Tea

CUBIC LISTENING – SURPRISE SURPRISE

Tea

Vocabulary:  fungus,  consumption, tax,  desperate,  planters,  precious,

1. Where did all the tea in England come from in the 1600s?

2. Where did English people store their valuable tea?

3. When did the British eat sandwiches and cake?

4. Where did coffee rust first appear?

II. Listen and repeat

The British are famous for drinking tea, but you may be surprised to know that this wasn’t always the case.

Tea was first brought to England from China in the 1600s. However, the tea trade was strictly controlled and the English government put an incredibly high tax on the new import. As a result, tea was so expensive in England that few people drank it. Coffee was much more popular at this stage.

III.  Fill in the missing words

1. At first, tea was (____________) from (____________) and was heavily (____________) by the English government. 


2. Because tea was very (____________), tea leaves were often (____________) and (____________)—several times. 


3. The (____________) of coffee in Britain skyrocketed when coffee plants around the Orient were (____________) by a (____________). 


4. When (____________) in Sri Lanka switched to growing tea, the price of tea (____________) and tea (____________) rose. 


5. The British were once the (____________) tea (____________) in the world, but that changed with the arrival of (____________) drinks.