Tea

[DanaC]

In working-class cultures in the nineteenth century, and into the 20th, tea was one of those things that if you couldn't afford it, it meant you were a pauper. To not be able to afford tea and sugar was a big deal, culturally. You might have to reuse the leaves til it was basically hot water, but you made sure you had tea and sugar.

It does have, historically, a really strange place in our culture. Probably less of a big deal now, but it used to be a kind of touchstone. Important to all classes, for slightly different reasons. Drunk dark and heavu, it took on aspects of masculinity. Made weak and sweet, it took on aspects of infancy, or convalescence. It has upper-class associations because of how it entered our culture, and because of the deliberate culture-preserving activities of the British in India and other places. And it has working-class associations because of how strongly it was adopted by those classes as the price came down and availability grew - and the way that it took on a kind of social importance in how people of those classes perceived themselvses and their economic health.

It became, as well, a response to crisis. Because of when it entered into the british market, and because it is a very mild stiimulant, it was seen as having medicinal or constitution-enhancing properties. Weak sweet tea ended up as a go to response to shock or trauma. It was used to help convalescents, or ailing children.

All that mushed together across a couple of centuries and turned into a symbol of british pluck and common sense in the face of adversity.