Tea. It's the second most common drink after water worldwide. There is historical evidence of tea consumption going back to the 10th century BCE, and somebody you know has had a cup, a mug, or a glass today. England's fascination with tea is the most legendary, but it's not the only European country that loves its tea. Americans were once as bad about tea as the English, but after a certain unpleasantness in Boston Harbor a couple centuries back, it lost the taste, although you'd never know it these days. It was hailed by 18th and 19th century reformers as an antidote to the heavy consumption of alcohol in Europe because boiling the water made tea a safe drink. It may not have eliminated working-class alcoholism but it helped.
Tea comes in several colors and flavors, depending on the cultivar of the tea bush that's used and the processing technique the leaves undergo. It comes as leaves, essence, and bricks and is flavored with everyting from milk and sugar to yak butter. It may even be good for you.
To find out more about the wild and woolly story of a beverage more associated with calm, Helen Saberi's Tea a Global History is a good place to begin as is Iris and Alan MacFarlane's The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant that Took Over the World. Go put the kettle on and bathe a teabag or measure some loose leaves into a china pot, pour yourself a cup, and lose yourself in a tale of adventure, finance, rascals, and tea. And that's just from the Western angle. The East has a whole tea culture of its own, some home-grown and some derived from the West. But that's another story.
