The Great British Brew: The UK’s Love Affair with Tea

Here in Britain we love a good cup of tea, in fact the team here at Sykes Cottages HQ alone manage to put away 131,000 cups a year! But just how much do you really know about the humble brew? As a part of our campaign to explore the nation’s love affair with the cuppa we’ve created the following tea themed infographic, illustrating our favourite ways to drink it, to what we call it and its role in our culture. So if you’re a fan of the great British brew, then keep reading to find out more about our favourite beverage and give yourself something to ponder over the next time you boil the kettle.

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<img src="//www.sykescottages.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/brew_draft5-01.jpg" alt="The Great British Brew"/><br><center>The Great British Brew Infographic by <a href="https://www.sykescottages.co.uk" target="_blank">Sykes Cottages</a></center>

The Great British Brew

It’s no secret that we’re a nation of tea lovers, in fact we can trace our infatuation with the humble brew right back to the early 17^th century.  So whether we’re at home cuddled up with a cuppa or enjoying an afternoon tea in the country, this very special love affair between Britain and the tea leaf is showing no signs of stopping.

“Where there’s tea there’s hope” – Arthur Wing Pimero

We asked our Facebook fans what they call a cup of tea, here are some of our favourite responses:

Common pet names for tea

• Cuppa
• Brew
• Rosy Lea
• Panad
• Cuppa Char
• Cup of Tea

Unusual pet names for tea

• Cuppa Scad
• Cup of Snargul
• Wet
• Cwpan
• Tuptea
• Monkey

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me” – C.S. Lewis

Tea within British culture

• “Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, We’ll all have tea.” – An 18^th century nursery rhyme based on children’s playtime.
• “Storm in a tea cup” – Everyday phrase meaning a lot of drama for a trivial matter
• “Not my cup of tea” – Common saying meaning not to your liking
• “Not for all the tea in China” – British phrase meaning nothing could persuade you otherwise, not even tea!
• Our love for tea starts at a young age as we read famous children’s books which reference tea and tea parties, such as ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’

 “A cup of tea will restore my normality” – Douglas Adams

Did you know…

• The UK imports and consumes 140 thousand tonnes of tea per year
• The UK consumes 165 million cups of tea a day
• 95% of tea is consumed is made from tea bags
• Over 25% of all milk consumption in the UK is used in tea
• Half of all Brits take tea bags on holiday with them
• British tanks come equipped with tea-making facilities
• Tea was partly responsible for the Suffragette movement as tea rooms gave women somewhere respectable to go alone and meet up

“Come along inside… we’ll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place” – Kenneth Grahame, ‘The Wind in the Willows’

What we’ve discovered…

We asked 2,000 Brits to tell us about their tea-drinking habits and we found that…

• 84% of us drink at least one cup of tea per day
• The older we get, the more tea we drink with 33% of over 55’s drinking five or more cups of tea a day, compared to just 11% of 18-24 year olds
• Over half of British people take their tea white with no sugar
• Not only do we love tea but apparently we’re quite fussy about how it’s made, with 59% preferring to make their own cup of tea

“Tea is one of the main stays of civilisation in this country” – George Orwell

Sources

• sykescottages.co.uk
• beveragestandardsassociation.co.uk
• dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132842/Pack-tea-bags-going-holiday-Half-Brits-admit-need-proper-cuppa-abroad.html

So there you have Sykes’ Great British Brew Infographic but don’t forget that it’s just one part of our cuppa based content! We’ve also created a series of tea based illustrations that contain our favourite quotes and some of the best findings from our survey, not to mention our advice on why you might want to hold back on the tea round at work!