The Tea Caddy • R-Tea

American author and broadcaster, Garrison Keillor, was way off the mark when he typecast John Wayne as a rabid, tea-hating coffee drinker (A Prairie Home Companion, Dec 15 2001). The Duke was no stranger to the great taste of tea, daily knocking back gallons of lightly-brewed Darjeeling sharpened with a dash of lime – but studio bosses, fearful that home audiences would associate tea-drinking with "pinko shirtlifters" as Jack Warner put it, supressed this knowledge and forced a reluctant Wayne to replace his prodigious tea intake with bourbon.

Wayne's true feelings are revealed during a pivotal moment in the film Blood Alley (1955). While helping a group of Chinese villagers to escape from their communist masters, he has to tell them that they must ration their water and go without tea. In what is surely one of his best performances, his voice cracks with heartfelt emotion and true understanding as he conveys this awful news.

George Ivan "Van" Morrison has been a mainstay of the British music scene for almost half a century, weaving together the Celtic and Afro-American musical traditions to create a unique body of work. The Tea Caddy caught up with him recently after a sellout concert at Bristol’s Colston Hall, where he granted us this exclusive post-gig interview. We were hoping for a chance to ask him why he had advocated taking all the tea in China and dumping it at sea in the song 'Tupleo Honey', but things didn't go quite as planned. Roll tape...

TC: Good evening, Van. Thanks for agreeing to speak to The Tea Caddy. We’re very honoured.

VM: Whatever.

TC: And thanks for a great concert. The encore was especially moving, Van.

VM: Thank you.

TC: A lot of artists of your generation have revitalised their careers and incomes by teaming up with young, trendy chart acts. Is that something you’d consider as a way of raising your profile and earning a bit of extra bread, Van?

VM: No.

TC: But you did make an album with the far from trendy Chieftans [Irish Heartbeat - 1988]. Do you find that being accompanied by traditional instruments changes your style of delivery, Van?

VM: I guess.

TC: Nowadays, people see you as something of a gruff old curmudgeon, but back in the sixties when you were performing with the group 'Them', your stage persona was almost effeminate. Would you say that you used to be camper, Van?

VM: Uh, no, I wouldn't.

TC: A version of one of your best-known songs, Gloria, was recently used in a TV advertisement for a deluxe Choc-Ice. Are you happy about your work being used to sell an ice-cream, Van?

VM: It pays the bills.

TC: Many of the Afro-American blues artists who influenced your early work have continued to record and perform well into their eighties, so age is no barrier for black artists, but would you say that sustaining a long career in music was more difficult for a rusty old white, Van?

VM: I... wait a minute! What’s all this f*****g ‘van’ shite you smarmy piece of English crap? I’ll tear your f*****g throat out, so help me...

[Mr Van Morrison became agitated at this point for some reason, and the interview was terminated by his press agent shortly thereafter. Still, we salute a real music biz trooper with a career as long and varied (but not quite so widely celebrated) as America’s Neil Young. Thanks for the ride, Van.]

The wonder of tea has been celebrated in song ever since our distant ancestors first put freshly boiled water to leaf.

Drawing on a huge audio library covering five centuries of musical development spread over five continents, the Caddy presents a choice selection of enduring tea-time classics for you to savour while enjoying a brew.

The British 'way of tea' is as old as the English language, and over the centuries many poets and writers have celebrated the exquisite taste and restorative powers of Camellia sinensis in their works. The popular notion that tea did not reach the British Isles until the early 17th century is given the lie by this clear endorsement from the father of English literature.