TIME OUT:There's bags of taste and mugs of pure joy, writes MARIE MURRAY
WOULD YOU like a nice cup of tea? The question raises the curiosity of those unfamiliar with our language and the vast and particular vocabulary that surrounds our discussions about tea. We have been offering each other “a nice cup of tea” for so long that we never consider the antonymous alternative to that offer. Besides nobody in Ireland could ever make a nasty cup of tea. We are too long making it, living on it, loving it, offering it, drinking it, requesting it, refusing it and socially interacting because of it, that we all know how to make a nice cup of tea.
Our offers of tea extend well beyond “nice” to “a little” cup of tea. This diminutive description takes the harm out of our generosity so that guests won’t feel obligated when it’s only a “little” cup. And to ensure that nobody evades our hospitality or leaves our home without appropriate refreshment, protests of being in a hurry are met with the offer of “a cup in your hand”.
Tea is always available. Sure “the kettle is already boiled” or “it will only take a minute to boil” or “it will be ready in no time”, and if anyone says they are in a hurry there is always “a quick cup of tea” and “you can’t leave without it”. When all else fails in our offers of tea, the assiduity of Mrs Doyle is required with, “Ah go on, go on, go on”, until capitulation.
There is an atavistic Irish impulse to ensure that if we are not imbibing alcohol we are at least consuming tea. And while we may not always want the tea we are required to drink, not to be offered a cup of tea is a serious social gaffe bringing forth that wonderful phrase, “Did they think I hadn’t a mouth on me?” Because next to talking, tea drinking is one of our fine Irish talents and an Irish mouth not engaged in one or other activity is a deviance indeed.
We love a “drop” of tea and when guests are halfway into their nice cup of tea, we ask if they would like a “hot drop”. Thereafter it becomes necessary to have a “fresh pot” because no conversation was ever completed over just one pot of tea.
Childhood indoctrination into the world of tea commences with the “lullaby of boiling kettle” and perfecting the song and gestures of I’m a Little Teapot and Polly put the Kettle On. This early identity confusion may account for later addiction, for few of us could get through a day without tea’s infusion.
Early conditioning to “the leaf that gives its spell” may also account for the attachment of workmen to tea, while research on the frequency, intensity and duration of “tea breaks” indicate that they exceed working time. Perhaps reform in public services and private enterprise might also be achieved by prohibition, were it not for the consequent psychological ill-health that would ensue.
So integral is tea to our psychological wellbeing that all calamities require the kettle and we are blithe in disregard of caveats on caffeine, tannin, theine and theanine. For what are they, we say, compared to the cup that comforts in times of need? We administer tea to ourselves and bestow it on others, and if no sage advice is forthcoming for someone in distress there is a cuppa to proffer: that, in itself, is a therapeutic act.
Tea is ease and elixir. “It tempers the spirit and harmonises the mind.” Sugared, it soothes us in shock. At morn it wakes us, at 11 it enlivens us, it punctuates the afternoon, accompanies high tea, is a must at suppertime and at many other intervals.
And in our going it accompanies us, for there was never a “wake” at which tea did not flow with the anecdotes and celebrations of the life of the dead. Yes, tea to us Irish is more than a beverage.
In this time of recession when we despair of the past and fear for the future and when the pot is empty and we have consumed all that we could absorb, we can look into our empty cups that once overflowed and read in the leaves portents of what lies ahead.
Marie Murray is a clinical psychologist and author. Her radio slot Mindtime is on Drivetime with Mary Wilson on Wednesdays on RTÉ Radio One