Coffee, Tea and Me

This week's column from the Marblehead Reporter, please share!

“Come let us have some tea and talk about happy things.”

---Chaim Potok

I’m a big fan of British television. From Monty Python (from which I can quote entire scenes) to Upstairs Downstairs, Downton Abbey, Dr. Who and anything else that involves the UK. Certainly 700 dead Irish Catholic relatives are spinning in their graves like rotisserie chickens, but it’s true. Anything involving the Royal Family, World War I, World War II, Churchill, London, phone boxes and silly sketches about parrots, Spam and coconut-clacking knights will always entertain me.

In any good British film or television program there have to be several scenes of characters having tea. It’s probably a rule, sent down from the Queen herself, via the BBC that tea shall be served early and often. Some think that the idea of a bunch of Brits sitting down to tea has to involve an elegant drawing room, a tea cart full of priceless china and an unobtrusive butler standing by to manage it all. That’s not it at all. Some of my favorite scenes in Downtown Abbey were the servants sitting down to tea at the end of the day or having a quick cuppa before the dinner service. It’s almost as if in some of these productions, tea is the great equalizer.

So, that’s how it goes on television, but what about the rest of us? The British might have their drawing rooms and servant’s halls, but we have Starbucks, and Java Sun and Atomic and of course the ever faithful Dunks. These places sell tea, but for most it’s about the liquid crack---coffee. I can’t start my day without it. Caffeine has been called the most abused drug in the country, and I’d have to agree. That first jumpstart in the morning from my coffee would be difficult to go without. Tea is different though.  If coffee is about speeding things up, tea is about slowing it down a little.

Think about it. Most people get their coffee to go. Order it ahead on a smartphone app and all you have to do is zip in and grab it. Hit the Dunkin’s drive-thru and you barely have to slow down to fuel up. There’s definitely a place for that, and I’ve been grateful for a roadside coffee stop more than once. Never once have I been disappointed by coffee, it never fails to be there when needed and it’s gotten many a job done. But…the sight of someone drinking out of a paper cup that has a wet and soggy tea tag hanging down the side will always seem a bit sad to me. Sure, we all have to get ten things done at once, so it’s become necessary to grab and go. It’s just that, like so much else in the world, tea was meant for better things.

A cup of tea should be shared with a friend. It’s meant to be lingered over. It’s not fuel to get you going, it’s more about helping you slow down. And who among us doesn’t need a bit of that?  On a shelf in my living room I have a little tin teapot. It’s stamped “Made in Ireland” on the bottom (as am I) and it’s one of my most prized possessions having been given to me by a friend with whom I have shared countless cups of tea. It was over those cups of tea that we held each other up in good times and not so good times. These little bits of tea and sympathy (and joy, sorrow and celebration) were sometimes the only way I didn’t go completely mad.

While I did not grow up in a manor house, or a castle, teatime was a staple when I was a kid. There were no servants bringing it, no delicately frosted little cakes and certainly no fine china. Everyday however, roughly around 4, everything would stop and my mother would put the kettle on. Sometimes the other moms on our street would stop in, other times it was just us, a couple of chipped mugs and whatever kind of cookies had been store-bought that week. It was a ritual of comfort and company that I intend to bring back in my house. It’s been far too long.

Tea isn’t just for British films. It’s for company and comfort, for friendship and family and most especially it’s for making time in the day for a small time out. The original pause button. With cookies, of course.