There was a simple reason why tea drinking was popular among the soldiers. Because most of the water was transported to the frontlines in old oilcans, it tended to taste terrible. But there was also a more practical reason why tea was an institutional favorite of the British Army, and this concerned its fighting ability. Historically, tea drinking may have given the British the sober edge over other European powers; while they tanked themselves up on alcohol, the British opted for a caffeinated drink that simultaneously stimulated and relaxed.
Tea drinking in the British Army also unexpectedly revolutionized tank warfare. Before the invention of the BV (a boiler kettle wired up to a tank’s electrics), British tank crews had to disembark when they wanted to brew up and use petrol burners from empty fuel cans. Being out in the open exposed them to opportunistic enemies, but disaster never struck. At least not until June 13, 1944. In the days following the Normandy landings, the 22nd Armoured Brigade was ambushed by the Germans at Villers-Bocage while their crew were sitting outside their tanks making a brew.
The British lost fourteen tanks in just as many minutes at the Battle of Villers-Bocage, embarrassingly outplayed and outmaneuvered by a numerically inferior German force. It was clear to the British command that their troops being sitting ducks outside their tanks while they were taking their tea breaks were unacceptable, and that something needed to change. And then, in the immediate aftermath of the war, came the invention of the BV, which enabled water to be boiled safely inside the vehicle. Its legacy has endured quite remarkably: not only has its design remained pretty much unchanged but it is still compulsory for British armored vehicles to be fitted with one.
Tea has a phenomenal ability to bring the British together. Even today, after a long day at work, after a tough ordeal, or—for the military—even while out on the campaign, the British are still able to take comfort in boiling a kettle, brewing some breakfast tea and taking a few moments. It’s so much a part of our culture that in 1946 the celebrated author George Orwell even published an essay about it in the London Evening Standard. Entitled “A Nice Cup of Tea“, the essay outlines eleven precise tea-making methods guaranteed to produce a cup that’s neither too weak, too strong, too watery, or too milky. The result is a charming relic of British eccentricity, and to give you a flavor here’s Orwell’s tenth rule:
“Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.”
Sources For Further Reading:
The Vintage News – During WWII, The British Government Bought the World’s Entire Supply of Tea
Tea Box – The Year Britain Bought Up All the Tea in The World
Medium – The British Perfected the Art of Brewing Tea Inside an Armored Vehicle
Warfare History Network – Villers-Bocage: Wittmann’s Tigers, the Desert Rats, and Allied Disaster
The Orwell Foundation – A Nice Cup of Tea
International War Museum – What You Need to Know About Rationing in The Second World War