I first heard about tea duelling in 2012 at Teslacon, a steampunk convention in Wisconsin. [Note: I use the British spelling for “tea duelling.”] Major Tinker (John Naylor’s steampunk persona) is one of two men who created tea duelling. He was present at the con that year, eager to share the relatively new sport with others. I was nervous about signing up for something that I knew nothing about, so I sat in the audience, learning the rules and watching people duel. When I left the room, I vowed never to turn down the opportunity to duel again. Aside from the duels over which I have presided, I’ve kept that promise. I also became a bit of a tea duelling evangelist, teaching it to my daughter, my friends, and, most recently, the kids in my church’s middle school youth group.
As I recall it, Major Tinker said that he and a friend were at a traveling tea museum in England and noticed a sign that read “Tea Duelling is strictly forbidden.” Of course, this raised the question: “What is tea duelling?” The two men decided the intriguing sign needed to have a real sport behind it. They came up with this:
If you are going to duel properly, you should acquaint yourself with the rules of the sport. When I give a short explanation of duelling to others, I say that the opponents dunk their biscuits in the tea to the count of five, and then each tries to be the last person to achieve a “clean nom.” A clean nom involves getting all of the biscuit into your mouth in one bite without it crumbling and landing in your tea, on the table (or floor), or on your person. Note that there is an important bit of information missing from the official rules: how much of the biscuit should be submersed in the tea. I’ve heard anything from one half of the biscuit to three-quarters of it. When I serve as Pot Mistress, I ask duellists to dunk at least three-quarters of their biscuit in their tea.
The founders came up with a selection of approved biscuits for duellists in the U.K.; in the United States, we have one official choice: Pepperidge Farm Chessmen. The cookies should be displayed face down, so that the duellists don’t pick a biscuit based on the image on it. Although I do not know of any testing that proves this, some images might “work” better than others. If neither duellist can see the images, they have equal chances of picking a “good” or “bad” biscuit.
Someone with gluten intolerance once asked me about gluten-free biscuits, and I ran the question by the founder of the American Tea Dueling Society. She suggested that gluten-free biscuits could be provided, but the duellists must always have the same kind of biscuit so that neither has an advantage over the other.
While a proper duel consists of, at a minimum, the duellists and Pot Master or Mistress, you can always informally duel with a friend. It’s also perfectly acceptable to practice alone for future duels. Rumor has it that the cookie calories don’t count when consumed during a practice session.
This week, challenge a friend to a duel over a couple of cups of tea and some biscuits!