A FRIEND of mine messaged me from Guatemala not long ago, having just arrived in Central America for the start of a random three-month ramble around the eastern coastline. Yet, his WhatsApp message didn’t contain pictures of Aztec ruins or sun-kissed beaches. Attached was a photo of a ruined pile of Yorkshire Tea bags, waterlogged and rendered beyond brewing by a leaking hotel ceiling that destroyed the supply he’d brought all the way from London. ‘Feel like coming home already,’ he moaned. He was joking—but only just. Such is the Englishman’s devotion to tea; a product that, like chicken korma, pizza and lukewarm Chardonnay, has almost nothing to do with the nation that has commandeered it as its own true love.
Tea is the great leveller. The vessel you drink it from, the time of day and environment in which you consume it and the posture you assume when imbibing it may vary. However, it’s still the greatest solution to the emotionally constipated, repressed English character we have: our words of comfort or our ability to discuss the mood and health of loved ones may struggle to eclipse the verbal dexterity of a Clinton’s greeting card—but we all know how to offer, make and present a cup of tea to the sad, the grieving, the tired and the hungover.
Denne historien er fra April 12, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 12, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
