http://onepeppercorn.com/2009/11/stewed-tea/ Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:58:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://onepeppercorn.com/2009/11/stewed-tea/comment-page-1/#comment-61 arnold Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:50:28 +0000 http://onepeppercorn.com/?p=325#comment-61 I did some more research into the history of 'stewed tea' and managed to push the origin of the phrase back to the 1850s. I was going to post the results here, but it got long, so in the end I decided to turn it into a separate post, which you can find <a href="http://library-keeper.livejournal.com/8048.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>, with due acknowledgment to you. I did some more research into the history of ’stewed tea’ and managed to push the origin of the phrase back to the 1850s. I was going to post the results here, but it got long, so in the end I decided to turn it into a separate post, which you can find here, with due acknowledgment to you.

]]> http://onepeppercorn.com/2009/11/stewed-tea/comment-page-1/#comment-59 sworthen Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:43:55 +0000 http://onepeppercorn.com/?p=325#comment-59 Thank you for pushing back the date! I wonder why coffee was thought to be as bad as stewed tea in that context? Thank you for pushing back the date! I wonder why coffee was thought to be as bad as stewed tea in that context?

]]> http://onepeppercorn.com/2009/11/stewed-tea/comment-page-1/#comment-56 arnold Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:24:13 +0000 http://onepeppercorn.com/?p=325#comment-56 Earliest use in the Times Digital Archive is 1892, from a letter on seamen's food: 'The biscuit, which is the principal object of a seaman's diet, is usually more or less full of weevils .. To sit down to a pot of coffee or stewed tea with one or two of these vermin-filled biscuits to pull to pieces and eat, and this at the commencement of a passage of three or four months' duration, with the certain prospect of this being the principal article of diet during that period, is sufficient to dishearten a '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Tapley" rel="nofollow">Mark Tapley</a>' and to make him discontented with his lot.' It sounds as though the phrase was in pretty common use by then. Earliest use in the Times Digital Archive is 1892, from a letter on seamen’s food: ‘The biscuit, which is the principal object of a seaman’s diet, is usually more or less full of weevils .. To sit down to a pot of coffee or stewed tea with one or two of these vermin-filled biscuits to pull to pieces and eat, and this at the commencement of a passage of three or four months’ duration, with the certain prospect of this being the principal article of diet during that period, is sufficient to dishearten a ‘Mark Tapley‘ and to make him discontented with his lot.’ It sounds as though the phrase was in pretty common use by then.

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