Britain exporting locally-grown tea to China

Back in the day when idiomatic English was still part of school syllabi, generations of Indian students dutifully memorised the evocative, if esoteric, idiom ‘carrying coal to Newcastle’. By definition, idioms are those expressions or sayings whose figurative meanings are different from their literal ones. So, they are a sort of secret code. The relationship between coal and Newcastle was not immediately obvious to English speakers thousands of miles away from England. However, as was revealed by successive dutiful English teachers, Newcastle as a mining city that exported coal hardly needed more, hence the phrase meant doing something inherently superfluous or pointless. Ironically, that city in northern England now imports coal but the phrase retains its raison d’être thanks to another city of the same name in Australia that does actually have a surfeit of that precious fossilised carbon.

Considering British speakers of the language have been aware of the phrase for around 500 years, it is commendable that they are still not past doing exactly what the idiom warns against: now Britain is exporting locally-grown tea to China. It is all the more intriguing because the producers of this English tea — as opposed to the imported blend that has the word ‘breakfast’ inserted in between — are descendants of Earl Grey, after whom an orange-flavoured blend is named. As their total output of 10 tonnes is not even a proverbial drop in the teacup for the world’s original producer and consumer of the beverage, the purpose of the exercise is unclear. However, since an 18th-century American entrepreneur got a neat profit from a coal run to Newcastle and others have repeated the feat more recently, it may be time for English speakers to rejig the idiom.