« Tea is the quintessential ingredient to the true meaning of being British… »

This was the answer I got when I asked one of my British housemates about his constant and sacred habit of drinking tea. Tea breaks are just sacred here and I can just compare it with « pause clope » in France. It is a moment to share, to breath from your routine or simply to warm you up. And believe me: you want something to warm you up in England.

I can be drunk all day long, in every place and every person drinks it his own way. Personally I take it with milk and two sugars but there is an infinite combination for it, you can even drink it with whiskey if you feel a little bit Scottish.

Before coming to England I didn’t see the point of drinking tea and I didn’t find it very tasty to be honest but leaving here taught me to appreciate it because it can just save your life in a cold day or it can turn into a really interesting conversation. Believe me; do not underestimate the power of a chat around a cup of tea if you want to know the person in front of you a little bit better.

We think that tea is just a think for old people or married women in their “tea parties” but we are wrong. Just to illustrate that, I can tell you that I drank tea at 5 am in the morning during an “after-party” and I really enjoyed it. Watching a bunch of people of my age drinking tea after a good night of partying just broke the cliché I had about tea.

If you do some research about it, you can find some interesting facts like: “The United Kingdom drinks about 165 million cups of tea a day, or 62 billion cups per year” or “80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what's going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.”

See you soon !!