

otherwise, it's simply impossible to help liking him." To which Sally replied, borrowing an expression from Ann the housemaid, that Fenwick was a cup of tea. "He may be a bit hot-tempered and impulsive. William de Morgan, the Edwardian artist and novelist, used the phrase in the novel Somehow Good, 1908, and went on to explain its meaning: In the early 20th century, a 'cup of tea' was such a synonym for acceptability that it became the name given to a favoured friend, especially one with a boisterous, life-enhancing nature.

'My cup of tea' is just one of the many tea-related phrases that are still in common use in the UK, such as 'Not for all the tea in China', 'I could murder a cup of tea', 'More tea vicar?', 'Tea and sympathy', 'Rosie Lee', 'Storm in a teacup' and so on. The aforesaid warme water is made with the powder of a certaine hearbe called Chaa. The Dutch adventurer Jan Huygen van Linschoten was one of the first to recount its use as a drink, in Discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies, 1598: In fact, it was known in the west by that version of the Mandarin ch'a before it was called 'tea'. Tea has been around for a long time, and so has the British slang term for it - 'char'. What's the origin of the phrase 'My cup of tea'?Īn English website about the English language can't of course be complete without some consideration of tea. Something or someone that one finds pleasing.

