St Andrews researchers discovering the reasons for UK tea obsession

Let’s have a cuppa.


Members of the St Andrews School of Computer Science have been offering their assistance to a project known as Trading Consequences. The project aims to look into their commercial history of the British Empire and, in particular, the main reasons behind the British obsession with a good cup of tea.

A programme has been developed to examine historical documents that will hopefully shed light on when this beverage became a cultural staple. A Brit’s first response to any crisis will always be, “Let me put t’kettle on”. So far, it seems that tea became the go to drink when the coffee crop began to fail at some point in the 1860s. When fungus slowed coffee growth, efforts became concentrated on tea in Ceylon and coffee beans were primarily traded in Indonesia instead.

Our very own computer whizzes helped develop a process called “text mining”, which allows experts to pore over thousands of documents at a far quicker rate. In fact, eleven million pages have been digitalized so far.

The university, which is also working with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Saskatchewan, hopes that the new computerized system will help team members gain useful insight about cultural changes in the British Empire. Personally, I’m just pleased I’ve got even more excuses for my tea addiction. Excuse me while I make a brew.

Image courtesy of www.oiseoxford.me