Alexander McCall Smith tackles decline of the teapot, a symbol of Englishness

February 7th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Last updated at 8:24 AM on 7th February 2012

There’s that famous song ‘There’ll always be an England . . . if England means as much to you as England means to me.’ That’s how many of us think about teapots. ‘There’ll always be a teapot, if teapots mean as much to you . . . ’ and so on.

But along comes the news that teapot sales have fallen dramatically — by nearly 40 per cent in the past five years — and that the teapot itself, that icon of British social life, is under threat.

If there are barricades to be manned in defence of all that we hold dear, then surely this is one. The British teapot — all teapots, in fact — must be defended to the last drop.

The fight back starts here: Writer Alexander McCall Smith enjoying a cup of tea at home in Edinburgh

The attack, of course, is being led by those who advocate the use of tea bags. Since the tea bag appeared at the turn of the 20th century, its victory over loose leaf tea is there to see.

If you go into the average super-market, the story of the tea bag’s triumph will be right in front of you. It may be possible to buy loose leaf tea, but pride of place on the shelves is given to various brands of tea bags, many of them not even identifying exactly what sort of tea they contain.

Now, tea bags have their uses. There will be circumstances in which it may not be possible to find a teapot, and a tea bag will obviously be useful then.

But in the home? Surely every kitchen will have space on a shelf for a teapot?

And even if there’s an excuse for using a tea bag, there’s no excuse for the general quality of the tea that they contain. Ask a real tea-lover what he or she thinks about tea bags and the answer will usually be unenthusiastic or even frankly dismissive.

The reason for that is that the tea in tea bags is pretty much powdered. It looks like dust, and it often smells and tastes rather stale.

The difference between tea bag tea and real leaf tea is a big one. So why have tea bags taken over to such an extent?

My wife always packs one in our suitcase

The answer is that making a cup of tea this way is usually much easier than brewing it the traditional manner. Tea bags can be dipped into a single cup and then thrown straight into the bin. That may be fair enough, but that provides no justification for the abandonment of the teapot.

It is perfectly possible to put tea bags into a teapot and make your tea that way. Indeed, doing it that way is surely better than putting the tea bag directly into the cup. If you do that, then where is the second cup going to come from? A fresh tea bag.

Now, if you had put that first tea bag into a teapot you would be able to make at least two cups in the pot right at the beginning, and in this way get two cups for the price of one.

So the teapot provides even those who wish to use tea bags with a clear 50 per cent saving. But do the opponents of the teapot think of that? They do not. They are clearly firmly in the wasteful camp.

I hope that the Government is aware of this issue. How much money could Mr Osborne save the nation if he were to decree (as I hope he does) that every Government office, even those occupied by only one civil servant, should have a Government-issue teapot for the making of civil service tea.

The existence of the humble teapot is under threat from users of the tea bag

That will halve the Government’s tea bill — which I notice has not featured very much in the recent discussions on cuts. The saving, I believe, will amount to several million pounds a year when calculated over the entire range of Government departments.

Of course, the really severe cutters of public spending might suggest that the saving would be even greater if all tea were to be cut from Government offices, but that, I feel, is going far too far.

There are certain things that every decent Government must provide for its civil servants, and tea, in my view, is one of them. The day that British civil servants stop drinking tea will be a sad day for standards of democratic government.

Look at Brussels. Do they drink tea in that vast European Union building in Brussels? They do not. They drink coffee. And I am reliably informed that a European Union directive is being planned to require all European bureaucrats to drink coffee exclusively.

This will prevent British civil servants in EU offices from drinking tea at their desks. If they do wish to drink tea, they will have to go outside and join the smokers. That is where we are headed.

It’s a civilised habit and a bonding ritual

The teapot represents a sound answer to the question of how tea might be drunk economically and effectively.

It is much more than that, though: there is a strong cultural and aesthetic argument for keeping the teapot.

In the cultural sense, the teapot reminds us that drinking tea is an activity that we perform together. People sit down to tea and take the tea from the same source: the teapot.

This is much the same as taking food from a common pot: it affirms our sense of being in it together.

It is also a civilised habit in a world in which people simply do not spend enough time together engaged in bonding rituals. So many people no longer eat together, but snatch their sustenance on the hoof or in front of a screen.

We need to sit face to face; we need to watch as the other pours tea into our cup; we need to pass each other the milk and sip thoughtfully at our tea while we think of things to say. All of this is what life in society is all about.

I have certainly not given up on teapots. We have just acquired a very fine new metal teapot that is insulated to keep the tea warm. It represents a giant step for teapot technology.

Fancy a brew? The cup of tea is a British way of life

And when we go abroad, my wife always packs a teapot and a packet of loose tea in our suitcase. The loose tea usually escapes, but it’s no real trouble getting it out of our clothes and back into the packet at the other end.

We carry these supplies because of the difficulty — indeed, the impossibility — of finding teapots in foreign hotels, particularly in the U.S.

There, if you ask for something in which to make tea, you are given a coffee pot, and if there is one thing that is antagonistic to the favour of tea, it is the flavour of coffee.

So, like Boy Scouts on an adventure, we make tea in our hotel room, using a small heating element that we also carry in the suitcase. This usually fuses the hotel lights — but that, in my view is their fault. If they supplied proper teapots, people would not be forced to such extremes.

Drinking good tea in the dark is actually quite pleasant. It means one concentrates on the tea rather than on the hotel decor.

So much of our life is now under threat from those who would reduce us.

We must fight back. We must cling to our teapots and to the more leisurely, more satisfying brew that they provide.

Shall I be mother? A charming phase — but it definitely requires a teapot.

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