To ask what is the deal with tea

[tingalayo]

I'm a British person who has never had a cup of tea in my life or even tasted it. Not sure why, it's just never occurred to me.
It's something I've been wondering about before but I really want to ask now because I'm moving house and I've just read advice to pack the kettle and mugs LAST because that's the most urgent thing you'll need when you get to your new house and the most urgent thing the removals people will need.
Why do most British people need to drink tea so often? It's seems to be an actual need rather than just something nice. I do love peppermint tea and I've worked in offices before where people knew this and offered me a cup every time they made a round of tea and I was like...no? I like mint tea but I don't want several cups a day. My husband and his family drink tea every couple of hours if they can and seem to get grumpy if they don't have it.
It seems like an addiction to me. Is it caffeine? Or something else I don't understand that someone can explain to me?

I didn’t drink tea until I was about 25 years old. Didn’t see the point, didn’t like the taste.

Started due to the work tea-run and being in job where I’m often unable to move from my position for long periods and the only option for refreshment was an order from the tea run.

Now I like tea. Mainly it’s just an excuse to sit down for 10 mins, so it’s the comforting restful ritual above taste for me.

I have never had a cup of tea but have had a sip once. I can’t stand the smell. I don’t really like coffee either, but I was more able to force myself into that one when I first started work and wanted to fit in. Now I have one (decaf) coffee every couple of months, maybe. I’m southern but my parents are northern and don’t drink tea either. My niece has taken up tea drinking which has surprised us all. We assumed there was some sort of tea hating gene in the family. The smell makes me gag. I find it hard to believe so many people love it, but the evidence is all around! I do wish I did like hot drinks though, I think I’d be slimmer if I reached for a hot drink rather than a snack for comfort.

I like it but my mum drinks it endlessly. She’ll literally have a mug in her hand with a mouthful left in it and she’ll be back to turn the kettle on! I genuinely don’t get it. Yesterday, I had my first cup of tea in weeks, I’m more of a squash drinker personally.

i dont drink fizzy cold drinks or plain water and coffee gives me migraines so i drink tea i like the taste of it and the sugar hit and yes though not as much caffeine as coffee its a pick me up drink

Yea fixes all ills and unites us as a people.

Your arm's off - tea
Someone died - tea
Had a baby - tea
Long day at work - tea
Feeling glum - tea

Stick the kettle on, settle down, and have a nature. It's a social thing.

If you don't like then you do you!

How have you never drink tea?! Nectar for the Gods.

I drank about 8/9 mugs a day pre pregnancy. In pregnancy I cut down to 2 a day. Now I’m back up to 4/5. It’s bliss.

Make it fairly strong, with Yorkshire Tea teabags, a splash of semi skimmed milk to your preferred taste, and a teaspoon of sugar if desired. Love it.

Its def a habit. I'm a coffee drinker mostly but will happily have tea too.

My son recently had a serious accident and was quite shocked while on a school residential. They took him off to the teachers lounge to have a sugary cup of tea and biscuits to help him get over the shock. Obviously its the sugar that helped but if they'd have given him some full sugar coke id of been a bit 🤨. But the notion of a cup of sweet tea with his teacher to calm down is very soothing thought.

If you're frightened of hot drinks, how do you drink peppermint tea?

You act baffled by it but I'm sure you've done things in life like Talk to People and Engage with Others. It's a drink. It's popular. You really don't need to put any deep thought into it. The house moving tip is just to add personality to a banal oft-repeated article.

Now the obsession with Gogglebox, that's a headscratcher.

1. It tastes nice
2. Hot drinks are comforting
3. It's cultural
4. You get a little caffeine pick-me-up, but not as strong as coffee
5. Familiar habits are comforting
6. Caffeine and rituals are habit-forming.

1. Association. Once you begin to think things like 'Oof what a hard day, fancy a cup of tea' and experience the small comfort of your cup of tea, you start to associate cups of tea with relaxing. Just like cigarette breaks, wine o'clock etc, it's partly physiological and partly psychological, and the 2 aspects become interlinked.

Either way, I can't imagine why you haven't tried it. It seems odd to say ot hasn't occurred to you to try it, when the topuc has obviously occurred yo you enough to start a whole thread about it!

I find tea obsessed people so annoying. It doesn't taste nice and leaves a horrible milky taste in your mouth. It's an addiction to the caffeine I would suspect particularly in those cases where people have to take tea bags on holiday etc.

I find sneering people so annoying. Yes, caffeine is addictive. Who knew? Your point that taking tea on holiday is due to caffeine addiction is daft though. You can buy tea and coffee (which has far more caffeine in it), not to mention caffeinated fizzy drinks on holiday, so why would it just be tea bags people take if it's just about caffeine addiction?

People take teabags on holiday because they like the brand/type they are used to. Some countries have very different tea! And, unlike taking a load of Heinz beans or tubs of Ben & Jerry's, tea bags are very light, dry, non-perishable and easy to pack!

Aside from the taste and fact I just like tea... It's a comfortable ritual. I assume similar to people who smoke (but less gross).

I live really. I take it milky and sweet. Part of it is habit. I couldn't eat a biscuit without a cup of tea, for example.

Can’t stand tea, the taste, the smell. 😝But I did try it! It’s a little ritual in the day for a lot of people. A break from work/chores, a focal point for social interaction, just a harmless habit. As the Victorians used to say, ‘the cup that cheers but does not inebriate’. Coffee for me please 😊

For me it's the ritual of making a hot drink. Whenever I get stuck with a work task - can't think how to phrase something tricky in a report, have found a problem in the data but don't know where it came from, etc - I go, stick the kettle on and then after I've made my drink I sit contemplating the issue and sipping my tea and I nearly always then know what to do. I imagine, as a non-smoker, that cigarette breaks fill the same gap.

I don’t get it either, and also drink mint tea as I don’t drink coffee either and other people couldn’t cope with me not having any hot drinks. I don’t really make them for myself though- it just doesn’t occur to me to drink anything other than water.

Mind blown, that you have never had a cup of tea. It’s low calorie, refreshing, cheap and easy to make. I am powered by tea, I need two cups of the stuff before I can even open my eyes.

This. You don’t need to like a thing to understand that other people like different things to you. I don’t care for pizza but I’m cognizant that many other people really do, and if a moving article said get a pizza after moving I would just tune it out as irrelevant along with Rita Ora and anything about having an accident in the last three years that wasn’t my fault.

Do the non hot drinks people actually enjoy drinking cold water when sitting in a cold air conditioned office or other times when they feel cold?

When I am cold I never feel thirsty so, for me, having a tea habit keeps me hydrated.

Just to stir things up a little I don't get people who drink several cans of diet Coke a day.

For me it's a lot like smoking:

• has a ritual
• is social

-provides a bit of a hit

• is used as a mechanism to manage stressful situations ie people put the kettle on/ light up in times of worry
• gives an excuse to take a break, especially at work

These days drinking tea is much more socially acceptable than smoking and also a lot cheaper!

I find it comforting, refreshing, tasty, hydrating, makes foods I drink it with taste 'better'. If I'm a little peckish a delicious cup of well brewed tea takes the edge off until food time.
It's helps me get all cosy and sleepy at bedtime when I'm in my pyjamas and slippers. There are so many options with tea, I like English breakfast, with a sweet treat and I mostly now drink Taylors Jam and toast tea as its so delicious with just a splash of milk. I never have sugar in my tea as I don't enjoy the sweetness.

Geeze!
try it.
Then try it again with or without sugar. Without milk, with lemon, etc.
remember that we don’t all like the same thing. I’m not a lover of hot drinks. Nor coke. I like water or juice, or vimto
then form an opinion. Then get over it!

does it really matter if there’s something you dislike that’s pretty popular or vice versa?

Many(most?) countries have a drink that they consume regularly throughout the day whether it's tea,coffee, mint tea, horchata, mate etc. It isn't that odd a concept surely?

I just drink water out of the tap so it’s not that cold. Do you enjoy drinking tea when it’s hot?

Probably it is an addiction.

But also it’s the best thing in the universe 😀