“Would you care to sit with me
For a cup of English tea
Very twee, very me
Any sunny morning … “
Paul McCartney, “English Tea” (2005)
It was the old man who introduced me to “English tea” in the 1970s. Long an instant coffee aficionado – for more than 20 years, a pot of Sanka simmered on the electric stove from morning until bedtime – for some unknown reason, he switched to tea.
But Dad’s use of the term “English tea” was most misleading. It wasn’t the traditional black tea mix of which the Brits remain so fond – Dad used either instant Nestea or whatever brand of tea bags could be had at the grocer – but how he “doctored” it.
As with his coffee, he tea was loaded with plenty of sugar and ample milk, “just the way the English like it,” he once told me. Never mind that it’s not necessarily the case, it sounded good to an impressionable teenager with a very Celtic name.
All that said, Dad’s “English tea” habit stuck. With good reason. For, to this day, there’s nothing better than a freshly brewed cup of Dad-doctored tea.
Yes, that sweet and creamy elixir has so many practical applications – from helping to plan a difficult day at dawn’s first light, to warming the hands (and the soul) working outside on a cool autumn afternoon, to helping trigger all those drunk-with-comfort, day-is-done feelings that, for some odd reason, won’t allow you to budge from the favorite chair in front of the mesmerizing fireplace.
Eighteenth-century British poet William Cowper once characterized tea as “cups that cheer but not inebriate.” He obviously knew not of what he wrote.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
