为什么英国人如此爱茶?

choi

维罗尼克·格林伍德, 为什么英国人如此钟爱茶的味道？ BBC Chinese, June 17, 2016
http://www.bbc.com/ukchina/simp/ ... aste-of-tea-so-much

, which is translated from

Veronique Greenwood, Why Do the British Love the Taste of Tea So Much?  BBC Chinese, June 3, 2016
www.bbc.com/future/story/2016060 ... aste-of-tea-so-much
("Whether they take their tea with milk, sugar, lemon or just plain, it's clear that the British have a fondness for its flavour. There’s something about that firm bitterness that sparks devotion: the British consume 60 billion cups per year, according to the Tea and Infusions Organisation. That's more than 900 cups a year for every man, woman and child in Great Britain")

Note:
(a) "Tea has become entrenched in the British way of life, from the humble tea break to the afternoon tea to be enjoyed – in a jacket and tie, of course, gentlemen – at the very swankiest of London hotels."

tea (meal)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)
(section 1 Afternoon tea)

(b) "Tea bushes – Latin name camellia sinesis [sic; the first letter of genus should always be capitalized] * * * if the intent is to make certain kinds of green tea from them, like matcha, growers will make sure they are carefully shaded with nets or mats. Less sun causes them to produce more chlorophyll as well as fewer polyphenols, a class of molecules that imparts tea's singular astringency."
(i) camellia (n): "1753, named by Linnæus from Latinized form of Georg Joseph Kamel (1661-1706), Moravian-born Jesuit who described the flora of the island of Luzon, + abstract noun ending -ia"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=camellia

Moravia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravia
(nap)
(ii) astringent (adj): "(of taste or smell) sharp or bitter"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.co ... /english/astringent

(d) "a black tea 紅茶 – the most popular variant, accounting for 78% of the tea drunk world-wide – results when the bruised leaves dry quite a long while before being finished in the pan. * * * The most famous in tea-chemistry circles is probably theaflavin, a tangle of carbon rings responsible for some of the ruddy colour of black teas as well as some of the astringency."
(i) theaflavin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theaflavin
(ii) thea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thea
(may refer to: "Thea, the former name of the tea plant genus, now included in Camellia")

(e) tea "is actually cooked, or at least heat-treated * * * Firing the tea leaves calls the process to a halt by destroying the enzymes. As a result, there’s very little theaflavin and related molecules in, say, green teas."
(f) "The amount [of caffeine] in a given cuppa"

cuppa (n): "British informal a cup of tea"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/cuppa
(g) "But why do these melanges of molecules mean so much to British people? * * * Anthropologist Kate Fox writes in her book Watching the English"

Kate Fox, Watching the English; The hidden rules of English behavior.
* Hodder & Stoughton, 1st ed 2004;
* Nicholas Brealey America, 2nd ed 2014
(h) "Making a point of drinking smoky Lapsang Souchong with no sugar or milk can be a sign of class anxiety in the middle class, Fox suggests: it’s as far as possible as one can get from sweet, strong, milky mugs of the no-nonsense ‘builder’s tea’."
* BBC translation: "福克斯指出，品味热气缭绕的不加糖不加奶的正山小种红茶，俨然已成为中产人士对于自身阶级充满焦虑的一种象征。无论是这种喝法，还是加糖加奶、浓烈强劲、简单实用的 '建筑工人茶（Builder's tea），' 都穷尽了所有可能的选择。"

Lapsang Souchong  正山小种/立山小种
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsang_souchong
(literally: "sub-variety from Lapu Mountain [拉普山 (武夷山)];" a black tea; "is distinct from all other types of tea because lapsang leaves are traditionally smoke-dried over pinewood fires, taking on a distinctive smoky flavour")

Lapsang Souchong is Cantonese for 立山小种, though the tea was cultivated in 福建省武夷山市.