(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Wow. Fandom secrets brings us wildly inaccurate, classist, tea wank.

It reminded me of my headcanon about Picard, though (I always forget that I do actually have canon about Picard, though he's the only TNG character, other than Miles and Worf* that I care enough to do this for). Having been puzzled for ages as to why a supposed Frenchman is so damned British, I concluded that it's of a wider piece with his attitude to his family, and his flight from his responsibilities to the family business. I bet he cultivated raging Anglophilia as a kid, just to differentiate himself. No coffee, just tea (imported from England, not a French blend), much to his parents' irritation. Shakespeare ("classical French drama is lifeless!"). And then, of course, running away to sea to be a sailor joining Starfleet.

I bet he was a really annoying teenager, and probably a bit of a hipster.


* Who I always basically think of as DS9 people, even though this doesn't make much sense for Worf. But I never felt his colleagues on the Enterprise appreciated him properly.

Comments

[kindkit]

I will admit (and I said this anonymously on the thread) that I do wince a little bit when someone has a character drink Earl Grey to show they're a tea connoisseur. Not that there's anything wrong with Earl Grey (some blends are good, some are terrible) but there's also nothing rare or unusual about it. It's like suggesting your character is an art connoisseur because they like Van Gogh's Starry Night.

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, that was you? It's a fair point - but that's not got anything to do with class, per se (as you know)...

[kindkit]

No, nothing at all. It's just my own Earl Grey-related fanfic peeve, which I shared because . . . I dunno, f!s is a bit of a free-for-all?

There were a whole lot of weird and interesting conflations in the original secret. Not just "Earl Grey drinker = poor person," which is weird in itself, but Britishness (by which presumably they mean Englishness) = "classy" = tea drinking. My understanding (but I'm US-ian, so I may be misinformed) is that nowadays a certain kind of "my sophistication, let me show you it" English person drinks only coffee and looks down on tea as a proles' drink. It's a false sophistication, because of course tea isn't limited to supermarket tea bags any more than coffee is only instant Nescafé, but I've been told it exists.

[nineveh_uk]

I don't drink either tea or coffee*, but I've never come across people who don't drink tea because they look down on it, but still drink coffee. My experience is that British people who don't like one, don't like the other, because the predominant taste and sensation is the same, though there may be one that they find easier to drink if necessary (as opposed to having a mild preference, but drinking both).

*Unless very, very drunk and needing to pretend not to be, in which case I will force some coffee down my protesting gullet. And hot chocolate if it is absolutely freezing, the chocolate is boiling hot, and I must warm up. And even then I leave half the cup.

[ankaret]

I drink coffee but not tea! But not because I look down on tea - I just like the taste of coffee better. I pretty much only drink tea in times of personal or national crisis.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, in moments like that it has to be tea, regardless of what you actually like....

[serriadh]

I do think among a certain sort of social group (not sure whether I'd call it a 'class' or not) of... metropolitan pretentiousness, coffee snobbery has certainly taken over from tea snobbery, though most people will drink both. You know, the sort of 'oh, I only drink espresso from my own [brand] machine, or from this one tiny little Italian cafe in Islington, Starbucks is just heated sawdust painted brown*, etc. etc.'

* They are right about this bit.

[tree_and_leaf]

They are right about this bit.

Annoying, isn't it? Though I actually have a shameful weakness for Starbuck's gingerbread lattes.

It's not coffee, of course, it's a sugary, caffeinated hot drink. I still like it, though.

[serriadh]

I enjoy quite a lot of Starbuck's drinks, on the basis that they're hot, caffeinated and usually very sugary. But they're not "coffee", you're right. I feel the same about instant coffee, actually, which I do really like, but which barely tastes like coffee to me. (It's a bit like 'strawberry flavour' in eg powdered milkshakes, which I also like, but tastes nothing like real strawberries.)

[legionseagle]

I drink coffee but not tea, but not for reasons of snobbery (incidentally, my parents - postman and cleaner - did drink Earl Grey tea and were considered "stuck up" for doing it by people from the same social background) but because I can't stand drinks with milk in (the sight of milky tea makes me want to throw up and as for the taste -!) and basic British tea without milk is godawful. Very weak Earl Grey or Lapsang or green tea of various sorts are therefore the only possible options if I do drink tea, and they aren't entirely appealing.

[tree_and_leaf]

The awfulness of basic tea without milk means that I generally only drink green tea, or the more expensive kind of black that can be drunk with milk, because as I'm catered, because I always end up chucking away milk if I do buy it.

[legionseagle]

Do you suppose the OP of the original wank was attempting a socio-political analysis of milk consumption in the lower socio-economic groupings of British society all along?

Though given the most obtrusively tea-drinking fandom at present seems to be Sherlock* and fandom writers have a positive obsession with John buying milk both the issues of class** and the issues of what sort of tea is drinkable without milk don't seem all that relevant.

*and if I never hear the word "cuppa" in a fanfic again it'll be too soon.
**well, apart from in those peculiar fics which appear to believe "grammar school boy, University of London educated doctor and officer in the British army" somehow adds up to "semi-literate peasant" in the British class system

[tree_and_leaf]

I can't imagine Sherlock or John saying 'cuppa' under any circumstances. I suppose Lestrade might, while being a bluff copper to put people off their guard...

[legionseagle]

It's such a weird word, I can't imagine anyone saying it unless they were self-consciously in character as someone from a '70s/80s sitcom (Rigsby in Rising Damp, for example) - or, alternatively, a Conservative politician trying for man-of-the-people cred (Hague, not Cameron type Tory, obv.)

[kindkit]

I should correct myself to add that any kind of connoisseurship does have something to do with class, since it assumes that you have been exposed to and can afford non-supermarket tea or whatever.