2) Tea relaxes

"It soothes me, whereas coffee just makes me irritable." "It's more refreshing [than coffee] isn't it?". Others pointed to the fact that tea provided an 'energy boost' - it keeps one going when things start to flag.

3) Tea structures work
"Tea serves to mark the progress of ... projects, from conception and deliberation to the celebration of a job done well. Apart from the beneficial properties of the beverage itself, tea takes on a ritual significance - what anthropologists would see as a transitional marker of progress and achievement, an essential element of the [building] rite de passage. Without the punctuation that drinking tea provides, the structure of the complex elements of [building] activity would be lost."

Interestingly, there were a number of variations in this ritual, particularly with regard to the frequency and length of tea breaks during the work itself.

Some took a break every half hour while others sawed, stripped, painted and hammered for up to three hours at a stretch without a cup of tea at all. But an curious inverse relationship between break interval and break length is apparent. Where breaks are most frequent, they last for only five minutes. When they are least frequent, they may last for as much as forty minutes."

Everybody, it seems, needs more or less the same total length of time for drinking tea during the day, but they divide this time up in different ways. But there are mutlitaskers (boo hiss) too -

"there is a significant minority of individuals, however, (about 24%) [for whom] the constantly refreshed mug is ever-present."

4) Tea maximises productivity

The making of tea during DIY projects falls ... to whoever feels that they are the least involved in a specific activity ... There was also a general feeling that making tea was the equivalent of 'helping'. Such is the centrality of tea in the DIY ritual that its production is not just the provision of refreshment, it is more like holding a dado rail exactly level while one's partner fixes it to the wall ... Tea also helped many DIYers to keep their attention focused on the task in hand, an aid to concentration and striving for a perfect result.

Perhaps it is a result of 1), 2) and 3), but making the tea helps both the individuals in the group and the group itself by "maximising productivity"..

... and finally:

"As true DIYers pick up technical tips from the professionals, even though they may doubt the latter's concern with doing a 'perfect' job, so too do they come to appreciate more clearly why tea is a crucial element of all building and decorating projects, whether undertaken by the most experienced craftsman or the rookie nestbuilder. "

. These four elements of groupwork - social glue, relaxing, structuring work and helping - seem to be the key to the importance of the tea break.


DIY vs the modern office

Curiously, these four elements are reflected in modern day offices.

1,000 office workers and Human Resources Managers took part in research commissioned by The Tea Council which revealed that 79% of people felt that that tea-makers displayed top management skills. They were cited as being the best communicators in the office and 69% of those surveyed felt that they were the most friendly and enthusiastic ... The research also reveals that modern twenty-first century bosses are twice as likely to brew up for the team. Many young women have realised that making a cup of tea for colleagues is more likely to raise their status than taking a long lunch or having an unlimited expense account .. Without a doubt, the making and drinking of tea still represents a high point in the day of many employees, in fact it's good news for employers too as 72% of women admitted to feeling more productive after a tea break.

Tea and the British
Tea and the British are like idiocy and Bush. Rightly or wrongly, the two wander hand in hand through the collective conscious.

For instance, a cartoon published in a newspaper here showed two British soldiers, an officer and a sergeant, standing on top of a hill. The sergeant says that several divisions of enemy troops are advancing on their position from the east, others are approaching from the north, and some are coming from the south. They should arrive in about an hour. "Good," says the officer, "that gives us time for a spot of tea before they get here." Boom boom. Very funny. But by the middle of 1944 - at the time of the D-Day landings on the coast of Normandy - the sailors of the Royal Navy were drinking 4,000 tons a year. So anxious were we British to protect their precious tea stocks from German bombs in World War II that we stashed it in 500 secret locations around the country.

I don't know the stated reasons for this, but my guess it has to do with those four elements of successful groupwork: social glue, relaxation, work-structuring and maximising productivity.