Time for tea - Spotlight Online

FOOD | Tea
Still hard, physical work:
tea pickers in Sri Lanka
(left); creating a trend:
Catherine of Braganza
T
England ohne Tee?
Für die meisten undenkbar. Doch wo
hat Tee seinen Ursprung, und wie ist er zum
Lieblingsgetränk der Briten aufgestiegen?
Teeliebhaberin INEZ SHARP hat recherchiert
und ist dabei auf interessante Fakten und
Anekdoten gestoßen.
20
Spotlight 10|10
Fotos: Thinkstock (4); age/LOOK; Bridgeman; Getty Images
Time
for tea
ea, to misquote Oprah
Winfrey, is my drug of
choice. I have been drinking black tea since I was 10 years
old. I avoid the green version and
any of those horrible health teas
flavoured with bits of flowers and dead insects. I did once
have a brief flirtation with fennel tea, but that was born
of desperation. At the time, I lived in a place where fresh
milk was not available — and for an Englishwoman, milk
is essential for a proper cuppa.
My father was in the business of buying and selling tea
on the commodities market, so boxes of flowery broken
orange pekoe regularly found
their way into our home.
Our supply of tea simply
never ran out. Even now, I
drink on average six to eight
cups a day. Making a warming, milky brew is one of my
first tasks in the morning,
and I go to bed at night with
a cup of Darjeeling and a biscuit. I would not call myself
a connoisseur of black tea,
but I am a loyal fan. I simply
throw a teabag into a cup,
add freshly boiled water and
lots of milk, and my tea is
ready.
After water, tea is the secHmm! That tastes good; now add
ond
most frequently drunk
hot water: Emperor Shen Nung
liquid in the world. To find
out how many cups are drunk each day in Britain, I visited the website of the UK Tea Council
(www.tea.co.uk). As I write this on a weekday at
11.30 a.m., around 65 million cups have already been consumed this morning.
To me, tea is both fuel and comfort-giver.
In history, and for science, however, it is
much more. e earliest use of leaves of
Camellia sinensis — both green and black tea
brew [bru:]
Camellia sinensis
[kəˌmi:liə sɪˈnenˌsɪs]
coincide with
[ˌkəʊɪn(saɪd wɪð]
comfort(-giver) [ˈkʌmfət]
commodities [kəˈmɒdətiz]
connoisseur [ˌkɒnəˈsɜ:]
cuppa [ˈkʌpə] UK ifml.
Darjeeling [dɑ:ˈdʒi:lɪŋ]
desperation [ˌdespə(reɪʃən]
Tasse Tee
die Teepflanze
zeitlich mit etwas
zusammenfallen
Trost(spender)
RohstoffKenner(in); Experte, Expertin
Tasse Tee
würzig-milder Schwarztee aus
Indien
Verzweiflung
leaves come from this plant
— has been traced back to
China. Romantics like to
believe that the mythical
Chinese Emperor Shen
Nung discovered tea one
day while resting under a
tree. As he sipped some
boiled water, leaves blown
from a nearby bush landed
in his cup. He found the
drink delicious and refreshing, and so tea-drinking was
born. Historians don’t buy this story: they say it is likely
that prehistoric humans were already adding tea leaves to
water. We do know that in the Shang dynasty (1766–
1050 BC), tea was regularly prepared as a cure.
By the ninth century, it had become a popular drink
in China, but it wasn’t until the early 17th century that
Dutch and Portuguese merchants brought tea to Europe.
e British, whose trade with China was less developed at
the time, were slow to discover the new drink. e first
place in England to offer tea was Garraway’s coffee house
in Exchange Alley, London, in 1657.
ese first sales of tea in Britain coincided with the arrival of a Portuguese princess. When Catherine of Braganza married Charles II of England
in 1662, she brought with her
the tradition of tea-drinking,
already firmly established
at the Portuguese
court. e availability
of tea and Catherine’s
A cake of tea: Pu-erh tea
from Yunnan Province in China
emperor [ˈempərə]
fennel [ˈfen&l]
flowery broken orange
pekoe [ˌflaʊəri ˌbrəʊkən
ˌɒrɪndʒ ˈpi:kəʊ]
fuel [ˈfju:əl]
liquid [ˈlɪkwɪd]
merchant [ˈmɜ:tʃənt]
Portuguese [ˌpɔ:tʃuˈgi:z]
run out [rʌn ˈaʊt]
sip [sɪp]
trace back [ˌtreɪs ˈbæk]
Kaiser
Fenchel
aromatischer Schwarztee mit
blumigem Geschmack
hier: Kraftspender; anfachen
Flüssigkeit
Kaufmann
sich erschöpfen
schlürfen, nippen an
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