It’s not surprising that the English language is peppered with references to tea. Many tea expressions are so common that we now see them as clichés. But when did these idioms enter the language and how have they evolved? I’ve never been able to resist a little amateur linguistic sleuthing, so I tracked down the answers in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Cup of tea
This phrase, referring to anything suited to one’s taste, has only been traced back to 1932. We frequently hear it used to describe things we like, as in “That film was exactly my cup of tea,” and things we don’t like, as in, “Shag carpet just isn’t my cup of tea.”
By 1940, calling something “a different cup of tea” meant that it contrasted sharply with something else. However, this phrase seems to have fallen out of fashion – a quick Google search yields results in the hundreds whereas searching for “not my cup of tea” leads to more than 300,000 hits.
Tempest in a teapot
This vivid American expression is akin to the phrase “much ado about nothing.” It first appeared in written English in a Latin dictionary published in 1854. The original Latin phrase was translated as “to raise a tempest in a teapot.”
In non-American English, the idiom is usually “storm in a teacup.” The recognizable ancestor of that phrase, “a storm in a cream bowl,” has been found in writing as early as 1678.
Dressed to a Tee
The Internet is littered with explanations of this idiom that trace its roots to a bastardization of “dressed for a tea” or “dressed to go to tea,” and it is often written as “dressed to a tea.” Since the phrase is applied to someone dressed neatly and crisply, that definition makes sense. However, the trusty Oxford English Dictionary offers another interpretation.
The OED defines “to a tee” as “exactly, properly, to a nicety.” Also written as “To a T,” this phrase has been around for more than 300 years. The original derivation has not been proven, but the OED notes that “to a tittle” was used in the same sense as early as 1607 in Francis Beaumont’s play, The Woman-Hater, suggesting that “to a T” may be an abbreviated form of that expression.
Not for all the tea in China
As a tea drinker, I enjoy this phrase because it gives great value to one of my favorite things. Defined as “not at any price,” references to “all the tea in China” first appeared in Australian slang in the 1890s. A little more than 100 years later, this expression has become almost unbearably clichéd.

Can you think of any other common tea expressions? Leave a comment and I’ll see what info I can dig up. (Yes, I know, I’m a word geek.)

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