My life would suck without you.

[readingredhead]

I love the sociability of the British and their tea. It's not about the whole high tea time sort of thing -- oh no -- not about going to some posh tea house in Westminster. It's about taking a break from your essay at the same time as your flatmates and all sitting in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, talking while the tea brews, sharing the milk (because when you say "tea" it means English Breakfast or Earl Gray, but is always just called "tea" with no added signifier) and talking around the kitchen table. It's about sharing your mismatched mugs with a friend who's come over for a cuppa. It's about going over to see someone to ask a small question and getting asked in for a cuppa and then not going back to your flat for a few hours because once you've been asked in for tea it becomes a chat and it's always so hard to go.

It's about the tea but not really about the tea. It's about the people you drink it with, British and otherwise. It's about being distracted from your work for five hours on a day when you didn't wake up until noon and had things you maybe should have done but it doesn't matter because you've had a cup of tea with a friend and chatted for hours and something really meaningful has happened in the process. Yes, there is something to be said for a pint at a pub with all your friends, too, but I think I'll always prefer -- even crave -- the intimacy of a shared cup of tea.

Harry asked me a while ago what it's going to be like when I go home and I said, Well, probably I'll cry a lot on both ends of it because I'll be happy to go home but sad to be leaving home. Home? he said. The people here are home now, I said, and smiled at him. He's part of it. They're all part of it. And I don't know what I'll do without them and their cups of tea, so the obvious answer is that I'll just have to keep coming back.

Comments

[araine.livejournal.com]

I find myself in the position of wanting to maybe move to Britain some day.

Tea is already a pretty big part of my relationships with various friends (though it is always very American tea. I would be shunned) and my college life. It's coffee a little bit too, but we're in the minority of tea drinkers.

That sounds amazing and fantabulous, and thank goodness for camellia sinensis.

[readingredhead.livejournal.com]

Having been here as a student for the past five months, I can tell you that if it weren't for having family back home and a desire to eventually work in the US, I could move here -- or at least do more work here at a university level. I don't leave until June and I'm already scheming about how to feasibly get back. :)

[hodgetopodge.livejournal.com]

It's very exciting to read how much you've connected with your new friends. We don't have the set ritual of a tea time, and I can't say I spend my time with the same friends day to day, but we do enjoy our shared tea or (I would say 'because this is Eugene,' but I was drinking it before it was cool) mate. Discarding the social ritual with the mate is even more appalling, but what can you do? Some brilliant person put our clothes dryer in the kitchen. I will sit atop it with my tea, and a friend will sit on the counter. Do you do much counter-sitting at tea time?

[readingredhead.livejournal.com]

Counter-sitting, bed-sitting, floor-sitting, desk-sitting, you name it. We don't have a common room in my flat, just a kitchen, so most of the time everyone just leans around the counter. I love it. And it's not that there is a common teatime, it's just some immutable law of the universe that if you walk inside the kitchen between the hours of 4pm and 8pm, someone is probably making tea.

[hodgetopodge.livejournal.com]

8 PM? Isn't that a little late? Perhaps I am too sensitive to caffeine these days.

I meant counter sitting proper, not mere leaning.

[readingredhead.livejournal.com]

Oh, 8pm is quite late for real tea, but at that time I'm usually drinking herbal stuff (I'm also sensitive to caffeine, so only real English breakfast around actual breakfast time). And real counter-sitting, not just counter-leaning happens, I promise. Otherwise it wouldn't quite count, would it?

[umdnikoell.livejournal.com]

Ohmygoodnessyes!

I drink tea daily and it is impossible to find in Texas.

They always give me iced tea.

That's OK, I can lounge at home and make my own after work.

The ritual with other people is all I'm missing.

Maybe I shall get 12 cats and have a tea party,
N