One of the nicest things to do during the cold winter is to curl up (蜷缩) with a hot cup of tea.
But for Britons, tea is a popular drink all year round. Afternoon tea, high tea, builder's tea (a strong cup of tea, usually with full-fat milk and two teaspoons of sugar), tea gowns (礼服), tea cakes, tea houses, tea breaks ... they are all everyday names and phrases in the UK.
Tea has, in fact, become part of the British way of life. And Britons' preferences for types of tea and how to drink it can really say a lot about them.
British anthropologist (人类学家) Kate Fox writes in her bookWatching the Englishthat several clear messages are sent whenever a Briton makes a cup of tea.
She observes that the strongest cups of black tea are usually drunk by the working class. The tea gets weaker as one goes up the social ladder.
Sugar means something, too. "Taking sugar in your tea is thought by many to be a sign of a lower-class person: even one makes people suspicious (可疑的); more than one and you are lower-middle at best; more than two and you are definitely working class," she writes.
Other rules involve how milk and sugar are added, if any is added. For example, drinking smoky black Lapsang Souchong (正山小种) tea from China with no sugar or milk can be a sign of class worries in the middle class.
Tea doesn't just show class, though; it can also be a social space filler. "Whenever the English feel awkward (尴尬的) or uncomfortable in a social situation (that is, almost all the time), they make tea," Fox wrote in her book.
