‘Cult of coffee’ ruining tea-drinking tradition, says James May
THE UK’S so-called “cult of coffee” is ruining the country’s tea-drinking tradition, James May has claimed.
The former Top Gear presenter discussed his love of tea and disdain for coffee while guest editing BBC Radio 4’s
Today programme yesterday.
“I’m just worried that the cult of coffee is going to destroy tea and I don’t like coffee, I like tea,” he said, adding that tea is the “drink of getting things done”.
The 60-year-old, who now presents
The Grand Tour, took the helm of the breakfast programme by looking at the future for autonomous cars and whether hobbies can improve your health and wellbeing. To support his admittedly unscientific hypothesis that the soaring popularity of coffee has impeded tea-drinking culture in Britain, he travelled to various cafes and organisations and spoke to a number of experts.
Speaking to James Hoffmann, the winner of the 2007 World Barista Championship and a famous author on the subject of coffee, May said that he was concerned that the culture surrounding coffee was eroding Britain’s love of tea.
Mr Hoffmann, who is credited with pioneering Britain’s third-wave coffee movement – which emphasises the use of high-quality beans – disagreed, saying: “Tea has never been more available. There are more coffee shops than there were before that all have tea on the menu, but we just don’t like other people making our tea.
“We’ve chosen to embrace coffee because coffee has got a lot better, it’s something we’re happy to explore a little bit too; tea we’re kind of set in our ways, coffee people are open to trying new things.”
He added that a tea break can be as distracting as a coffee-run, saying: “I’ve sat in enough roadworks wondering where people are and come to the conclusion that they’re probably having a tea break to know that tea can be the drink of skiving as much as the work of productivity.”
May also spoke to food historian Polly Russell, who explained how the industrial revolution impacted the price of a cup of tea in Britain. She said: “Tea becomes less expensive and at the same time in the mid-18th century, you have agricultural wages slumping and agricultural workers literally not able to buy food, buy fuel, can’t eat a hot meal and tea becomes a way of having something hot and restorative – often with sugar – and that habit then also translates into the urban as the industrial revolution expands into our cities.
“Tea becomes absolutely central to the diet of the working poor, so this is the kind of idea that tea and sugar are fuelling the industrial nation.”
Speaking with the chief executive and staff at Port Vale Football Club, May explained tea is “part of bringing everyone together and ensuring happiness as well as productivity”. At one point in the Today programme he quips that “Britain is falling apart because we don’t drink enough tea” after the buffet service on his train to Stoke-on-trent was cancelled.
He concluded on his visit to the Staffordshire city that “there is a place for tea in the British workplace and not just as a drink, it’s a social glue”.
“Coffee, on the other hand, is just rubbish,” he added.
The presenter is one of a number of guest editors on the BBC radio programme, who each guest edit the show once between Dec 23 and the first day of the new year.
Another guest this year will be Andrew Malkinson, who will use his programme tomorrow to focus on the psychological impacts of wrongful detention after he served 17 years for a rape he did not commit. Previous guest editors on the Today programme have included the Duke of Sussex, Angelina Jolie and Raheem Sterling.