NORTHERN PLANNER

Regular visitors will not be surprised to learn that I’m representing tea in The Kaiser’s Ultimate Beverage Bracket. And in the first round, tea is up against mulled wine..represented by the German monarch himself.

There’s so much to say about tea (and much has been said on this blog) I hardly know where to start. Hopefully there will be enough rounds to do it justice. But let’s begin with a fact – by now (8.30am) over 58 million cups of tea have been made in the UK today. It’s our favourite drink, and the world’s favourite too.

Trouble is, it’s become such an ingrained part of our routine, we rarely stop and take time to appreciate it. It’s part of the fabric of everyday life, all that stuff we never really notice, but simply could not do with out. Those things we never appreciate until they’re gone. Have you ever seen an office when the kettle breaks, or they run out of milk? It’s chaos.

Tea is the backbone of civilised society.

When the British come back from a holiday, the first thing they usually want is a proper cup of tea.

And we’ve never needed it more than we do now. The world is fast, too fast. Too many things to do, too much choice, too many meetings. There’s pressure to work of course, but now we’re not allowed to have a holiday without it turning into an action adventure trip, or a cultural exploration.

How often are we really ‘here’ anymore’? There’s always the TV on, the Ipod playing, the nagging red light on the blackberry telling us to read our emails..or we’re playing video game, listening to the radio or surfing the net. There’s little time to sit and think, let your mind roam free. There’s less space for proper conversation, talk that goes anywhere and everywhere. Even the tea break has turned into the ‘water cooler’ moment. 

The semiotics of tea are all about slowness, talking time to sit back and take some time out. The drink is a wonderful little moment of relaxation, a pocket of ‘me time’. The ritual has evolved slowly, over centuries, there’s a rich history behind it (which we’ll come to in other rounds) We could all do with a lot more of that slowness in our lives.

So a vote for tea is a vote for the very fabric of your day, the infrastructure of civil society. It’s a vote for taking some time out, time for yourself, away from the PC, from presenteeism, from Crackberry, from a society that expects you to wring every drop of activity from every second of time, and appreciating those little things in your life that don’t like to show off, they don’t scream for attention. They’re just here for us.

Vote for tea here.