jules Posted June 20, 2009 Author Share Posted June 20, 2009 then write something about every event in history, planned and unplanned, happened with a cup of tea nearby. i love this. thanks everybody. this is def helping Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest idrn Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 coffee is quite intense, makes you hyper then you crash. with tea you can drink it all day and keep a consistent buzz. you could try and turn this into an angle where coffee drinkers are intense and scatty in comparison to the tea drinkers calm and collected state of mind. do it like an apple advert. plain white background - one business man holding a cup of 'joe' and looking crazy and unkempt, another guy with that 'likeable' podgey and nerdy look holding aloft a cup of tea and giving a broad, slightly comical smile of success. plain black helvetica then says "IT'S A TEA STATE OF MIND" and theres a small logo in the corner. oh, and this logo should be two tea-leaves intertwining like the yin yan symbol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest idrn Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 by the way, this is an incredibly good idea and i should probably go into advertising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Tea advertising is always a funny one. When I was a kid I was motivated to drink Tetley largely due to the Tetley Teafolk cartoon characters used to promote it. I was the only real tea-drinker in the house as my parents preferred coffee so I generally got quite a bit of sway in what variety of tea we drank. I think the Tetley appealed to me because as a kid I collected key-rings, and I remember one particular promotion where they gave away Tetley Teafolk keyrings which I was quite keen on having. I was also quite a sensitive child, believe it or not, and the gentle kindly cartoon characters appealed to me on that level. I think their Yorkshire accents reminded me of my mother's family, the only side that I'm really close to, and they live many miles away in Yorkshire. That's quite an idiosyncratic reason for liking a certain brand of tea though, and I might just be reading too much into it. PS Jules, I'm replying here for now but I might still PM later, my mind is feeling a bit fractured today so it might be slightly incoherant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaini Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 since i gave up coffee i drink about 10 big mugs of tea a day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 My decision to move away from Tetley came in 2006 when I moved out of the family home. For the first time I was doing the majority of my food/grocery/etc. shopping by myself, and so was faced with the reality of the multiplicity of choice that faces the British consumer of tea. There's lots of different types of tea. At this point I should really state that when it comes to tea, I only really like the traditional, "normal" every-day English breakfast blends. Green tea/chai/Earl Grey etc. have their place, but only as occasional dalliances. Breakfast tea is my staple. For the record, I drink between one and five cups a day, rarely more (if I'm working hard or very tired or depressed) but usually 3-4. Anyway, so faced with the multiplicity of choice, I experimented with several new blends. Chief amongst them was Yorkshire tea. For some reason which is beyond my ken (perhaps another, more Northern, member can explain), tea is pretty strongly associated with the county of Yorkshire in England. This is borne out by a recent Yorkshire tea advertising campaign: There's all sorts of things you can say about this ad and I might come back to it later, but for now note the slogan "From Yorkshire, where teatime's important." Think again about the Tetley teafolk - tea and yorkshire go hand in hand. I suspect this cozy marketing association appeals chiefly to southerners. Yorkshire tea also appealed to me for more practical reasons - I'd always grown up in a hard-water area and London, where I was now living, isn't much better. Yorkshire tea was the first tea I'd seen which offered a variant specifically designed for hard-water areas. In truth, I didn't notice much difference in the tea - clever marketing once again, I guess. But it differentiated the brand and it made me curious. But it wasn't enough to get me to stick with Yorkshire tea. The tea was tasty, better than Tetley (which, as my tea palette developed a bit, I came to realise was equal parts bland and bitter), but I knew there was more out there. Coming up: 1) Other brands 2) A look at tea advertising 3) The social/personal importance of tea to me 4) Loose-leaf: the final frontier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenton Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 tea and coffee are both pale imitations of espresso. green tea is the shit though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaini Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 the closest point of reference i can give for english people is it's a bit like yorkshire tea (ie as strong as essines' balls) yorkshire tea is also good, iain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest idrn Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 tetleys/yorkshire is the taste of a hangover, its the only time i drink it. its strong, bitter and over-brews easily, but cuts through hangover dog-mouth and impending grease from a fry-up. its perfect really. something like earl grey or darjeeling would be wasted. by the way iain, have you read orwell's essays on tea? for a pioneering socialist he really is quite conservative about it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaini Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 i'm also a fan of lady grey. for a seasoned earl grey drinker it's good. something a bit different i used to drink lapsang souchong but now i realise it's fucking horrible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Well, I don't drink Yorkshire tea any more. That year I tried a lot of different brands: I lived above a Wetherspoons so I sometimes had tea there in the mornings - in fact, I ate breakfast there a lot. They used Tetley, but that was just a cross to bear I suppose. I also lived very close to an M&S food store, but I really can't recommend their tea. For all their fairtrade vibe and fancy foil packaging, the tea was very bitter and unpleasant. The brand Builder's Tea appealed to me briefly - again, this was largely down to clever marketing. "Builder's tea" in the UK signifies tea that is incredibly strong, served in a chipped and paint-stained mug, and doesn't fuck around - the sort of tea a gruff, manly construction worker would want to get him through the day. Builder's Tea (the brand) traded off this promise of strength. I wish I could remember more about the actual tea, but I only bought it once. Twinings is a brand most British people will be familiar with. It's been very successful in positioning itself as a luxury tea brand. It's served in some decent hotels, and its television advertising uses that bastion of the acceptable upper-classes, Stephen Fry: One of my housemates keeps her own private stash of Twinings English Breakfast and it's the only tea she'll drink. Me? I don't really fall for it. I think the value of swanky advertising in tea only goes so far for the commited tea-drinker... it's enough to generate curiosity but if the tea's not up to scratch, I won't drink it. I broke into my housemate's tea-stash whilst she was away recently, and noted that the Twinings had a very unsettling sweetness to it, almost a fruitiness or a marzipan flavour. I didn't like it one bit, it actually tasted adulterated. I shalln't be going there again. As I've mentioned in other threads, my friend's girlfriend is Sri Lankan and tea is big over there. Strangely enough, she doesn't drink tea herself, but last year when she returned after a visit she brought our household a gift; several boxes of Ceylon tea. This stuff was apparently quite a cheap brand overthere, but it made a refreshing change for me - it was a lot lighter and fruitier than the tea I usually drink. It was free, and we're cheap, so it was all we drank for quite a few weeks. It temporarily replaced our household's tea of choice, which is (drum roll please) PG Tips. Yes, PG Tips! I've been buying PG since I moved into this house last September. What motivated me? It wasn't the pyramid bag, or any of their marketing in particular: it was simple word of mouth and consumer reviews. Everything I read on the internet and heard from friends who took their tea far more seriously than I suggested that humble mainstream option PG is actually the best "bagged" tea you can find in the average UK supermarket. Advertising is one thing, but the opinion of other tea-drinkers will always be paramount in influencing my own tea purchases. But I'm very happy with PG - it's not as robust as something like Yorkshire but my tastes have changed, since the Sri Lankan tea experience I have appreciated subtle and delicate flavours in my tea. Not that PG is subtle - it's just more complex than something like Tetley or Twinings (which, I'll repeat, trades it's reputation entirely on marketing and offering a far wider variety of flavours than most competitors). I'm very happy with it for the time being, and don't see myself changing any time soon. More in a bit - I've got a Dr. Oetker in the over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 by the way iain, have you read orwell's essays on tea? for a pioneering socialist he really is quite conservative about it all. I've not actually, my mate's got an edition of his essays lying around here somewhere so I might look it up later! He actually wrote an article which inspired the creation of Wetherspoons pubs where he describes his perfect pub, The Moon Under Water, before revealing that it doesn't actually exist and hoping that one day it does! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest idrn Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 yes sections of that essay are transcribed on the entrance to the weatherspoons on leicester square where my brother used to work. its laughable that weatherspoons could be anyone's perfect pub insofar as it offers the cheapest drinks and (microwaved) grub. but maybe that's it - every man, even the poorest of the poor can get reasonably pissed on a tenner. another "by the way", by the way - tonight is the ginglik show! say the word and ill put you down for the concessions list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr lopez Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 1) It's versitile. Not only are there a bajillion kinds, but you can have it warm or cold, with milk or without... if you want it sweet you can have it with sugar or honey... or for something more refreshing a bit of lemon... there are SO MANY things you can do with tea, and I haven't even gotten into blending my own or anything weird like that. 2) It's not coffee. as opposed to iced coffee or espresso..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3FF3R00 Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 UKers love for tea is from trying to grasp their long gone imperialistic past. indeed when drinking tea i regularly don my redcoat and pith helmet, and reminisce about the good old days hunting lions in the Raj Have any of you guys ever read "The Psychic Soviet" by Ian Svenonius? It is pretty awesome. Some dude blogged about the chapter where he talks a lot about tea HERE. He says: Ian Svenonius is an American musician. His little pink book of essays 'The Psychic Soviet' of which The Bloody Latte is one - was modeled on the little red book. Svenonious describes the cannibalistic desire to ingest the body of the other, as a drive that alters based of variables of race and nationality but that are aligned by the commonality of the oral drive and the subjugation that we experience as babies to our own thirst. "The milk of the breast is the first liquid imbibed by the newborn child. The baby learns that his mewing automatically summons the mother, whereupon she administers the juice of subjugation from her teat. Therefore the taste of liquid is psychically paralleled with subjugation and enslavement even in the semiconscious baby state (Svenonious 42)." It is worth noting that his use of the term 'automatically' assumes the presence of a motherly instinct that overrides in the Mother all other concerns placing primacy on the baby. Certainly the baby is subjugated by their hunger in this sense, yet it would seem a general a statement to suggest that the mother was likewise subjugated automatically or without choice. But that aside, certainly there must have been some degree of reciprocal subjugation if the Baby is to develop to the point where they can at least comprehend that they are symbolically drinking the blood of the other who is subjugated as the result of international conflicts. "…while a German drinking a beer would be enjoying the life-force of the Slav, an American popping a "Bud" would be eating the guts of that same German man" (41). Svenonious lists various historical examples of drinking that are symbolic of a process of the enslavement of a dominant or subordinated other. This excerpt doesn't really go into it, but in the book, the author goes on at length about how the British drink tea because it's a symbol of how they subjugated India. He also talks about how The Starbucks explosion in America is symbolic of our enslavement of African peoples. It's a really funny read and there are all kinds of other different, crazy ideas that he has essays on. I suggest you all pick it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 I suggest you go back to Brooklyn, hippie. *sips tea* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest abusivegeorge Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Ian Sevonius, I knew I recognised that name. He's the bloke who does shit interviews for VBS. I hate that guy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3FF3R00 Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Ian Sevonius, I knew I recognised that name. He's the bloke who does shit interviews for VBS. I hate that guy! Ha ha! Yeah, that's him. He was also the singer for and . I actually fuckin' love that guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nene multiple assgasms Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 tea tastes good whereas coffee does not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rambo Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 it isn't better than coffee, jules. Why spread lies for financial gain? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Al Hounos Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 tea tastes good whereas coffee does not. :omg: although you more than redeemed that post with the avatar. hearty lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcock Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 people actually give me funny looks when i tell them i dont like tea or coffee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneToThirtySix Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 Because you cannot get drunk on tea. And there are antioxidants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaini Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 by the way, this is an incredibly good idea and i should probably go into advertising. it actually is- you could portray the coffee drinker as hyperactive, unfocused, annoying, and kinda running all over the proverbial shop. you could contrast this with the tea drinker, who is sitting back relaxed and still, taking care of motherfucking business. i tried to get into rooibos before, but it's just fucking weird shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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