07 November 2005

Regular? REGULAR?!!!!

I had breakfast at a coffee shop near my home. The waitress (server, to be PC, which I'm not) was really helpful and friendly. Sadly, like everyone who works in a non-tearoom, I did not get a satisfactory response when I asked for the tea choices. She read off a list of Celestial Seasonings herbal varieties, and then finished off with "regular tea". What does that mean? In diners it usually refers to Lipton Orange Pekoe, in the same old bag.

Sir Thomas Lipton, a pioneer in the tea industry and great businessman, would be appalled to hear such a title being conferred on his tea, especially as I believe his tea plantation was located in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka. Can't the restaurants at least call it Ceylon tea? If I were to order a bottle of wine, would I say "Regular Wine"?!! And what about green tea, which was much more common in the past than black tea (yes, and couldn't restaurants at least say black tea????) Would not green tea be more regular than black tea? Women spend long, hot hours picking tea leaves in many countries: for what? "What do you pluck?" "Just regular tea."

10 comments:

Marie said...

Sir Thomas Lipton: "Well I never!"

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