# Tea time and airport hotels in England **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 14, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471 "2010-05-14T20:12:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/21 "2010-05-15T19:13:00Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > ‘Warm’ being room temperature, or slightly below room temperature. If you’ve never seen that in someone’s house or a pub, I don’t know what to tell you! It’s served warmer than lager (which is practically frozen the way they serve it at some bars here in the US), but it’s not quite room temperature, unless you live in a particularly cool house. It’s cellar temp, which is about 50-55F. Americans have the popular idea that real ales in England are served at actual 70F-75F room temperature. This is assuredly not the case in my experience. The beer is cool to the lips, but not ice cold. ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/22 "2010-05-16T20:38:58Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > … going to classes at Warwick. What should I know about afternoon tea? What exactly will you be doing? I ask because in my experience, academic science laboratories are possibly one of the last places where tea breaks still happen. Not the classic cucumber sandwich, scone with jam for over an hour type, but everyone does at least stop work together to drink tea for 15-20 minutes. Coffee is allowable as an alternative, but may or may not live up to US standards. Usually there is one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. Unfortunately if you will actually be going to lectures rather than doing research, you’ll be lucky to a get a five minute break to grab coffee to keep you awake for the last hour or two. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/23 "2010-05-16T21:20:38Z")
> [@rekkah](#): > > What exactly will you be doing? I ask because in my experience, academic science laboratories are possibly one of the last places where tea breaks still happen. Not the classic cucumber sandwich, scone with jam for over an hour type, but everyone does at least stop work together to drink tea for 15-20 minutes. Coffee is allowable as an alternative, but may or may not live up to US standards. Usually there is one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. > > Unfortunately if you will actually be going to lectures rather than doing research, you’ll be lucky to a get a five minute break to grab coffee to keep you awake for the last hour or two. Aha. The OP should be aware that - I believe - what **rekkah** means by “may or may not live up to US standards” is “quite likely to be instant coffee”. Instant coffee is by and large seen as a perfectly respectable alternative to actual coffee in the UK, which can be…surprising to an American. (By surprising I mean horrifying.) ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/24 "2010-05-16T21:25:10Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > Aha. The OP should be aware that - I believe - what **rekkah** means by “may or may not live up to US standards” is “quite likely to be instant coffee”. Instant coffee is by and large seen as a perfectly respectable alternative to actual coffee in the UK, which can be…surprising to an American. > > (By surprising I mean horrifying.) Well, yes; and we think the same when we try to get a decent cup of tea over there! Different places, different tastes, different priorities. Only really insecure people would try to place a value of one over the other. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/25 "2010-05-16T22:25:05Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Well, yes; and we think the same when we try to get a decent cup of tea over there! Different places, different tastes, different priorities. Really? In my experience most people here drink tea bags, the highest selling brand being Tetleys. If that’s our standard, I find it hard to believe even the Yanks could mess it up. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/26 "2010-05-16T22:27:14Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > BTW, I notice in the post above mine that yet again “warm ale” is mentioned. I have been living in this country for 33 years, and drinking beer for more than half that time. I have never _once_ come across “warm ale” and I’ve been to several hundred pubs in my lifetime. Where do people get this idea from that we drink beer warm? We don’t! In America beer is consumed ice cold so anything served at room temperature would be sent back. There is even a gimmicky brewing process called fractional freezing which led to a an ice-beer marketing war back in the 90’s. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/27 "2010-05-17T01:03:48Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > Aha. The OP should be aware that - I believe - what **rekkah** means by “may or may not live up to US standards” is “quite likely to be instant coffee”. Instant coffee is by and large seen as a perfectly respectable alternative to actual coffee in the UK, which can be…surprising to an American. > > (By surprising I mean horrifying.) Oh god. You just made me cough up my pancreas thinking of only instant coffee for a week. As for what I’m doing there, meeting with the Ph.D. student for a meet and greet and meeting with my doctoral supervisors over a couple days. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/28 "2010-05-17T01:10:56Z")
Whats worse for me is I hear you have to go to a specialty import store to get real Mountain Dew. If I ever head over it’ll be tea (and cider) for me. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/29 "2010-05-17T10:07:53Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > It doesn’t happen. The whole “at 3pm, everyone stops and sits round a table with a white tablecloth and all the good china, for tea and scones” thing is a thing of the distant past in regular England. Damn you sir! ! ! ! ! yes I’m that angry ! Afternoon tea is taken at FOUR of the clock, not three. You sir are a cad, a bounder, definitely a working class oaf, probably shoots foxes for a hobby and no doubt would mention a ladies name in conversation after the Port has been passed around. I just hope that you now do the decent thing. We’re British dammit. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/30 "2010-05-17T10:15:48Z")
I live in Kenilworth - my wife’s a post-grad student at Warwick 🙂 If you’d like any specific info on the area let me know. Will you be staying at the Holiday Inn? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/31 "2010-05-17T10:22:25Z")
As much as I hate to say it, Starbucks has had franchises in the UK for over a decade now. Odds are there will be at least one near any major university, or if not Starbucks there will be another major chain such as Costa Coffee or Caffe Nero. You’ll have a much harder time finding a place that serves loose-leaf tea than you will finding a cappuccino. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/32 "2010-05-17T10:28:02Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > As much as I hate to say it, Starbucks has had franchises in the UK for over a decade now. Odds are there will be at least one near any major university, or if not Starbucks there will be another major chain such as Costa Coffee or Caffe Nero. You’ll have a much harder time finding a place that serves loose-leaf tea than you will finding a cappuccino. If Saint Cad is staying in the Holiday Inn in Kenilworth he/she’s [in luck](http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=52.346834,-1.572473&sll=52.346723,-1.572193&sspn=0.001688,0.004125&ie=UTF8&t=h&ecpose=52.34078116,-1.572507,768.46,0,44.993,0&ll=52.34353,-1.58042&spn=0.006109,0.033002&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.34392,-1.580305&panoid=P79TnXebTJ1XVCyAxQZ55g&cbp=12,268,,0,-6.92), as there is a Starbucks in the hotel. We also have a Costa coffee 2 mins walk into town. There are also several pubs nearby that will serve a decent cappucino or filter coffee (e.g. The Almanac just over the road). ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/33 "2010-05-17T10:51:41Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > In America beer is consumed ice cold so anything served at room temperature would be sent back. There is even a gimmicky brewing process called fractional freezing which led to a an ice-beer marketing war back in the 90’s. Beer served at room temperature would be sent back in the UK too. As stated above, bitter/ale is served at cellar temperature (around 12C/54F). Lager is, of course, served chilled (although perhaps a degree or two less chilled than you might find it in America). > [@The Great Philosopher](#): > > Really? In my experience most people here drink tea bags, the highest selling brand being Tetleys. If that’s our standard, I find it hard to believe even the Yanks could mess it up. Oh but they can! Tea bags, regardless of what the snobs say, can produce a perfectly good cup of tea - but, like leaf tea, you _have_ to use boiling water, as in proper, fresh-out-of-the-kettle-just-as-it-clicks-off boiling. Putting hottish water in a cold cup in a hotel kitchen, then putting it on a saucer with a wrapped tea bag on the side, then carrying it out to the customer thus letting it cool down even more before the tea bag is even put into the water, does not result in a good cup of tea. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/34 "2010-05-17T11:32:15Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Oh but they can! Tea bags, regardless of what the snobs say, can produce a perfectly good cup of tea - but, like leaf tea, you _have_ to use boiling water, as in proper, fresh-out-of-the-kettle-just-as-it-clicks-off boiling. > > Putting hottish water in a cold cup in a hotel kitchen, then putting it on a saucer with a wrapped tea bag on the side, then carrying it out to the customer thus letting it cool down even more before the tea bag is even put into the water, does not result in a good cup of tea. [How do you make a good cup of tea—and why?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=563498) ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/35 "2010-05-17T11:42:33Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > Really? In my experience most people here drink tea bags, the highest selling brand being Tetleys. If that’s our standard, I find it hard to believe even the Yanks could mess it up. 😛 Yes; but in my experience if in an American’s house and they offer you a drink, asking for a cup of tea will probably not result in a cup of tea - because they’re unlikely to have the tea bags in the house. Exactly the same as the point about coffee in the UK. It’s not that the coffee doesn’t physically exist here, it’s just that most people are unlikely to have non-instant coffee in the house. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/36 "2010-05-17T12:25:10Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Whats worse for me is I hear you have to go to a specialty import store to get real Mountain Dew. If I ever head over it’ll be tea (and cider) for me. [This place](http://www.americansweets.co.uk/index.asp) is where I go when I’m nostalgic for Chex Mix and Butterfingers. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/37 "2010-05-17T14:18:44Z")
> [@Scheidt-Hoch](#): > > Furthermore, afternoon tea was never a big thing for the majority of poor sods who had to spend their lives in coal mines, sculleries, kitchens, laundries, cotton mills, fields, shipyards etc etc. Not quite accurate. Anywhere with a strong union would ensure that their members had a tea break mid afternoon. In factories and shipyards the workers would at a fixed time every day put down their tools and have tea. > [@gaffa](#): > > Can anyone point to when, exactly, “teatime” as an institution died? Thatcher put a stop to that sort of thing, bless her. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/38 "2010-05-17T14:34:38Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Thatcher put a stop to that sort of thing, bless her. Your political slam is ignorant and incorrect. I was enjoying morning and PM tea-breaks into the late 90s. That’s long after the Thatcher era. Including at a Tory County Council. IME they disappeared in about 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/39 "2010-05-17T14:40:53Z")
Of course, the three-pint lunch also died about then. It’s amazing the British accomplished anything back then. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471/40 "2010-05-17T14:42:59Z")
> [@](#): > > I was enjoying morning and PM tea-breaks into the late 90s. At a fixed time every day? Regardless of whether work is currently busy or quiet? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-time-and-airport-hotels-in-england/539471.md?page=3)