05.12.08
shakespeare’s favorite tea?
posted by Regena Rafelson | 6 comments
As T Ching’s editor in training, I often search the world wide web for topics of interest to our readers. Tea, with its five millennia of documented use, is a rich subject for research. From history to how-to, there is a HUGE body of literature. You could spend months just browsing all of the beautiful tea accessories, not to mention the great variety of teas out there. Camellia sinensis is anything but simple.
In my other life as an English teacher, you can imagine that I have loved (and loathed) Shakespeare. As I write this, two of my classes are loving “Much Ado About Nothing,” which certainly wasn’t hurt by Kenneth Branagh’s beautiful 1993 film version. Two other classes just finished “Julius Caesar,” and we traditionally end the year with “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” reading and performing Act III outdoors. Shakespeare’s power to influence can further be proven by the fact that no one has ever named their child Iago. His character associations were that bad, after just one two hour play! Many and many a bon mot has its origins at the tip of the bard’s pen. Like tea, Willie-the-Shake is complex.
Imagine my delight when I happened upon a website that tells how tea influenced English literature’s heaviest - and most mysterious - hitter. After reading about some of the other figures, though, I am wondering if my leg is being pulled. Help me readers . . . is it fact or fiction?
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May 12th, 2008 at 5:51 am
I assume you’re joking - Shakespeare is Elizabethan…
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
May 12th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Well, if my recollection of Norwood’s posts serves me correctly, I don’t think tea was even in the purview of the Europeans until around the time of Willy’s birth, and the first ones were the Portuguese. I don’t think England started taking tea seriously until well after the Bard’s death sometime in the late 17 century, early 18th. Sorry Reg. Looks like you’ve been hoodwinked.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Both the post and the comments have me tickled pink! Thanks for my after dinner giggle.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
By the way… I love Shakespeare!
May 12th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Regena, I love this site! Thank you!
May 12th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Regina,
) as Lapsang Pouchong on the website. It was fun looking at these little known Willy facts and YEP I too am adicted to both the Bard and tea as well. It would be nice if a connection could be made but I’m with Sandy, seriously doubtful that he ever even HEARD of it. May he had some of those herbal infusions though. CHEERS, keep drinking the good stuff.
Love the post and the comments but I have to agree with the other bloggers on this one. The dead giveaway was calling Lapsang Souchong (your favorite tea if I remember correctly
Peace and blessings
Fr. Patrick