Modern Sporting Stars

Underwire Treelicker has often been credited with bringing the sport of professional tea-drinking to a wider audience through her use of the sometimes-tricky over-arm teapot technique while pouring from the biscuit end of the tea-pitch. Most people in the UK – of course – have a keen interest in amateur tea drinking with up to seven amateur tea-drinking teams in many of the local leagues.

However, maybe because of this keen amateur involvement, professional tea drinking as a spectator sport has never really taken off in this country. This is despite the fact that many tea rooms in picturesque tourist locations often have audiences numbering in their hundreds crowded around the front display windows of the tea rooms peering in hoping for a glimpse of some exiting competitive tea drinking.

The women’s sport of competitive tea drinking has – of course – a long history in the UK. It shadowed the development of the tearoom from a place to where men gathered to discuss politics, sport and other such completely pointless bollocks, to a place where women could – almost exclusively – gather. There, they would criticise those of their group who were not there that day, make false compliments about each other’s hairstyles and latest dieting successes, all while engaging in a few rounds of competitive tea drinking.

For those that are not familiar with the sport, the whole idea of competitive tea drinking revolves around appearing to drink the tea with enthusiasm - if not gusto – without leaving any appreciable difference in the level of the tea in the cup. However, at the same time, managing to finish the tea without the other person at the table noticing, and thereby wining that round, and on to win the set and forcing the other person to pay for the next round of tea, until one player admits defeat by claiming to be late for some appointment or other.

Underwire Treelicker, of course, has done more than anyone to bring tea drinking from a participatory sport into the wildly popular spectator sport it now is. Many say it is her exotic Wild North Grimsby-esque good looks, her impressively deep cleavage – often shown in ultra slow motion in replay to its best advantage when pouring the last cup from the pot - rather than her - albeit remarkable tea-drinking abilities that have brought this about. However, as well as a mouth that suggests to most men, and many, many women, that she is well-practiced in several debauched arts that they have only ever read about on some very specialist websites, she does have a deep and profound tactical awareness of the subtleties of competitive tea drinking.

Consequently, many now regard Underwire Treelicker and the rest of the UK’s tea-drinking squad as the country’s best hope for gold medal success in the London 2012 Olympic Games.