The English, a nation of tea drinkers?

The English are regarded by some as a nation of both shopkeepers and tea drinkers. The English are without a doubt, tea drinkers. I’m one of them but sadly not a shop keeper! Visit an English home and it’s likely that the first question you’ll be asked is ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

That might account for one or two of the 165 million cups of tea it is estimated are drunk in the UK on a daily basis!

The English tea shop

The quintessential establishment, the English tea shop, once found on every high street has long been outmoded by fast food outlets and is now quite rare occurrence.

This tradition English stablishment was a place to take tea, catch up with friends and nibble on a sandwich. It was a popular venue with ladies who could go to a tea room on their own without leaving their reputation in tatters as they certainly would if they went to a pub on their own.

Although there is a visble move on the high street towards coffee drinking judging by the number of coffee chain outlets, tea remains the number one hot beverage in England. Supermarkets offer numerous different brands of tea packaged in teabags and as loose tea.

What the English Tea Council says

According to the British Tea Council, 96 percent of the tea consumed in the UK daily is brewed in teabags. That equates to about 158 million tea bag per day! So what about the other 4 percent of the tea? The loose tea that’s sold.

No doubt branded loose tea sold in supermarkets account for a point or two. However yesterday I went to a real tea shop about 3 minutes walk from Covent Garden which I visit once or twice per month.

The shop, in Neal Street, sells a fairly wide variety of teas, an incredible range of teapots, mugs and all the other paraphernalia that’s dear to a tea drinkers heart, was absolutely packed with people as it usually is!

It was nice to hear tea being discussed especially when someone had tried an unblended tea for the first time and extolled it virtues! Another discovery made, another pure tea drinker born who will hopefully will find many more to their taste.

It would be nice to think that tea shops like this and their customers accounted for the other 26 million cups of tea consumed per day in the UK. So maybe there is something in shopkeepers and tea drinkers after all!

If you don’t have a good tea shop near you or prefer to have it delivered to your door, you can buy good tea here.

You might like this article about Green Tea – Weight Loss and health benefits.

Try a green tea. Probably my favourite tea.