A side splittingly humourous take on the matter from a writer closer to the era:
https://biblioklept.org/2013/02/10/moral-effects-of-tea-tast...
The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
21–30 of 78 posts
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tea drinking in Ireland is a big part of the culture, and we have a lot of unwritten rules around it. I'm sure other irish HN'ers will jump in here and add to the list, but off the top of my head - if you don't offer someone tea when they come to visit, you are rude. if they refuse, and you accept their first offer without insisting, that's also rude. you have to persist a bit. this was parodied in the TV show "Fathe…
> Households are either "Barrys Tea" or "Lyons Tea" and people are expected to have a loyal devotion to one and hatred of the other So if you offer Barry's to a guest who is in the Lyons, are you being rude?
House rules. If you're a Lyons house and a Barrys drinker comes in, they have to put up with it. depending on how well you know them they will either quietly accept or start an argument to convince you how wrong you are
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tea drinking in Ireland is a big part of the culture, and we have a lot of unwritten rules around it. I'm sure other irish HN'ers will jump in here and add to the list, but off the top of my head - if you don't offer someone tea when they come to visit, you are rude. if they refuse, and you accept their first offer without insisting, that's also rude. you have to persist a bit. this was parodied in the TV show "Fathe…
> Households are either "Barrys Tea" or "Lyons Tea" and people are expected to have a loyal devotion to one and hatred of the other So if you offer Barry's to a guest who is in the Lyons, are you being rude?
No. It would be rude to turn down a tea because you don't like the blend.
And if someone needs an emergency cup of tea they won't mind.
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tea drinking in Ireland is a big part of the culture, and we have a lot of unwritten rules around it. I'm sure other irish HN'ers will jump in here and add to the list, but off the top of my head - if you don't offer someone tea when they come to visit, you are rude. if they refuse, and you accept their first offer without insisting, that's also rude. you have to persist a bit. this was parodied in the TV show "Fathe…
Accepting anything offered to you on the first offer is a bit rude. Basically, you are a guest of someone and shouldn't be a burden on them. They have to prove to you that you are not a burden, and then once that is clear you don't feel bad being served. Then your tea comes with cake, ham sandwiches and biscuit which is beyond the scope of the initial drink you were offered.
very culturally dependent. In Germany, the first offer is the offer. If you refuse it, there will not be a second one; and making a second, third offer, in turn, would be rude in Germany, as it is pestering and assumes I'm lying with the first answer or I don't know what I want. How dare you assume this? :D
The English always think the Germans terribly rude. In turn, Germans find these English (also Irish, I guess) conventions of running around things fifteen times for ritual terribly exhausting, a complete waste of time and honestly, just an outright lie.
Take email rules. Germans ridicule this "Hi, how are you, how's the family?" loop before the email (or phone call, or meeting) comes to "I need this from you." A German mail is "Hi, I need this. Thanks." That is not rude at all; the contrary, you did not force your family on me and didn't pretend to care about things that you do NOT care about, and you didn't impose on me with private things from strangers that I do not care about. (in the English mail, signified by the fact that there are no actual answers. "Fine!" .... Great, that was useless and just signaled openly that we really do not care and the question was, in fact, a lie.)
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Two points: It's important to note whether the milk goes in the tea first or the tea first and then the milk. When the host is serving the tea, if the milk goes in first, then the host is admitting that they have inferior (non-china) cups, since china cups are more robust and can withstand the sudden heat shock. However, I have never had tea from a china cup so I can't possibly say. When making hay in the summer time…
This is one of those things where everyone has heard a slightly different tale. I've read in other places the exact opposite: some people put milk in first in china cups because they think china is delicate and prone to cracking. Some people prefer milk afterwards so they can get the tea to the right colour. Others say that putting it in first may prevent denaturing the milk proteins. More research is needed.
Not only was research done, it was the origin of statistical significance testing:
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Accepting anything offered to you on the first offer is a bit rude. Basically, you are a guest of someone and shouldn't be a burden on them. They have to prove to you that you are not a burden, and then once that is clear you don't feel bad being served. Then your tea comes with cake, ham sandwiches and biscuit which is beyond the scope of the initial drink you were offered.
very culturally dependent. In Germany, the first offer is the offer. If you refuse it, there will not be a second one; and making a second, third offer, in turn, would be rude in Germany, as it is pestering and assumes I'm lying with the first answer or I don't know what I want. How dare you assume this? :D The English always think the Germans terribly rude. In turn, Germans find these English (also Irish, I guess) c…
if by 'lie' you mean part of the culturally specific social ritual which is an essential glue knitting disparate people together, then yes, it's a lie.
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#27weird to see a jstor puff blog post casually posted to hn.
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Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#28Truth be told, boiling tea leaves continuously does extract all the tanins and could lead to gastric distress for some. Better to make the tea the usual way and then keep it warm. You can use the leaves multiple times, though.
I remember when the TV show Broadchurch came out, and David Tennant's character made tea in the microwave, and there was national uproar in Britain.
Later several scientific articles pointed out this is actually a better way to make tea.
This event, along with Brexit and Covid, will surely be recognised by historians as the beginning of the downfall of the UK
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
very culturally dependent. In Germany, the first offer is the offer. If you refuse it, there will not be a second one; and making a second, third offer, in turn, would be rude in Germany, as it is pestering and assumes I'm lying with the first answer or I don't know what I want. How dare you assume this? :D The English always think the Germans terribly rude. In turn, Germans find these English (also Irish, I guess) c…
if by 'lie' you mean part of the culturally specific social ritual which is an essential glue knitting disparate people together, then yes, it's a lie.
we lie all the time to knit people together, yes, of course. The key is in the "culturally specific" part. What kinds of lies are coded as rude and what kinds of lies are coded as glue? This differs, which was all I'm saying. I don't want to take the ritual from the English; I just want to keep them from making it universal (the English are very good at making whatever they do universal around the globe. ahem)
This isn't just different between cultures, it's different between status positions, scenes, relationship levels. If someone I'm just getting to know asks me for lunch and I don't feel like it, I'll say "I'd love to, I can't" if I do want to keep making a relationship with that person. If someone's an old friend, I'll say, "I don't want to", knowing that our friendship won't be hurt by that.
Re: The dangers of tea drinking in nineteenth century Ireland
#30Truth be told, boiling tea leaves continuously does extract all the tanins and could lead to gastric distress for some. Better to make the tea the usual way and then keep it warm. You can use the leaves multiple times, though.
Potential for gastric distress from tannins is greatly reduced by adding milk, which is the usual way to drink tea in Ireland and the UK.