BBC 6 Minute English | HOW DO YOU LIKE TEA | English CC | Daily Listening

source: Daily Listening    2016年9月21日

0:06 What's this?
0:07 It's a cup of tea, Neil.
0:08 Would you like some?
0:09 Oh, I can't drink that!
0:10 You didn’t let the tea brew for long enough.
0:13 And you forgot to add sugar.
0:14 Well, make it yourself next time!
0:18 And when you brew a cup of tea, by the way, you add boiling water to tea leaves or a teabag
0:23 and allow the flavour to develop.
0:24 I'm sorry, Alice.
0:25 I didn’t mean to be rude about your tea.
0:27 But I do like it very strong and sweet.
0:29 Tea is the subject of today's show.
0:32 And Neil, I think you'd like the way they serve tea in India.
0:36 They drink chai – a strong black tea served with lots of milk, sugar and spices.
0:41 Mmm… that does sound good.
0:43 I quite fancy a cup of chai now.
0:45 Did you know that it was the British who introduced tea to India?
0:49 No, I didn't, Alice.
0:50 This is very interesting…
0:51 I'm proud of our habit of having tea all the time and teabags are great!
0:55 A marvellous little invention!
0:57 Yes, I agree.
0:58 Well, that's my question for you today.
1:01 Where was the teabag invented?
1:04 Was it in … a) China
1:06 b) the US Or c) Britain
1:09 Hmm.
1:10 I buy a lot of teabags but I don't know their history.
1:13 So I'm going to guess c) Britain.
1:16 Well, we'll find out if you chose the right answer later on.
1:21 Let's listen now to Professor Markman Ellis talking about the Chinese tea plant.
1:26 He's a historian at Queen Mary, University of London.
1:29 Tea is a shrub that grows naturally in the mountainous areas of China and several thousand
1:35 years ago, no one knows how exactly, there…
1:38 I mean… there are stories… it became clear that if you consumed the leaves of this plant
1:43 especially the younger leaves, then it had an interesting effect on you.
1:46 And that effect could be thought of as medicinal or it could be thought of as just kind of
1:51 sanative – making you feel a bit better than you used to feel.
1:55 Professor Markman Ellis tells us that people in Ancient China consumed – or ate – leaves
2:00 from the tea plant and it had an interesting effect on them.
2:04 Professor Ellis says tea has a sanative effect – making you feel better – so I might
2:09 try munching a few leaves later on.
2:11 Alright then.
2:12 Apparently the Chinese started drinking tea because of its medicinal – or healing – qualities.
2:18 And they've been drinking tea for thousands of years!
2:21 Well we British may love a good cup of tea – but we haven’t been brewing it for nearly
2:25 so long as the Chinese.
2:26 But remember that tea actually grows in China, Alice.
2:30 We don't grow it in Britain.
2:31 Good point, Neil.
2:32 Which brings me back to what we were talking about earlier.
2:36 In the 19th century the British started to grow tea in India in order to compete with
2:40 Chinese tea production.
2:42 When tea first arrived in Britain in the 17th century it was incredibly expensive and only
2:48 the elite could afford to drink it.
2:50 Elite means a small group of people in society who have money and power.
2:54 Well, the opposite is true today – everyone drinks tea!
2:57 And cheap teabags make really strong tea – just the way I like it!
3:00 [noise of disgust] Oh, it's not for me!
3:02 I like tea with a delicate flavour – Lapsang Suchong is my favourite with its evocative
3:08 fragrance.
3:09 Not teabags, then?
3:10 No, Neil.
3:11 Lapsang is different from other types of tea because the leaves are smoke-dried over pinewood
3:17 fires giving the tea its distinctive smoky flavour.
3:21 You sound like a TV advert – I can just see the misty mountains and fields of tea…
3:28 Can you tell us what evocative means?
3:29 It means making you imagine something pleasant.
3:33 And for some people tea drinking is a spiritual experience.
3:37 Let’s listen to BBC reporter Mike Williams learning about the Asian custom of the tea
3:42 ceremony.
3:44 CH: Please enjoy a mouthful of green tea.
3:50 MW: Thank you...
3:53 That was a bit less than a mouthful.
3:54 It's a very very small amount, isn't it?
3:55 CH: It's about 20ml.
3:57 It's the way to appreciate tea in very small quantities so you can concentrate and cultivate
4:02 your mindfulness in drinking the tea.
4:05 MW: Mindfulness?
4:07 What do you mean by mindfulness?
4:09 CH: Tea ceremony has some of its origin in Buddhism.
4:13 The Japanese tea ceremony for example has a lot of Zen Buddhism influence.
4:18 Mindfulness is the concentration and focus on the now – forget about the past, forget
4:24 about the future, and enjoy this specific moment.
4:27 And that's what I call mindfulness.
4:31 So they don't use mugs in the tea ceremony.
4:33 It's 20 millilitres or a mouthful of green tea.
4:37 That's right.
4:38 Drinking just a mouthful – or a small amount – helps you concentrate and cultivate mindfulness.
4:44 As the speaker explains, mindfulness means living in the moment and forgetting about
4:49 the past and future.
4:50 Well, forgive me for thinking about the past – but how about the answer to today’s
4:55 quiz question?
4:56 OK then.
4:57 I asked: Where was the teabag invented?
5:00 Was it in… a) China?, b) the US? of c) Britain?
5:06 And I said c) Britain.
5:08 And I must be right.
5:10 Well, I'm afraid you're wrong, Neil!
5:14 It was b) the US.
5:17 Teabags first appeared commercially in the first decade of the 20th century and were
5:22 successfully marketed by Thomas Sullivan, a tea merchant from New York, who shipped
5:26 his teabags around the world.
5:29 Really?
5:30 Teabags are older than I thought!
5:31 Now, can you tell us the words we heard today?
5:34 They are: brew
5:37 consumed sanative
5:41 medicinal elite
5:44 evocative mouthful
5:49 mindfulness Well, that's the end of today's 6 Minute English.