Pouring cold water on our tea tradition

It’s enough to make Tony Benn splutter into one of his 40-odd daily cuppas. It seems the unthinkable has happened and the British tea drinking habit is under threat from the growing number of iced teas. Snapple proudly reports that sales of its bottled iced teas are buoyant, suggesting that national traditionals such as pot warming are becoming a thing of the past. How reasurring then, to hear the confession from a Snapple spokesman who has done a spot of research into iced tea take-up. It seems customers have been taking the Snapple glass bottles home, popping them into the microwave, and adding a drop of milk to make their traditional refreshing cuppa. Rival iced tea makers reporting sluggish sales from their microwave-unfriendly canned versions should perhaps take note.