'A decent cup of tea', Tea and emotions through music and film and books

I was listening to a song just now by Frank Turner called 'A decent Cup of Tea' It's from the album Sleep is for the Week, check it out he has many awesome songs.

A decent Cup of Tea - Frank Turner

The song is about unrequited love and loneliness and heartbreak and life really, and tea somehow seems to fit with these moments where we need comfort. The lyrics go;


It hadn’t been a day when everything had turned out right –
She called me up and asked me to come over in the night,
To make her cups of tea and listen quietly as she starts
To list the latest list of bastards who have trampled on her heart.

I see her in the nightclubs, I see her in the bars,
At rooftop after-parties, or crammed into friends’ cars,
And we talk about the weather, and how she drowns her pain in drink,
And I nod and never ever dare to tell her what I think.

She summers by my seas
But winters without me,
And she cries into her tea
That she’s secretly lonely.
And oh me, what am I to do?
It’s obvious to me,
But she never seems to see
That it’s not about the days when everything has turned out right,
No it’s more about the moments when she calls me in the night
To make her cups of tea and wash the weary worries from her head
And then to draw the pain out slowly as I put her into bed.

And I slip this information
Into all our conversations
But she never seems to listen
And she never seems to see.

This lead me to think of moments in films and books that combine tea with relationships. Tea is often featured in a scene when at a pivotal part in the film for example in Atonement, based on the book by Ian MacEwan. 

Tea room scene starts at 1 min

Robbie and Cecelia meet in a tearoom after he is released from prison and before leaving for the war. There is an awkward moment when Cecelia forgets how many sugars Robbie has and whilst stirring the tea they touch hands, trying to reconnect.Tea used to be such a symbol of the British 'stiff upper lip' and this is used to great advantage in the film where they try to keep it together but their emotions overwhelm them and in the situation they are i.e. a smart cafe this emotion seems if possible even more heightened, as it is at odds with the people around them.

Tea can be touching and romantic but it can also be a prop for comedy as in the hilarious play 'The Importance of being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde. I will examine the text but if you have not read it before then here is the film version of the scene i'm talking about.

Tea fight Cecily and Gwendolen

CECILY May i offer you some tea, Miss Fairfax?

GWENDOLEN (with elaborate politeness). Thank you. (Aside.) Detestable girl! But I require tea!

CECILY (sweetly). Sugar?

GWENDOLEN (superciliously). No, thank you. Sugar is not fashionable any more.

CECILY looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four lumps of sugar into the cup.


Gwendolen is trying to out class Cecily and make her feel like she is socially lower then her by saying that sugar is no longer fashionable and later that, "Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays." When afternoon tea was invented by the Duchess of Bedford tea and sugar were both rare luxuries only available to the rich upper classes to give your guests tea and as much sugar as they like showed how wealthy you were. However fashions change and at some point it became fashionable to not have sugar in your tea and to not know this would damage your social standing just as today we might judge someone if they weren't wearing the newest fashion in clothes. This scene is about one-upmanship as both the girls think that Ernest has proposed to them they want to prove they are the better option. The scene is hence very comedic, one of the best using physical props, asides and secret actions that the audience see but Gwendolen doesn't Cecily comes across as quite childish playing a joke and it makes Gwendolen seems stuck up and vain.