Probably a little stereotypical, but the British are always seen as being obsessed with the drink tea. While drinking tea and coffee is very popular among the British, it’s not limited to them. When I’ve been with other nationalities, they have been surprised (or shocked) that I’ve added milk to my tea. While I’m quite content to drink coffee without milk, I don’t like the taste of tea without milk (although I wouldn’t put milk in green tea or Earl Grey). The dialogue involved in offering and accepting a cup of tea always amuses me. These terms might be used by English speakers or just English speakers in my part of the country. Below is an example dialogue.
Person A: Would you like a nice cup of tea?
Person B: Only if you’re making one.
Why does Person A say, ‘a nice cup of tea’? They wouldn’t say. ‘Would you like a horrible cup of tea?’. Secondly, why does person B say, ‘Only if you’re making one’? Person A wouldn’t have asked otherwise. It’s just a polite conversational convention. Otherwise, the dialogue might have followed the path below.
Person A: Would you like a cup of tea?
Person B: Yes, please.
Person A: Unfortunately, I’m not making one.
In the phrase ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’, there are a lot of connected speech patterns. For example ‘Would you…’ becomes ‘wudja’, ‘like a’ becomes ‘lika’ and the sound of the word ‘of’ from ‘cup of tea’ seems to disappear completely to become ‘cuppa tea’. It’s quite an interesting sentence for your students or trainees to analyse in a pronunciation lesson.
There are various idiomatic and proverbial sayings relating to the drinking of tea. If we think that a big fuss is being made about a minor or irrelevant matter, we may dismiss it as ‘a storm in a teacup’. If there is something or someone not completely to our liking, we may say they are, ‘Not my cup of tea’. Writing on this topic has made me feel thirsty, so I’m taking a break for a cuppa…
