On Tuesday, I talked about Japanese tea. Today, I’m going to talk about “English style tea.”
“English style tea” is called 紅茶（こうちゃ/koucha）in Japanese, which literally means “red tea.” You can find tea bags and leaf tea packages from commonly known international brands in Japanese supermarkets, so making it yourself will not be a problem.
However, if you want to have it in a cafe, it is handy if you know these words:
First of all, you will need to specify:
ホット(hotto) – hot
or
アイス(aisu) – cold with ice
Then, you will need to choose:
ミルク(miruku) – with milk
レモン(remon) – with lemon
ストレート(sutore-to) – straight (This choice may not be available in ordinary cafes, but you will be able to choose it in tea houses.)
As you would have already noticed, all there words are katakana words derived from English. Actually, if you are already in a cafe, you can ask for ティー in Katakana or “tea” in English and you will get English style tea.
The only thing you may like to keep in mind is that you may not get actual “milk” or “lemon” in a cafe. Many cafes use whitener for coffee as milk and in some places a sache of lemon juice for lemon. So, I usually glance tables around me before I order tea. If I spot any of those, I usually go for coffee instead of tea.
Having said that, there are many speciality tea houses in big cities. There you can not only get real milk or lemon but you can also choose specific tea leaves. Sometimes you can choose a cup and saucer as well.
