A Time for Tea

The quintessential food that describes Douglas Adams's hilarious novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy happens to be the most discussed: tea. Tea fits perfectly as the representative of the book due to many of its unique attributes that it shares with Adams's book. The most obvious comes from its country of origin: Britain. Both Tea and The Guide hail from Britain, bringing with them a certain foreign appeal to their American audiences, such as myself. Next comes the variety of tea; one can order tea in many different ways, with many different things mixed in or server with it. The same principal goes for the novel, one can take it at face value where Adams's book acts merely as a wacky space adventure tale, they could take it as an argument for how utterly boring and petty our world seems compared to the Galaxy, or one could view it as the opposite, that the Galaxy most likely functions the same as boring old Earth, just with a few eccentricities that come from the culture. Another parallel comes from the protagonist's, Arthur Dent's, love for tea; his friends indirectly characterize him as a tea lover, stating that the only things Arthur says are "What? and I don't understand and Where's the tea?" (133). It only makes sense to chose the main character's favorite food as the food that his story will become. Finally, one of the most striking parables with tea and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes from its abstract forms and customs. The number of proper etiquette when drinking tea comes off as mind boggling, a specific time exists to drink tea, one should hold the tea cup properly and never with the pinkie extended, one must measure the temperature of the beverages to an exact heat of 42 degrees Celsius and so on. The Galaxy also comes with the same kinds of insanities, such as improbability physics, babel fish, our rodent overlords, and a planet factory (just to name a few). Adam's work clearly embodies all the essential characteristics that makes tea tea, and vice versa; therefore tea becomes the perfect example of food to represent The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in this alternate, food-based world that has manifested itself. Wow, I'm thirsty.