Would you like a cup of tea?" was probably one of the first English phrases you learned, wasn't it? Along with "Tea with milk, please." Armed with these phrases, you can survive life in the UK.
But what if a menu offers a "cream tea"? Is that tea with cream in it, or something else? And what if someone tells you to "Spill the tea!" Why would they say that?! Let's put the kettle on and find out…
Cream tea
A "cream tea" is something to eat and drink. It's a pot of tea served with scones with jam and cream. It's a popular item on menus in nice cafes, especially in Devon and Cornwall, in the south-west of England. If the cream is "clotted cream", it will be extra thick - and extra fattening!
Afternoon tea
Here, too, it's something to eat and drink - a pot of tea served with bite-sized sandwiches and little cakes.
English breakfast tea
"English breakfast" isn't a breakfast at all, but a popular kind of tea. The cooked breakfast with sausages, bacon, egg and so on isn't called "an English breakfast"; it's called "a full English breakfast" or just "a full English".
Fancy a cuppa?
This is a friendly and informal way of saying: "Would you like a cup of tea?" The phrase - along with "Shall I put the kettle on?" - is almost the UK's national motto.
Do you want a brew?
To German ears, a "brew" probably sounds like something to do with beer. In England, we don't only brew beer, we brew tea as well. In the north of England, the word "brew" simply means "cup of tea".
Shall I be mother?
This rather old-fashioned question means: "Shall I pour the tea?" It goes back to the old days, when the mother of the family would traditionally be in charge of the teapot at the tea table.
Normal tea
If you want to confuse a Brit, ask them what sort of tea they'd like. You might get a puzzled face and an answer like: "What do you mean, what sort of tea? I just want tea - normal tea. You know - tea?!" In the UK, "tea" is understood as a cup of hot brown liquid made with black tea leaves. Green tea, jasmine tea, fruit tea, peppermint tea… these all exist, but the default meaning of "tea" is black tea leaves.
Black tea
In everyday conversation in the UK, "black tea" means "tea without milk", rather than the variety of tea leaves.
What's for tea, Mum?
In family homes in many parts of the north of England, the three meals of the day are "breakfast", "dinner" (in the middle of the day) and "tea" (in the evening). Even in the south, where the three main meals are "breakfast, lunch and dinner", many families refer to their children's evening meal as "tea". For example: "I give the kids their tea at five, and then we have dinner as a couple later, after they've gone to bed."
A tea towel
This is the cotton or linen cloth that you use to do the drying-up - the drying of the dishes after you've done the washing-up.
As it comes
Some people are fussy about their tea. They like it just right - whether that means strong or weak, dark or milky. Other people aren't fussy at all - they're happy to have it "as it comes".
It's not my cup of tea
This means: "I don't like it" or "It's not the sort of thing I usually like." It's a polite way to say you don't like something. So, if you're asked to the opera and you don't want to go, it's nicer to say: "To be honest, it isn't really my cup of tea," rather than, for example: "I'd rather stick pins in my eyes!"
Not for all the tea in China
If you consider something to be a complete no-no, you can say: "I wouldn't do it for all the money in the world" - or "...for all the tea in China."
A penny to a pound of tea
This is a way of emphasizing that you're so certain about something that you'd be willing to bet money on being right: "A penny to a pound of tea, he'll be late again."
He's a little tea leaf
In Cockney rhyming slang, a "tea leaf" is a thief. You might hear this expression in a British TV crime series.
A chocolate teapot
Why don't we make teapots out of chocolate? Because they would melt and be totally useless. So, if something is badly designed or inadequate, you can say: "It's as much use as (or: as useful as) a chocolate teapot." An umbrella in a hurricane, or your firm's new IT system - they're as much use as a chocolate teapot.
A storm in a teacup
A British "storm in a teacup" is the same as a German Sturm im Wasserglas - a lot of unnecessary anger, worry or excitement about something that seems big now but is actually unimportant or exaggerated and won't last long. In the US, the phrase is "a tempest in a teapot".
Spill the tea!
Spilling your tea is usually a bad thing - nobody wants tea all over the table or their clothes. But idiomatically, "Spill the tea!" - originally "Spill the T!" or "What's the T?" (where "T" stands for "truth") - means: "Tell me the latest news or gossip with all the juicy details!" It's a phrase used mostly by the under-30s. An older expression is "Spill the beans!"