【英语听和读】茶叶与英国人

 Jackie: Hello, welcome to Entertainment! I'm Jackie Dalton. Many countries have a

particular type of food or drink which they become associated with. Swiss
chocolate, Cuban rum, American burgers. What are the English most
associated with?
Well, for many, the English are seen first and foremost as a nation of teadrinkers.
Everything stops for a cup tea. How would the English cope without
their afternoon cup and all the social rituals and formalities that come with it?
But is this really true? Or is it just a stereotype 1? In this programme we're going
to find out. First of all, I asked some English people what role tea played in
their lives? How many say it's important? Listen to find out.
English people
Lady 1: On special occasions I do drink coffee, but most of the time I'm definitely a tea
drinker.
Man: I have to one cup of tea, at least one cup of tea some time in the afternoon about 2
o'clock generally – 2-3 o'clock.
Lady 2: I'm much more of a coffee drinker it really just sets me up for the day. I just have to
have my cup of coffee pretty well as soon as I'm out of bed.
Jackie: Well, the first two people are definitely tea lovers. The third says she's more of
a coffee drinker. She said coffee 'sets her up' for the day, which means it gives
her energy and makes her feel full of life. 
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The tea drunk here in England is grown mostly in Asia and other parts of the
world, but there is a tea plantation 2 in the UK: the Tregothnan tea estate in
Cornwall. We sent our reporter Tim there. As you listen to him try to answer
this question: How many cups of tea are drunk in the UK every day? Over to
Tim in Cornwall.
Tim
It's absolutely beautiful here. Did you know in the UK we drink 165 million cups of tea a day.
Isn't that a staggering amount? And 96% of that tea comes from teabags.
Jackie: Did you get that? 165 million! That's a lot of tea, or, as Tim put it, 'a staggering
amount', which means it's hard to believe we drink so much tea. Tim also said
96% of tea comes from teabags. So most people make tea by putting a small
ready-made paper bag in each cup they make instead of using a teapot. A
teapot is a container which you usually put loose leaves in and can use to make
more than one cup of tea at a time. A beautiful porcelain 3 teapot, complete with
a set of matching cups and saucers was traditionally a great source of pride to
many people – something they might want to show off to their friends. But if
96 % of cups of tea are now made with teabags what does this mean for the
future of teapots? Listen to find out.
Tim
The sales of teapots are suffering as a result, they're down two-thirds in the last five years and
it seems that most 18-40 year olds think that teapots are quaint 4 and stuffy 5 and old-fashioned
and don't really want to buy them.
Jackie: Did you get the answer? Not so many people are buying teapots any more.
Most people aged 6 18-40 don't think much of tea pots. Let's look at the words
they used. 'Quaint' and 'old-fashioned' sort of mean the same thing. If
something is quaint or old-fashioned, you associate it with the past, it's not very
modern. 'Quaint' can be quite a positive word. It can mean it's unusual and old-
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fashioned in an attractive way. But 'stuffy', the other word we heard is not at all
positive. It means something is too formal, too old-fashioned and serious.
Speaking of which, there has traditionally been a great deal of etiquette 7 or rules
surrounding tea-drinking. Which direction should the teapot face on the table?
How should you hold your cup when you drink from it? One of the biggest
debates people have is if you're pouring tea from a teapot into a cup, should
you put the milk in before you pour the tea, or after?
Well Mark is a true English tea drinker and expert on tea etiquette. Listen to
him telling us what we should do and why.
Mark
Traditionally, one should add milk to the cup first, and then hot tea the reason for that is that
fine bone china will crack if you add very hot liquids to it. Unfortunately, nowadays it is quite
common for people to just use any old mugs, not of a particularly fine quality and tea will
often be added to the cup before the milk, which is quite incorrect.
Jackie: Mark says you should put milk in first so the cup doesn't crack from the heat.
But nowadays, people tend to drink tea from mugs, which are much simpler
and stronger – than the delicate traditional fine bone china cups.
Sadly, tea-drinking in England today no longer seems to involve much
etiquette at all. It involves drinking it at pretty much any time of the day from
any old mug without any real sense of formality. But, as we've heard, teadrinking
is still a very popular activity here, in fact, I'm off for a cuppa now.