100 Dancing Tea Ladies
It is not every day that Gordon Brown looks out of his window at parliament and sees a hundred dancing tea ladies parading down the street. The ladies also surprised his wife at 10 Downing St, accosted early morning commuters on London Bridge and gave the tourists one for the photo album when they partied in Trafalgar Square.
Else you think that the capital has gone quite mad, I’d better explain what these fine ladies were up to. Two weeks each year are designated ‘Fair Trade Fortnight’ as the organisation tries to raise awareness of the importance of paying a fair price for consumer goods. This year’s product-in-focus was our beloved tea, and the tea ladies drank it by the gallon whilst looking beguiling and pursuading consumers to swap their regular cuppa for a fair trade cuppa. The tea ladies danced, chanted, posed for the cameras, and played volleyball with giant, inflatable cup of fair trade tea.
The tea ladies invasion on Feb. 25th was just one of the fortnight’s high-profile events. Community groups around the country hosted their own fair trade tea parties and tea dances. Tracing Tea attended the tea dance at Spitalfields Market and was privy to energetic performances of samba, ballroom dancing, bollywood dance and things we couldn’t even recognise. We were able to interview Mr Henriksen, a fair trade tea producer from the Nilgiri Hills in India, and to capture some of the action live on film.
Keep your eyes peeled for the tea ladies and their antics in Tracing Tea episode 8!
