

33% add sugar first

The next section of the survey dealt with “builder’s tea” something that garnered some “colorful” responses. “Builder’s Tea” is a name given to what some describe as a “working man’s tea” – a very strong brew with copious amounts of milk and sugar in it.

Here are some of the answers I received when I asked “what does builder’s tea mean to you?”:

Builder’s tea is

“overly strong, excessively tannic” /“very strong, milky, two sugars” /“very strong and sweet” /“something revolting for morons” /“bog standard, everyday tea” /“ordinary tea with no frills, fairly strong”

Back to tea-ware, I wanted to find out what most people owned as far as tea implements go. One thing I quickly learned was that nearly everyone uses electric kettles in the UK and boiling water on the stove is rarely done. I even found this amusing post about the predictable surge in electricity demand that the power infrastructure must deal with each day. Here is a tag cloud gathered from responses to the question: “Do you own a kettle, a tea pot, and teacups? Tell me about your teaware:”

When asked what their favorite brand was, respondents gave a wide variety, but the most common brands were Twinings, Yorkshire, PG Tips and Tetley. Here are the results:

23% Twinings

22% Yorkshire

17% PG Tips

5% Tetley

33% Other

While everyone has their own personal favorite way to prepare tea, the most common way to prepare tea in the UK seems to be:

Freshly boiled water is poured from the electric kettle into a mug over a tea bag. After several minutes, the tea bag is removed and milk is added and sometimes sugar. Actually, be right back, I think I’ll have a cuppa.