Strong Tea

What’s in the dried tea leaves for you? 

What stories emerge of the future true? 

What tales rise forth from the darkened wet? 

What twists and turns are yet to be met? 

But wait truth seeker, not quite so fast 

To know your future, first know your past 

There’s geographical, historical mystery 

That surrounds the roots of this ‘Yorkshire’ tea 

Where are hillsides of unfiltered green, 

With comb-lined bushes till horizons seen? 

Where are warm rainfalls to soak rich grounds, 

Infused with aromatic nutrients found? 

Who are the workers that roam the tracks, 

plucking carefully-eyed foliage for their basketed backs? 

A milky-skinned jolly Yorkshire laddie it be? 

No, sun-kissed Indians and Chinese gather this tea 

Millennia ago, the Asians did start 

Consuming this beverage with ceremonial art 

Only in the 1660s did Charles II then think 

To popularise this…ahem…‘British’ drink 

With colonial minds, they had crossed seas and lands 

Draining resources with pillaging hands 

Then PG, Tetley & Twinning capitalised the lie 

That theirs was the world’s ‘best’ sugar-lumped chai 

With fragile china and dainty tea pot 

They tried to sway their cultural appropriation plot 

But no, I’m not fooled by how they dare 

Associate eastern herbs with West Yorkshire! 

As the seasons change, the jig is up 

Brown truth storms in your brittle cup 

So as the days swirl into what will be 

Know the genuine roots of your future tea.