The Regal Rules for Girls (11 page)
You must not refuse cups of teas under the following circumstances: if the weather is hot; if the weather is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks you are tired; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you don’t feel like it; if you have not had tea for some time; if you have just had a cup.
—G
EORGE
M
IKES
In England, tea has endless magical qualities and is genuinely believed to solve everything. Your boyfriend breaks up with you? Tea. Come down with the flu? Tea. Terrorist attack on the London Underground? Tea. (Americans go to red alert, the Brits put the kettle on.) When in doubt, put the kettle on.
When I first began working in London, it was the middle of a rare heat wave and I was eternally puzzled that my new British coworkers would offer me a cup of tea every single afternoon even if it was eighty degrees outside. (When I brought in a box of Popsicles
6
to share, everyone looked at me like I was nuts.)
During a vacation to Antigua, where it was nearly a hundred degrees outside, I watched in amazement as all the Brits promptly left the blazing sun of the beach at 4 p.m. to go inside and enjoy a scalding cup of tea.
While I believe tea will warm you if you are cold, I have yet to convert to the English belief that tea will cool you if you are hot,
cheer you if you are depressed, or calm you if you are nervous. (In the UK, tea seemingly has the miraculous ability to be both a sedative and a stimulant.) Yet when I stopped viewing tea as just a drink and started seeing it as it really is—a
pastime
—I began to enjoy it immensely.
Still, I’ll never forget when one of my cute British flatmates told me that I made the worst cup of tea he’d ever tasted. I was flabbergasted at this insult. I mean really, tea is tea—right? Apparently not. All Americans know that it’s perfectly possible to have a bad cup of coffee, and likewise, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s quite easy to make a bad cup of tea. So practice your technique—because if there is one way to a cute British guy’s heart, it is the perfect cup of tea.
RULES FOR AFTERNOON TEA:
Always say “
afternoon
tea,” NOT “high tea.” High tea is a working-class evening meal.
Always use a teapot filled with brewed tea rather than individual tea bags.
When pouring tea, the spout faces the pourer.
Unless you are using antique bone china that might
shatter at the splash of hot liquid, tea is poured
before
adding milk. This also allows you to judge the tea’s strength.
The working classes tend to drink strong tea with lots of milk and even more sugar (this is often referred to as “builder’s tea”), but I advise you to learn to love the upper-class version, which is weak, unsweetened Earl Grey with a dash of milk.
No lemon. No honey. These are purely American accoutrements and will not be found on tea trays anywhere in England.
If you must have sugar, anything more than half a spoonful will be deemed suspect.
When stirring your tea, do not clank the sides or swirl the tea around. Instead, stir the tea gently in a twelve-o’clock-to-six-o’clock motion.
When finished, place the spoon on your saucer, never on the table, and never leave it in your cup. (I actually received a letter of complaint from an Englishwoman who was appalled at the illustration on the hardcover of my memoir, which depicts the ghastly crime of a spoon sitting in a teacup and not on the saucer where it belonged.)
If seated at a table, lift the tea cup from its saucer. If standing or sitting on a sofa, hold the saucer as well as the cup.
Teacups are not coffee mugs, so do not cradle them with both hands. Instead, hold the handle with your fingers and thumb.
Try not to lift your little finger, but if you must do this to balance the weight of the cup, then it is perfectly acceptable to do so.
Sip tea gently. Do not slurp.