How can a ‘60-second teabag’ cause such a brew-haha?

I won’t be revealing to any of my British pals about how long I let my tea infuse, writes Kathy Lette. Arguing over tea rituals with a Brit is truly a mug’s game...

British fury over a cuppa isn’t just a storm in a teacup (Getty)

A storm is brewing – a storm in a teacup, that is. News that PG Tips has created a new teabag which promises to brew in just 60 seconds has gone over with English tea fanatics like Pavarotti over a pole vault bar. The sound of noses going out of joint can be heard all over England. The mere mention of this new square teabag to British friends and they immediately adopt facial expressions associated with a prostate examination or a mammogram. I can’t tell you how many lectures I’ve endured in just one day about the precise time English breakfast tea should be brewed – three to five minutes. Anything less is sacrilege.

Non-Brits are a bit mystified about why this newer, quicker teabag is igniting English ire to such a degree. But having lived here for more than 30 years, I have come to understand your endearing quirks. It seems to me that the chief products of England are pessimism, sexual perversions, gardening programmes, TV murder mysteries set in Oxford, epigrams, puddings, pinstripe and solving of all of life’s problems – from blitz bombings to marriage break-ups –with “a nice cup of tea”. More than 100 million cups of tea are made every day in Britain. Not enjoying “a nice cup of tea” puts you just below leper and just above someone who doesn’t like cricket.

Besides tea-drinking, the other main areas in which Brits excel are quipping, whipping, queueing and politeness.

In quipping, you are world-class. British dinner parties are the Wimbledon of wit, with banter lobbing back and forth at breakneck speed. Whipping, well, we all know that most Brits can’t drive by a perversion without pulling over. (In Australia, the only thing we whip is cream.) Queueing is also a national pastime. As George Mikes so eloquently expressed it: “An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.”

Politeness is another other characteristic ingrained into the collective English psyche. If I accidentally tread on somebody on the Tube, they apologise to me. Locals beg forgiveness for the weather. If I make a faux pas at a dinner party (I’m afraid I suffer from chronic foot-in-mouth disease), guests bend so far backwards to save me embarrassment, they could easily qualify for the Olympic gymnastics team. The British are so naturally polite, thieves say “excuse me” before they mug you and “thank you” after stealing all your bling. An English girlfriend confided in me that she often fakes an orgasm just so as not to appear impolite to her partner.

The tendency to excessive politeness is what makes this outpouring of tea-related outrage so extraordinary. What’s got PG Tips into such, well, hot water, is that tea aficionados maintain that the whole point of making a cuppa is the slow ritual. Letting the tea brew unhurriedly allows a moment to gaze out the window at a butterfly; to meditate on a bird’s song or a bee’s buzz; to recite a poem, plan a party, daydream about seducing the bloke next door or reflect on a recent witty exchange – a case of deja brew. And it’s the loss of this cherished little time lapse in our busy lives that has strained relationships with PG Tips.

The company’s general manager, Liam McNamara, maintains that British tea drinkers enjoy five billion cups of PG Tips every year – a statistic that does make their desire for faster tea rather hard to swallow. Obviously, the marketing genius behind the rapid-releasing, square bag invention is that reducing brewing time simply makes more time for more brews.

Anyway, my throat’s so dry from all this talk of tea it’s made me want to go and put the kettle on. But I won’t be revealing to any of my pals about how long I let the tea infuse. Arguing over tea rituals with a Brit is truly a mug’s game.

PS. What goes in dry and comes out wet; the longer I’m in, the stronger I get?... A tea bag, you dirty bastards! (See earlier comment about the British penchant for perversions.)