The British love of tea (from Here for The History)

Pipsy podcast on suurin jälkeen. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu shopi-faippiste komsi-vustolla. Ai et vihdoin yksinkeskellä korpe. Vihdistelä raavassa. Ei, termarissa on kaa kaaa. Tässä täällä tehtä. Mä lämme te mille kausukettimällä hernerokat, kun hänen sin kanssa on teiltä luomutan esulta saa raua missä. No, hälla on periks, sillä itse asiassa. Itse asiassa, viiltä ja musta löytyy eduliset välineet homman kuin hommaan. Olikysymys sitten omasta tai kaverin projektista. Itse asiassa. Hi there, I'm Ben Henderson. I've been a presenter here on witness history for years now. You might have heard my interviews with the Chilean writer Isabella Yende, or Uruguay's former president Jose Muhika. But I'm sorry to say I'm no longer working on witness anymore. I'm presenting a brand new show called Hear for the History from BBC Sounds with the historian Alice Lockstone. In each episode, we take an element of everyday life. It could be the way we dress, the way we eat food, the things we believe, then me and Alice uncover their historical backstory. If it sounds like your cup of tea, search for Hear for the History on your podcast app, or watch our YouTube channel. I'm Ben Henderson. And I'm Alice Lockstone. So Alice, obviously I spend most of my free time with my nose in your bestselling history book. Thank you. But I think the first time I came across you was when you posted a video online to your legions of followers about some black railings on the street in London, which looked slightly misshapen. Am I right? Oh yes, people absolutely love that video. Really, really went viral. They were wonderful railings and they were actually used originally as stretches in the blitz in the second world war. And people just love seeing the history behind these ordinary objects. Yeah, it's fascinating. I love that. And I saw it was even written up in the papers, national news. Thank you, Ben. Thanks for reading. You're a loyal supporter. So you're right. Well, I've also seen your stuff. You've been making history programmes for the BBC for years now. And you have your own social videos about history too. I loved the video about the origins of the British stiff upper lip. I think that's the first one I saw of yours. And it was always something I just accepted, but never really questioned why. Yeah, well, it was funny. You should say that out this, because that's exactly what we're doing on our brand new podcast, isn't it? Here for the history. Exactly, Ben. I'm so excited. We'll be uncovering the historical backstories that have shaped our lives. Yes. So we'll be finding out things like how English turned into the language we speak today and how the suit became every man's uniform, and even where the weekend came from. And I've been really surprised by some of the things we found already. Some of it's really weird. Some of it's quite dark. And some of it's just hilarious. So I can't wait to reveal it all. [Music] So to you, listening, we're here for the history. Now let's crack on with the first episode. Alice, could you start by telling me your dream morning? Well, the first thing that I have every morning is a cup of tea as I did this morning. And I'll get out of bed, try and wake up. And the first thing I do is put the kettle on. I'll have an English breakfast tea. I've got a special mug. It's from the Daron Cathedral gift shop, which I bought a few years ago. And I'll have, I'd say, a dash of milk, semi-skilled milk, and it normally ends up being the colour of a digestive biscuit. So I'm very particular about that. But if I get it right, it does set me up for a perfect day. What about you? How much milk do you have? Well, I don't want to ruin my popularity this early in the show, but I'm actually more of a coffee man. No, but I know I'll have tea in the evenings. But yeah, more of a coffee man. My mum is a teardic, though. And so I've seen the addiction in action. A fellow tea obsessive. Your mother and I would get on no doubt. Yeah, exactly. But I'm interested in how particular people are with their tea routines. I've always been a bit of a, you know, just shove some milk in it. But obviously, you know, I'm a southerner living in the north in Manchester. And if I go to make a round of tea for my colleagues at work, and I put, you know, just slightly too much milk in, they'll do a massive goat meal. Oh, you're Southern, Softy. You can't make a cup of tea. Look at me with contempt. I know. People have such strong feelings about it. Myself included. And perhaps you deserve that contempt. But it is, it is a big part of the British identity. And actually, the anthropologist Kate Fox has written about this in her book, watching the English. She said that whenever the English feel awkward or uncomfortable in a social situation, that is almost all the time they make tea. So totally relatable. How much did it say that you've got a cup of tea right there? Right. Yeah. I haven't been in a company. That like uncomfortable. But the question is, why is tea so important? Did you know this is an amazing fact. Next to water, it's the most consumed beverage in the world. Yeah, that is pretty remarkable. So there's a lot of tea drinkers. There's a lot of us out there. But what about in Britain? How did something not native to Britain become intrinsically linked to British identity? Well, Alice, the anticipation is brewing. Well done. Welcome everyone to our new show, Here for the History from BBC Sounds. In the show, we'll be taking the stereotypes and traditions that make up everyday life and find out their historical origin story. Today, Alice is going to take us through the history of tea and pin down, in her opinion, how we brits got so obsessed with it. So Alice, the kettle's boiling and I'm here for the history. Chapter one, royal team. Now legend has it. 5,000 years ago, revered Chinese Emperor and herbalist Shenong, was relaxing under a chamelea synensis tree. As his servants prepared some boiling water to be drunk. As he did so, a leaf of the tree drifts off the branch and lands in the pot of boiling water. But instead of throwing it away, Shenong takes a sip. He tries this new concoction and there we have it. Tea is born. Oh, unbelievable scene, and beautifully told. But this is an underrated moment in global history, surely. A huge moment. Shaped the lives of millions of people. Now, there are a few origin stories of how tea was invented, but this is probably the most famous of all. But if we're going to be looking at the role that tea played in Britain's history, it actually starts much later in the 1600s. So a time of civil wars, puritans, ruffs, people wearing those big wide-bring tats. The plagues, the great fire of London, that sort of thing. And we're going to look at the year 1662. The Portuguese princess Catherine of Bruganza is sailing through storms and rolling seas. She's in an English fleet traveling from Portugal to England for a pretty big moment in her life. She's going to marry King Charles II of England, who, by the way, at this point, she's never actually met. So pretty full on for her. The thing about Catherine, though, she's only 23 years old. She grew up next to a nunnery. She's basically had this life of seclusion and strict religious studies. She's got this reputation for being pretty pious and quiet. Kind of a bouncy figure, you might say. So if she's quite a shy person, naturally, this must have been a pretty daunting moment, I can imagine. You know, you've got, you've got to go over there, marry the King of England. I've truly the butterflies, I imagine. Absolutely. And she's this diplomatic pawn in this great tangled web of European politics. The marriage is a great strategic alliance arranged by her father, King John IV of Portugal. And this is quite a common thing at the time for royal families to use marriage as a way to forge these partnerships. Nonetheless, she lands in Port Smith on the 14th of May, 1662. It's been a terrible journey. She's been thrown around, tossed about in the sea by the storms. But finally, she steps off the boat, no doubt hugely relieved. And what is the first thing she asks for on dry land? Can you guess? A pint at the local weather space? Not quite. Catherine of Bruganza asks for a cup of tea. And unfortunately, much to her disappointment, they don't have one to give her. So though tea had actually already arrived in the UK by this point in the 1650s, and we know this because of the famous diarist Samuel Peep's, it wasn't actually popular yet. So the princess on arrival was offered, you write then, a small ale instead. Oh, well, my historical instinct have kicked in there. You laughed. There we go. She'd love an airport spoon, so I'm sure. Now, a week later, Charles II comes down to Port Smith. And on this day, he meets Catherine of Bruganza for the first time, and they get married. No, really. So it's not the big fancy royal wedding we're used to. No offense to Port Smith, but not the most glamorous location in the world. Well, it's quite low. key, as opposed you might say, but they do go to London later on and they process into London and that's a great celebration. Of course, Charles is quite an extravagant man. Yeah, well just a picture of Charles II and then for listeners. So he's often portrayed in portraits with a big shaggy darkweigh going down past his shoulders and he's known as a bit of a lad, isn't he? He famously reopens the taverns after the Puritan to try to clamp down fun after the Civil War. But for the purposes of this marriage, his temperament's not great, is it? Because him and Catherine don't raise any surviving children, do they? And he has quite a lot of illegitimate kids with various mistresses, doesn't he? So he's not the best behave. He's got a lot of mistresses and he is known as the King of Partying. So they are quite a kind of strange couple in some ways, this mousey girl from Portugal, but nonetheless, the key thing is that Catherine of Briganza, she is the new wife of Charles II and she joined the English court and in one sense she's this great outsider because she's remained a Catholic while the English court's religion is Protestantism and she dresses in the Portuguese style, she has some quite funny habits which do actually catch on. She brings the fork in, which is a useful implement. She introduced Marmalade, again, very grateful for that. But most importantly, she popularises tea. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable influence for one woman, isn't it? She's like her. Yeah, more than Alice Lockstone. Great influence. Yeah, we're very similar. In many ways. Now, as part of her dowry, Portugal provided a chest of tea and this was already a very popular drink in the Portuguese court. This is partly because Portugal had established trade routes with the far east and importantly China, which is where the tea leaves come from. Now, she serves this tea to her ladies in waiting and the ladies at court. So this sets a trend in England for the elite drinking tea and we know that she would go and visit aristocratic families and drink tea at their houses, places like Ham House, which is on the outskirts of London on the River Terms, which is a beautiful house. Oh, have you been there? I have been there and I've actually been to the cafe and drunk tea in the cafe. So, you know, repeating Catherine of Brickan's experiences. Oh, very good. First hand research, Alice. Of course, of course. I do my best. Okay, so this tea as well, this would be tea coming from China presumably because that's where it's produced. And so it would have been green tea rather than the kind of black tea with milk that we'd later adopt in Britain as the centuries go by. Fascinating, but I'm interested to know how tea then spread from this elite circle revolving around Catherine of Brickan's to wider society. So, let me know how that happened. Yes. Well, a big moment in the history of tea in Britain comes in 1706 because we get our first tea shop. Oh. An exciting moment. And it opened on the strand, which is where many of the London elites were living after the Great Fire of London. And it was opened by a man called Thomas Twining. Ah, of Twining's tea fame, I see. Absolutely. Actually, the shop still exists today, which is rather wonderful. But the key thing about the 18th century is that tea at this point was insanely expensive. Right. So, this is because it had to be transported from China that's the only place producing it at the time. And there were these massive taxes on importing it. Okay. So, how much are we paying for a cup of tea? Okay. So, by 1707, three and a half ounces of Twining's gunpowder tea, it was called gunpowder tea because they had these tightly rolled leaves that looked like grains of gunpowder. This was sold at a price, which would work out today as £160. Okay. That sounds enormously expensive, but I don't really know actually how much three and a half ounces is. What is three and a half ounces in tea? Okay. So, doing a half ounces is the same as £100. It's about the same weight as four AA batteries or two medium eggs, if that's helpful. Okay. A hundred paper clips. Can you and visit what that looks like? That's the thing. Is it helpful? Or tree frog? It's the same weight as a tree frog. Well, now it's clear. Try to tree frog these days, J. I'm always using tree frogs to measure out the flour. But yeah, so it's a hundred paper clips worth of tea, three and a half ounces costs £160. So, what does that tell you? It's just very, very expensive. Yeah. So, ordinary people surely aren't able to access this kind of thing. No. And of course, because it's taxed so highly and because there's such a big demand for it, people go outside the system and it creates this market for something that I know your love been, smugglers. Absolutely. Well, I found this particularly interesting. You're a pirate at heart. I know. As often said. Yeah, it's in the tea story. This is fascinating, because it really demonstrates that demand for tea isn't just located among the aristocrats at the top with Catherine. It's dispersed through society. So pirates are bringing the tea over from Holland and Portugal because there was far lower taxes over there than there was over here. And there's a lot of violence involved in this smuggling. But I found it really funny. It's not always the people you'd expect, you know, the pirates, villains in society. There were teachers involved in the smuggling trade. There were members of the clergy. I guess all sorts. Flourgeyman, you can never trust them. I've always said it. So, no, you're right. Well, it draws at the point that because of these high taxes, there was huge amounts of smuggling and to try and stamp down on that, the tax was slashed in 1784. Fascinating. Okay, so we get the picture. Catherine has popularised tea at the elite level and it's slowly trickling down through the classes and growing in popularity. But I get the feeling Alice that things are about to take a much darker turn. They are indeed. Chapter 2, the Tea Wars. Now I'm taking us forward into the 1800s when tea had become so popular that Britain was willing to go to war for it. At this point, China is still the only country that produces tea. And of course, the British Empire is at its height. So it's a time of expansionism, trade, globalism, all happening, a pace. And there's this company that's been set up. It's called the East India Company. And there are a few of these, but in this instance we're talking about the British one. It started out as a merchant company, but over time it basically became an extension of the British state. Yes, and the East India Company plays a huge role in this story, doesn't it? Absolutely, because in order to meet British demand for tea, the East India Company was determined to try and buy some more. But there was a problem because the Chinese would only accept silver in exchange for tea. And the East India Company did not have enough silver. And the way that they dealt with this problem is rather look down on today, shall we say, to put it politely. Because what they did was they took opium, which was being produced in parts of East India, an area of the world that they controlled at that time. And they amped up the production massively. So opium comes from popes, it's massively addictive. Yeah, a very dangerous drug that can ruin lives and has done many people. So the East India Company then sold this opium illegally to Chinese merchants in exchange for silver, which then allowed them to buy more tea to bring back to Britain. And this did lead to a huge problem in China of opium addiction, which you can understand the emperor wasn't very happy about. Yeah. And this is what leads to what's known as the opium wars, isn't it? The opium wars indeed. So the emperor even writes to Queen Victoria in 1839, he pleas for this trade of opium to cease. He's met with silence. And next he takes action. He seizes 20,000 chests of opium and dumps it in the sea. And the East India Company retaliates with great force. And we obviously know it as a company, but they actually have the Royal Navy don't they to support them and go into war here? Absolutely. So the Royal Navy send in these warships, there's steamships, towing gunboats that smash through China's river and coastal defenses. So China is forced to capitulate. It's a great humiliation for them. They end up having to pay for the loss of the opium, they seed Hong Kong to Britain. They're forced to open up more ports to trade to Britain. And the eventual result of all of this is that tea starts to flow more easily and enable trade with Britain. Gosh, we're flooding their country with drugs, causing loads of addiction and going to war for tea. Now, following this, the Brits not only have they forced China to trade in this way, but they also wanted to take it a step further instead of having to rely on China to trade the tea. They wanted to shortcut this and grow the tea themselves. And so in India, they set up tea gardens and plantations. The great problem was that they were lacking in some pretty key parts of this. They lacked the knowledge, the know-how of how to grow the tea, but also the plants to do it. There have been all of these attempts which just totally failed. And this is where we introduce a new character to the story. Get comfortable because this is quite a story. So let me introduce you to Robert Fortun. He is a Scottish botanist, a explorer, and in 1848, he was instructed by the East India Company to in an infamous episode of corporate espionage travel to China in secret and do something pretty daring. Gather the tea seeds, the plants and the understanding which would enable the British to grow tea. Now, this is a pretty devious move to put it kindly. Fort June disguises himself in traditional Chinese clothing and hairstyle. He sneaks into areas of China which are completely forbidden to foreigners and he goes to the factories and he sees how he is made. I can't believe that a Scottish man can fit in in 19th century China. But yeah, very impressive. An impressive disguise. So he brought back 20,000 live plants and convinced a small number of workers to travel to a northern province as he called it to grow the tea. And this was in fact British controlled India in what we would now know as "Dar Geeling". And that is why we have "Dar Geeling Tea". Yes, well done. Now it's really interesting to read about Fort June's take on the whole affair. He wrote this book about it and he talks about it like this amazing adventure. He was the first to see these secrets. He wrote, "I often look back upon those days with feelings of unalloyed pleasure." And of course the interesting thing is he might have had a great time but for China they see this very very differently. Yeah, absolutely. He's a bit of a national villain there, isn't he? Yeah, absolutely. And the point is he's seriously unpopulated in China's day. They view him as this terrible figure. They see it as trickery. He single-handedly knee-capped the economy and it's part of that great century of humiliation, which they still talk about today. And they call it the great tea heist. That's how it's remembered. So yeah, and they. But Fort June and the opium trade echoes down the centuries. Absolutely. So it's quite a big change at this point. They've exploited opium and employed some pretty brutal military tactics. There's been a sprinkling of espionage and all of this broke China's monopoly on tea production and began to satisfy this raging demand for tea in Britain. Chapter 3. Look for the bare necessities. Okay, so as the opium wars and tea espionage are playing out in the far east, what's happening back in Britain? Well, the industrial revolution is well underway and this is playing quite a big part in the demand for tea. Can you tell me a bit about the industrial revolution Ben? I know it's your great favourite topic. Oh well, I'll try my best. So it's obviously a massive period of technological change. Britain turns from being a largely kind of agrarian country where most people live in the countryside to being a heavily urbanised country based on factory work. Okay, and so what is life like for those factory workers? Well, they work terrible hours. They have terrible diets. Yeah. And the thing is, if only they had something warm and sustaining to keep them going through those long hours. I can't imagine what that possibly could be. So, Charles Dickens, the great 19th century novelist, paints quite a vivid picture of the industrial revolution in many of his books, but also mentions tea quite a lot within that. And what's interesting is it was used across classes at this point. And it's really seen as this regular, homely drink. It's part of this comforting ritual. And actually, tea is seen as a rejuvenating drink in the way that you might think about coffee today. So I've got a few bits from Dickens that I thought we could have a look at. One of the mentions is in great expectations. And we follow the character, Pip. Mr Pumblechuk and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlor behind the shop, where the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread and butter on a sack of peas in the front. premises. I mean, I like the the mentions of tea there, feel nice and homely, but who has a who has bread and butter on a sack of peas? I think he's sitting on a sack of peas. Oh, right. Obviously, that's an unconventional, unconventional breakfast. Anyway, this weird habit to the past. But there we go. So he's having bread and butter and a mug of tea, which seems, you know, I'd be up for that. And so there's lots of mentions of tea throughout Dickens's books. And it's basically accepted among historians that in this industrial period, tea is broadened out to be not just something for the elite. These kind of lovely delicate tubs of tea, but actually it's for the masses too. And it becomes increasingly important for industrial workers. So by 1834, there's a lot of mills and factories where they're giving workers particular moments in the day, which are specified as tea breaks. Okay. So tea's been worked into the regime now, becoming part of the fabric of society. Absolutely. And during these grueling shifts of long hours and the mills and the factories, they see tea as this great stimulant. It's really sugary. So it's like the modern day or the 19th century energy drink. Yeah. It's an energy drink. People are using it not just for the taste, but very much as a stimulant to help people get through the day. And we heard from Charles Dickens, but the British food historian, Penn Vogler, she has also written about this. And she says that interestingly, the way that Dickens writes about it, there is a bit of a divide between coffee and tea. And that manifests as the baddies, the evil characters drinking coffee, and the gooddies, the good people in the books, drinking tea. Outrageous. Which is not always a Dickens fan. I can't believe you'd say that. Although I have to say, there are some pretty evil matcha drinkers and things like that. Anyone who asks for one of those really obscure ones in the Chishi coffee shops, takes ages to make. I could sympathise with Dickens there. Yeah. Well, I think in this situation, it would mean that you played the baddie. And I was the good character. So I'm all for it. All for Penn Vogler's theory. But the crucial point is that the industrial revolution seems to cement tea as this warm and sustaining drink that's good for our health. But I suppose the key point here is that in the industrial revolution, tea is cemented as not just a kind of warm and cozy drink, but actually one that's really integral for our health. And we actually spoke to a tea expert, Jane Petagrew. And her theory is that Britain's success during the industrial revolution could be credited to the importance of tea. Just the simple point, the water had to be boiling. So that made it safer to drink. All the fact you've got milk for protein and sugar for energy. All of this was fueling workforce of healthy workers. Fascinating. So I think this is really kind of at the heart of why Britain becomes so associated with tea, isn't it? Because the industrial revolution happens earliest and fastest in Britain. It utterly transformed our society more than any other. And therefore tea, which is basically the sustaining juice that's firing the industrial revolution, is naturally going to become part of our national identity. And this here is also the era, the Victorians. There are washed with moral panics and all that kind of stuff. An industrialisation, as brought, I mentioned some of the poverty earlier. There's a lot of problems with alcoholism. So they see tea as a great solution to that too. Because you know, get them off the booze, get them on the tea. Absolutely. The temperance movement, I think it's found. Described. And Florence Nightingale, who was the founder of modern nursing, she recommended it. So she said that it was certain that there is nothing yet discovered, which is a substitute to the English patient for his cup of tea. He can take it when he can take nothing else and he often can't take anything else if he has, it's not, which has been a convolated way of just saying that they would often give tea to the patients and she thought that was a great morale boost. Now fascinating. I love that. So it's both a healthy, healthy product, but it's also useful for fueling the workers. So at this point, tea is really embedded in British society. A great moment is in the 1800s when the first tea room opens in Glasgow, which I know you would have been very excited about Ben. The first one queuing up outside, I'm sure. I've actually not had great experiences with tea rooms. So I went on holiday to Bath, yeah. And I know there's a very famous tea room there. And they just didn't let me in. I think you've apparently got a bit of a well in the bath. It was a suspicious character. I know exactly. They saw me as a coffee drink. But you got bathed from the tea room. Pretty much, yeah. But anyway, then I thought my luck had changed because I think it was my girlfriend's birthday. And her brother had bought her a voucher for this specific tea room all the way over in Leeds. So it's like it's a big drive to get there. So I'm thinking, wow, this must be, you know, pretty high status. And we get there and it was just grim. You know, there was no one in there, but from one guy on his own, who've gone for his own little birthday tea. So this is why you don't like tea. Yeah, and I just wasn't a fan. My favorite tea room, it's in a vehicle chawton in Hampshire, which is where Jane Austen lived and wrote her books. And there's a tea room opposite and it's full of Jane Austen fans. And it's got teacups all across the ceiling. Like there are teacups dangling from the ceilings. And I will take you and you will enjoy it. I'm sure. They're not fantastic. So looking forward to it. There we go. I'll hold you to that. Yeah. So tea rooms are in, which is exciting, maybe not for Ben. But moving on throughout the 20th century, the love of tea continues. And in the Second World War, it plays again an integral part. So this is, this is a good stat. So the five purchases, the top five purchases of the government in the Second World War are bullets, artillery shells, bombs, explosive and tea. I love that. That's so British. It is absolutely caught, the war effort. It's rationed, it's provided for soldiers. So it's more important than clothes, you know, for very key things to gain the existence. What would you rather, I'd rather, yeah, as a good firm. Yeah, well, this is this. There are other people be naked than drink tea, then, basically. I love that. But yeah, no tea definitely is part of the war effort, isn't it? And you get those iconic images that come out in old newsreels of, you know, bombed out homes during the blitz. But then these women in the most. They're still there handing out the tea and everyone's kind of smiling and it's eight becomes that symbol of national resilience, doesn't it? Absolutely, and you can see for the last 200 years, 300 years perhaps tea has actually been really integral to British history. Today it's grown all around the world, place like Africa and Cross Asia and actually you can get tea in Britain. There are, would you believe this, more than 50 tea growers in Scotland alone? Which I don't know how they do that considering the climate, but fair play to the Scots for being excellent gardeners, I suppose. But I suppose the big question is what is the future of tea? I mean you're a coffee drinker. I know. Well, it's an interesting story how coffee seems to have, what I think actually risen above tea among many Brits these days. There was a bit of research that was published a few years ago, which said more Brits now regularly drink coffee than tea. I think it's a lot to do with, you know, there's been a huge amount of marketing around coffee, isn't there? Plus we've got the infiltration of American culture, which really drives that kind of like that sense of the artisan coffee house all that kind of stuff and all the different rituals around coffee. I think I'll partly elevate it particularly among people, you know, you and my age. Yeah, I mean I do think coffee is the sexier drink, I say. You know, it's a bit cooler, whereas tea is so associated. I mean I still definitely have a cup of tea if I was going to a cathedral cafe or maybe. Yeah, obviously that's what I spend most of my time doing. But it's very much village teas. And the great thing about tea is you can have cake with it. So you know, cake and tea. I think it's something that you have when you visit your granny, that kind of thing. But it's more cozy, right? If coffee's sexy, tea is cozy. Yeah, and you get these new brands of tea coming out, so it's not just, you know, our traditional black teas. You've got teas from the far east. Oh, there's herbal teas, aren't there? There's bubble tea. Bubble tea. It's the new thing. Exactly, and you know, I actually interviewed one of the, well, there's two tea houses in Taiwan that claim to have invented bubble tea. So I interviewed the owner and one of his assistants, who supposedly was the first person to spot the tapioca balls and put them in the bubble tea. Wow. Wow. That is a big, that's up there with Shenong's invention of tea five thousand years ago. Tea, right. Well, despite all of this, tea is still a big part of our story. 84% of Brits drink tea every day. And there are 60 billion cups per year. So that's, that's quite a lot, even if you are not contributing to those numbers. Well, thanks so much, Alice. That's been absolutely fantastic. You've really given us a great insight into how tea spread and how it became an iconic part of British culture. I'm interested to go to these cathedral cafes with you. It sounds like an excellent daily. We'll go to Chorston. Yeah, fantastic. You'll love it. And actually, I didn't realise that the, it was that switch between producing tea in China to India that left us with the humble couple we have today. So I've learnt a lot. I hope everyone listening feels the same. Make sure to listen and subscribe to Hear For The History on BBC Sounds or watch us on our YouTube channel. So until next time, goodbye. Goodbye. Hi there. It's Ben here again. I just wanted to say to all of you listeners, if you enjoyed that episode on tea, head over to Hear For The History Podcast where you'll find more episodes on food, language and many more. Me and Alice will see you there. Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of Your Dead To Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Goulton and the racist, discredited pseudo science of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrot. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to Your Dead To Me wherever you get your podcast. Thank you. Bye.