Tea. Noun. Pronounced "T"
When I went across to college in the US, my eyes were opened to a new culture and environment, but by far the most shocking to my system was how bad their tea was. Let's be honest, it could barely be passed as tea. Incase you've never experienced this issue, as an example, if I were to go anywhere and ask for some tea, I'd be greeted by a glass of sugary mess with ice in it. The equivalent of being given a plastic plant in a garden centre... In need of the real stuff, from then on, every trip back to North Carolina from London entailed a last min stop off at the shops to grab your finest box of PG Tips and stuffing them in my already over spilling suitcase. Six months and a few more trips back home later, with enough tea bags now for a village, my dorm had become an evening stop off for friends to grab a brew and have a good chat (better than anything else a college kid could've been drinking, by the way). I've never really thought about tea in such an important yet unimportant way before.
We don't speak about tea in an idealistic way often, because put literally, it is the un laborious fruit of most kettles across the country. We have more conversations over the tea, rather than about it. We don't discuss how every good meal ends with a cup of it. We don't chat about how it is the best cure for a cold. Nor do we discuss how it can be the gateway to some of the greatest conversations we ever have. We just subconsciously turn on the kettle after dinner; throw a lemon into a cup of hot water, add some honey and shove it into the face of the ill; we pour a few cups of it and brace ourselves for the magic of the leaves to loosen our tongues.
I've heard a cup of tea described as a cup of dirty water, by some, then described as a cup of comfort, by others.
A cup of tea is a little thing, that can have a not so little impact.
Have a cup of tea in good company, and that cuppa is the world's greatest social network. Have a cup of tea after coming in from a rainy English afternoon, and that cuppa is a warm bath. Have a cup of tea brought to you in bed, and it is the second best good morning kiss your lips could ever have (the first best coming from whoever brought you the cuppa).
The context of the cuppa makes a difference; the time, the people, the biscuit.
(But make sure its a good one, because at the end of the day, if you're having it with a sh** biscuit, then you're never going to appreciate a good cuppa, are you?)
(Disclaimer, I was in the states during the Trump era, so their lack of tea definitely was not the most shocking thing I experienced.)