In the early days of capitalism a handful of joint stock investors would gather on the docks by their ship and discuss how much tea and spices they would buy.
Finally, when everyone seemed exhausted from too much talking and jittery from too much tea, we left the castle after many florid pronouncements from all sides testifying as to the great productivity of the day and assurances to meet again soon.
Since then, Americans have pretty much put tea off the boil and on the back burner.
The participants regularly fill out questionnaires answering a variety of questions, including how much coffee and tea they drink.
Whether the much-discussed Tea Party will figure greatly in that is in doubt.
If we haven't heard much about the Tea Party recently it is because they have won, and they are writing the script.
While the apocalyptic view that we face an imminent inflationary depression may be reading too much into the tea leaves, relying on bad data is like flying blind in a storm.
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Perhaps what we need is not a Tea Party so much as an IT Party, which is neither Republican nor Democrat.
"To read too much into this is like reading tea leaves, " said Sibneft spokesman John Mann.
But too much will be read into the tea leaves of Obama's victory.
In fact, much of the fury of the Tea Partiers against government stimulus and bailouts might have less to do with any principled belief in the limits of government and more to do with fear of what this will do to their own entitlements.
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Despite all the headlines about their impact on the upcoming midterms, I have a theory that out in the political heartland, the trashing by the Tea Partiers may be preparing the battlefield for a much more profound second wave of disaffected, independent voters, who could make the Tea Party look like, well, a tea party.
Detectives like Poirot and Miss Marple solved murders in a much more elegant fashion - often over tea and crumpets.
They have made much of their commitment to heeding the Tea Party's demands for change, particularly with respect to fiscal discipline and accountability.
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It was very much the second scenario leading up to tea - which came at 73-0 from 16 overs - and in the immediate aftermath.
In the same debate Mr Gingrich delivered a peroration on the virtues of making people work that impressed his tea-party audience so much that they gave him a rapturous standing ovation.
Without question I hear the voices of the Tea Party and OWS and find much merit in both camps.
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Like the Occupy Wall Street crowd, the tea-partiers did not have much by way of detailed policy when they started.
Kindness and generosity proved to be as much a part of Moroccan custom as supersweetened mint tea and calls to prayer.
You could do much better, it was cheaper, to get tea bags, 100 for 99 cents, and one spoonful, one cupful of sugar, and so you drink a lot of iced tea.
While Mr. Ryan may hold strong appeal for outside-the-Beltway tea-party types, he has spent much of his professional life in the nation's capital.
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Both parties seem to take lots of money from special interest groups so they can win their elections so much so that more and more independents, libertarians, tea parties, are getting in.
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Under an agreement suspending forced eradication there in 2004, 3, 200 hectares of the shrub are tolerated pending a study on how much is required for traditional uses, such as chewing and tea.
He has seen the profound effect tea party activists have had on the Republican Party, much to his consternation.
The tea partiers who want to hack away at defense as much as they do at earmarks are going to fracture the GOP coalition in Congress that still contains more than a few defense hawks.
With his national following among evangelicals, social conservatives and the Tea Party, DeMint has the ability to make Heritage a much more effective political vehicle.
Tea Partiers and these emerging groups on the left differ almost as much in temperament and style as they do on policies.
We connected Tongal with Brisk Tea, our iced tea brand, which has done a lot with video and is very much about creativity.
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After introducing lemonade and fruit-flavored ice tea in distinctive wide-mouth bottles, the company went public in a much-ballyhooed initial public offering in 1992.
It is hard to claim that pyramid-shaped tea-bags (developed at great expense over four years) have added much to the sum of human happiness.
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