Everything Stops For Tea.

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The past 12 months have been tumultuous for us all. But imagine, for one second, how it would have been without a cup of tea?

In the first three months of lockdown, we spent an additional £24 million on tea and coffee according to research firm Kantar. And despite tea trends diverging from the traditional cuppa over the years, the UK and Ireland remain two of the top tea drinking nations per capita, in the world.

In this programme Jaega Wise looks at the connections we've built over tea, and why it plays such an important role in our lives. From the intricately performed traditional Japanese tea ceremony, courtesy of Camellia Flower Teahouse in Kyoto. To the significance, and potentially health giving ritual, of a brew between friends as uncovered by Newcastle University's Dr Edward Okello. And she focusses on a tea ritual of a very different kind - the art of tea tasting with Twinings Master blender Rishi Deb.

Presented by Jaega Wise. Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Transcript

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0:38.0	Hello, you've downloaded a podcast of BBC Radio 4's The Food Program. Welcome to our world, from cooking to
0:46.1	culture, politics to pleasure. We hope you enjoy it. I'm a brewer so it might surprise you to hear that my most consumed drink, the drink I could not get through my day without isn't beer.
1:02.0	It's tea. I have mine with milk and just a smiggin of sugar.
1:09.1	And I'm on about eight cups of tea a day now. And ever since lockdown, that's more tea than I have ever drunk.
1:16.1	Over the last few months, we've increasingly turned to tea once again.
1:20.5	Industry experts, Kanta, say we spent an extra 2 million pounds worth of tea and
1:26.2	coffee in the UK supermarkets in the first three months of lockdown. But beyond your blary-eyed
1:32.2	morning routine, have you ever stopped to think about why?
1:36.0	You're listening to the food program, the place for hungry and in today's case
1:46.8	thirsty minds. T is there to quench your thirst. To me is for the clarity of your mind. It's for family and friendship. It has both benefits
1:58.1	in terms of its chemistry and also's social aspects.
2:02.6	It's actually about a comforting ritual
2:05.0	that gives each of us, I think, a sense of belonging and safety.
	...

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