This is John Bachelor. Speaking with my colleague Simon Constable writing at Forbes about a surprising collateral damage to the Red Sea attacks by the Huthies,

there is now a shortage of tea in the United Kingdom. Simon grew up on

tea. He gives me the astonishing fact that each day in the United Kingdom, 100 million cups of tea are consumed.

There's a shortage because of the long way around Africa as opposed the short way through

the Suez Canal.

Simon speculates this is not going well for people who depend upon a cup of tea to get them through

the day.

Here's Simon on the T shortage, the great T shortage caused by, well you understand the

wars continue in the Middle East. Well this is fascinating so I grew up with tea, as do most people who were born in Britain or spent a lot of time there, they consume a lot of tea and do the Brits. And I personally personally along with everybody else drink 100 million cups a day which is quite a lot for a country that doesn't have 100 million people and that really really cuts into things when you

find out that there's a shortage because of problems in the Red Sea.

Now we know about the problems in the Red Sea interrupting ships and the

Royal Navy there and the US Navy being there to protect those ships and to retaliate against

the Iranian-backed Uthi rebels.

What we've learned from Tetley's, Tetley's is one of the leading two brands of tea in the UK.

They typically sell it in tea bags in the UK.

And it's very good, as is PG-CHIPs,

their competitor.

Tellie's saying, supplies are tight, and it isn't surprising because it takes almost twice as long to get your ship of T round Africa than it does to come through the Red Sea.

The problem now is that going through the Red Sea is way dangerous and you might get your vessel sunk and lose everything.

So that's really, really bad, and I think this could be a major problem.

It will also, I guess, you know, harden the resolve of Parliament to get things right.

Because whenever there's something bad happening you basically say to your person sitting next to you let's have a cup of tea or a pot of tea and we'll drink that and hopefully things will be better.

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