This Is Queen Elizabeth II's Favorite Tea

Here's a pro tip: If you're not prepared to drink over four pounds of tea per year, do not migrate to the UK (via The Atlantic). The UK and Ireland's per capita consumption of the hot drink falls only behind Turkey's. And, if you're looking for anyone to blame for the UK's collective obsession with the stuff, blame the queen. We're not talking about Queen Elizabeth II. Blame the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, who married England's Charles II in 1662, per Boston Tea Party. She turned tea into a royal fad and teatime into a veritable British institution. 

When Queen Elizabeth drinks tea, she is following, dutifully, in Queen Catherine's footsteps. Does she see it as her royal duty to spread her love for the stuff? Maybe. Her Royal Highness once served up a pot of the tea for a builder working in Buckingham Palace, who purportedly ordered it from Queen Elizabeth without "all that fine china and all that saucer stuff," according to Woman. The queen reportedly complied. 

Brewing tea for a construction worker aside, all signs point to Queen Elizabeth enjoying her cuppa with plenty of pomp and circumstance. Rumor has it that Meghan Markle had to rehearse how to drink tea properly before sitting down with her future husband's royal grandmother for the first time (via US Weekly). What blend of tea did Markle and Her Majesty regally sip on? Our best guesses go to Earl Grey, Darjeeling, or perhaps, Assam.

Just between us? We'd place bets on Earl Grey as Queen Elizabeth II's favorite tea. For one, Taste of Home reports that the queen drinks Earl Grey every morning with a bit of milk, hold the sugar. And, also, whenever she travels, Her Majesty brings along a royally monogrammed, electric teapot to drink with a supply of Earl Grey that Twinings created, especially for her (via Express). Twinings, incidentally, once released a special tea dedicated to Queen Elizabeth for her 90th birthday. If you get your hands on that, you'll be getting as close as possible the queen's favorite blend without actually receiving a royal teatime invitation from her. 

There are right ways and wrong ways to drink a cup of royal tea, of course. According to her royal butler, Grant Harrold, Queen Elizabeth drinks tea "the traditional way ... made with tea leaves in a teapot and poured into fine bone china teacup" (via Hello!). And while the queen certainly likes milk with her tea, she never adds the milk to her cup before she adds her tea. When stirring her tea, Queen Elizabeth does so in backward and forward motions, instead of circular ones, to avoid clinking her spoon against the cup. Lastly, when the queen wears lipstick (as queens should when they're out and about), each time she lifts the cup to her lips, she sips from the same place, so as to only mark the cup once, per People.