Tea time alarm trend demonstrates ‘quintessential’ British sense of humour
The viral prank has left American social media users confused with many believing the alarm to be real.
A viral trend showing people dropping everything to make a cup of tea prompted by a blaring alarm has been described as “quintessential” British humour, but has left Americans confused.
The trend began as a prank to play on people in the US, suggesting there was a daily siren known as the “tea time alarm”, reminding the British public to make a brew, and poking fun at the stereotype that Britons all love the hot beverage.
The trend has been spurred on by the official TikTok accounts of the UK Government, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (SYFRS), Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) and the RNLI, adding to people’s confusion
The UK Government TikTok account shared a video showing a prohibited “tea alarm button”, described as “a very advanced piece of kit” and joked users can “find out about the tea alarm” on the gov.uk website, which has been viewed more than 780,000 times.
Meanwhile, the RNLI shared a video of a rescue team returning to shore and wrote: “In 201 years of the RNLI we’ve never missed a tea alarm”.
Others have shared extreme ways they have taken time of out of their day to drink tea – including a duo who rushed to make the hot beverage before ziplining over the Eden Project in Cornwall.
The video was posted on the Hangloose Adventure TikTok account earning more than 1.3 millions views and more than 222,000 likes on the short-form video app.
It shows Karis Lawer, 25, pouring tea from a thermal flask into ceramic mugs before pushing her colleague, Martin Kelly, 24, down the zipline as he held the drink, after the alarm went off during a test flight.
“It’s normal for every British person to have at least three cups a day, so I think the siren goes off without us noticing half the time,” he told the PA news agency.
Despite being aimed at Americans, Ms Lawer, duty manager at Hangloose Adventure, said the trend appeared to have mostly entertained social media users on the other side of the Atlantic.
“It’s so quintessential, us just trying to poke fun at Americans really but also finding ourselves really funny.
“Tea is already something we have daily, so to make a video pretending that there’s an alarm that goes off in order for us to have tea is such an easy thing to do, it’s so effective.”
“Be careful of the fines. We don’t want anyone to incur a tea fine,” Ms Lawer joked. “It just adds to the humour.”
Mr Kelly added: “It makes it that more realistic and more believable.”
The duo hope their ziplining video ensures no one misses the tea alarm and advised: “Don’t be afraid to drink tea anywhere.”
