London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Friday, November 21st.
Got the kettle on? Hope so, because here it is – your daily London fix.
Right then. Kettle on. Pull up a chair.
Let’s have a natter about tea.
Because if there’s one thing that’ll coax a Brit out into the drizzle
on a Sunday morning,
it’s the promise of a good story
brewed strong and served hot.
And when the distinguished former diploma Lisa Honan’s pouring,
you know you’re in for the proper stuff. None of your supermarket dust
in a sad little bag.
We’re talking single-estate,
history-rich,
empire-steeped leaves
with a scent of adventure and the occasional whiff of scandal.
So. Tea.
How did this little leaf
end up running half the British day? Because it does, you know.
The nation’s bloodstream
is about 27 percent tannin at this point. There are toddlers in the UK
who can’t tie their shoes yet
but know exactly how long to leave
a teabag to steep.
And every Brit,
from Berwick to Bournemouth,
has a preferred mug
that is absolutely non-negotiable.
Ask to borrow it at your peril.
But it wasn’t always like this.
Imagine Britain before tea. Yes, I know. Grim thought.
A land powered largely
by ale and suspicion.
Water wasn’t trusted.
Mornings didn’t really happen
until at least noon.
Then along came
this elegant little import from China. Eighteenth century London sees it first.
A curiosity.
A luxury.
Eye-wateringly expensive.
You’d lock it up in special tea caddies with actual keys.
And if you think that’s posh,
wait till you hear
that well-heeled households
often appointed
a specific servant just to make the tea.
The butler might bring your wine,
but the tea?
That needed a specialist.
And here’s the delightful bit.
Tea was originally sold in coffee houses. Places that were less Starbucks
and more lively intellectual battlegrounds where men would gather
and argue about politics,
ships,
sex,
money,
taxes,
sex again,
and everything else under the sun.
But once tea arrived,
these coffee houses started to tilt.
Tea was smoother.
Softer.
More sociable.
Before long
it was sliding out of the coffee houses
and into the home.
Into the parlour.
Into the lives of all sorts of people. Women especially.
Tea became both respectable
and a bit rebellious.
A drink that was domestic
but quietly daring.
The sort of thing that starts revolutions
if you’re not careful.
Speaking of revolutions.
The Boston Tea Party.
Americans chucking perfectly good tea into the harbour.
Every Brit’s nightmare.
Thousands of cuppas sacrificed to politics. To this day,
some Brits can barely talk about it.
A national trauma in miniature.
And of course,
the British Empire
gets wrapped into the story too.
Tea’s not just a drink, it’s an itinerary. China. India. Ceylon.
The East India Company muscling in. Clipper ships racing across oceans,
hulls groaning with crates of tea.
The history of tea
is the history of global trade and empire, written in leaves and ledgers
and the odd diplomatic incident.
And Lisa,
being the first woman Governor
of St Helena
and a woman who’s navigated
the real corridors of power,
knows how to tell that story
with a wink and a flourish.
She’s guided nations, for heaven’s sake.
A tea walk is child’s play.
But let’s circle back to Britain.
Because tea didn’t just arrive.
It took over.
By the nineteenth century,
tea is the British drink.
The thing that knits the national day together.
Breakfast tea to wake the soul.
Elevenses for a gentle mid-morning reset. Afternoon tea for elegance.
Builders’ tea to fuel the workday.
The emergency cuppa
for when life goes sideways.
A brew when someone dies.
A brew when someone’s born.
A brew
when you can’t think what else to do.
The British don’t drink tea,
they commune with it.
My favourite anecdote?
Second World War.
The government,
in a moment of genuine national terror, realised tea supplies might be disrupted. This was considered unacceptable.
Troops could be hungry, cold, exhausted, homesick.
But without tea?
Unthinkable.
So the government
secretly bought up
the entire world’s stock of tea.
All of it.
Every leaf.
And stashed it in warehouses.
Classified.
Top secret.
The files only declassified decades later. Imagine that meeting.
“Gentlemen,
we need to secure the national morale.”
“More weapons?”
“No. Tea.”
See? It’s not just a drink.
It’s a national defence strategy.
And then there’s the ceremony of it.
When you make a proper brew.
The kettle singing.
The swirl as water hits leaf.
The steam catching the light.
That first sip.
Everyone has an opinion
about the correct order:
milk first or last.
Loose leaf or bag.
Pot or mug.
You could start a family feud
over it if you tried.
And the British have tried.
And there’s the universal comfort of it. You’re cold? Tea.
You’re ill? Tea.
Heartbroken? Tea.
Giddy with joy? Tea.
Someone rings you up
with a bit of gossip?
Put the kettle on and sit down.
We need to talk.
So imagine taking all of this.
The centuries.
The voyages.
The intrigue.
The rituals.
The quirks.
The Britishness.
And walking it
through the streets of London
in the company of
a distinguished former diplomat
who’s lived the sort of life
most of us only get
by watching very expensive BBC dramas.
Empire in a Cup isn’t just a nice wander with a hot drink.
It’s stepping into the bloodstream of a culture.
It’s time travel in a teacup.
It’s the whole world shrunk to a leaf.
And honestly?
It’s fun.
Proper fun.
The kind where you walk away
knowing something
you didn’t know before,
feeling like you’ve just spent the morning in excellent company,
and itching to put the kettle on
the minute you get home.
Which is exactly the point, isn’t it?
Ok, particulars. Lisa’s next Empire in a Cup – the History of Tea walk takes place this Sunday morning, November 23rd, 2025 at 10.45 am. Meet Lisa just outside exit 1 of Bank Underground Station (the meeting point is underneath the clock of the No. 1 Poultry building). And looking further ahead she’ll also be guiding it on December 29th and January 1st. Same time, same meeting point. And then into the New Year and beyond, well, just do a search on our website – www.walks.com – do a search for Empire in a Cup – the History of Tea.
So there it is. Dates in the diary,
kettle practically humming already.
If you’ve ever wanted to taste history rather than just read it,
if you’ve ever wondered
how a simple leaf
managed to charm an entire nation,
come along and let Lisa spin the tale. She’s got the stories,
she’s got the touch,
and London’s got the stage.
All you need to bring is yourself
and a spot of curiosity. See you at Bank. The brewing begins at the appointed hour.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com.
Home of London Walks, London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £25 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do to attract and keep the best guides in London – you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating: the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative – is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor (and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Jack the Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians, university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)… well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.