TEA TIME:

June 21^st

     I am not a fan of hot tea. I don’t like the taste but mostly because I am not a fan of hot drinks. Hot tea just doesn’t soothe me the way that it is supposed to. It just feels weird on my palate and odd to have with a meal or breakfast. So of course being in a country where hot tea is the choice drink I was a little out of my comfort zone in that sense. It is just hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that hot tea is the choice drink for a social event. So when coming to this last blog assignment I felt uncomfortable and not looking forward to when I needed to have tea. I did not go out and buy hot tea and do tea time because I just couldn’t for the life of me pay money to have high tea or even tea with a meal, so I did the next best thing: Pickwick tea. One morning I put my pride away and poured myself some tea for breakfast. I put in a lot of sugar to help with the taste and then I drank it. I didn’t really care for the tea but I can say now that I have had tea in London where it is engrained in the culture and society.

     Now in The Importance of Being Earnest both the tea and cucumber sandwiches and even muffins are important because it signifies a social time to discuss and talk with company. The play even goes as far as saying what each character specifically likes with their tea. I think of their tea time as businessmen’s smoke break or game night where they get together to gossip and talk about life. It also keeps the people engaged in something so that an uneasiness doesn’t fall upon the gathering and that there is always something to eat or drink. So although I do not like hot tea I do appreciate what the context of what tea time means and how it brings people together.