Tea Tray (pronounced tee-trey)
(1)
A tray used to carry a tea service.
(2)
A tray of this type used for related purposes.
(3)
The accepted descriptor of certain rear spoilers on some Porsches.
Mid-late
1600s: Trays in one form or another are probably one of mankind’s earliest
inventions and the creation of the “tea tray” reflected the popularity of the
brewed leaf and the place it assumed in polite society as the rich were able to
purchase elaborate “tea services” (cups, saucers, milk jugs, tea pots,
strainers et al). In England and Europe,
the “taking of tea” in such circles was sometimes formalized
The
noun tea entered English in the late sixteenth century, from the Dutch thee,
from the Amoy (Xiamen) dialect of Hokkien 茶 (written
both as “tê” & “t’e”), akin to the Chinese chá, from Old Chinese, thought ultimately
from the primitive Sino-Tibetan s-la (leaf, tea). It was the merchants of the Dutch East India
Company (based in what is modern-day Indonesia) who after 1610 brought the leaf
(and thus the word “tea”) to England and other parts of Western Europe. The traders obtained the leaf in Amoy (the
Malay teh was shipped along the same trade routes). The doublets chai and cha
are from the same root. Served in Paris
by at least 1635, tea was introduced in England by 1644. The spelling “tea” wasn’t at first the
default, the variations including tay, thea, tey & tee and the popular
early pronunciation seem to have been to rhyme with obey, the familiar modern
tee not predominate until the late eighteenth century. The Russian chai, the Persian cha, the Greek
tsai, the Arabic shay and the Turkish çay all came overland from the Mandarin
form. The meaning “afternoon meal at
which tea is served” dates from 1738 and is still used in certain regions to mean
“evening meal” in the sense other use “dinner” (historically, for these folk “dinner
was served around midday). In US use,
tea was slang for “marijuana” during the 1930s (apparently an allusion to it
being often brewed in boiling water) but an onrush of newer slang rendered it obsolete
as early as the early 1950s.
Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998) with silver tea tray.
Tray
(a small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which
things are carried) predates the eleventh century and was from the Middle
English treye, from the Old English trēġ & trīġ (flat wooden board with a
low rim), from the Proto-West Germanic trauwi, from the Proto-Germanic trawją or
traujam (wooden vessel), from the primitive Indo-European dóru, a variant of
the root drewo- (be firm, solid, steadfast (with also the specialized senses “tree; wood” and derivatives referring to
objects made of wood. The primary sense may have been “wooden vessel”). It was cognate with the Old Norse treyja (carrier),
the Old Swedish trø (wooden measure for grain & corn), the Low German
Treechel (dough trough), the Ancient Greek δρουίτη (drouítē) (tub, vat) and the
Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa) (trough); trough and tree were
influenced by the same sources. The alternatives
teatray and tea-tray are both accepted as standard forms but both are usually listed
as “rare”, the former especially so. Tea
tray is a noun; the noun plural is tea trees.
The
pieces are rendered in a melon shaped form with a textured leaf inspired frieze
at the top register, rising from embellished shell form feet. Originally a four piece set (teapot, coffee
pot, cream jug and open sugar bowl) more than a century later a Canadian owner
commissioned (through Birks (Canada)) a matching muffin dish. The trademark on the muffin dish is that of
Ellis & Co, Empire Works, Great Hampton Street & Hall Street,
Birmingham (hallmarked 1937). The tea
tray is a sterling silver “George III” tea tray by Solomon Hougham,
Although
there are some striking modernist creations, the most sought after teas sets
are those of porcelain or sterling silver, antique versions of the latter more
common simply because they are less fragile, lasting centuries with only minimal
care. The first tea sets seem to have
been the simple porcelain containers made in China during the Han Dynasty
(206–220 BC). From these humble,
functional beginnings came eventually the intricately designed services of the eighteenth
& nineteenth centuries which included not only the teapot and tea tray but
also cups, sugar bowls with tongs, milk jugs, small plates for lemon slices and
a remarkable variety of strainers and sieves to filter out pieces of the
leaves. In the sixteenth century porcelain
tea sets arrived with the leaf and like many innovations from the East,
consumption was originally limited to the rich who soon began to object to
scalding their fingers on the handle-less cups; cups with handles (surely a
marker of civilization) soon became essential in any drawing room. Less pleasingly, adding milk and sugar also
became fashionable so sugar bowls and milk jug (creamers) were added to sets
along with the necessary teaspoons. The
tea craze thus influenced furniture, the “tea table” the item on which tea was
served, sometime a place for the tea tray to sit but used also for more
elaborate events which included cakes and such; this was the origin of the
modern “high tea” which became such a profitable side-line for hotels. Sterling silver tea sets began to appear in
the late eighteenth century although it would be some decades before they
attained great popularity, aided by Queen Victoria’s (1819–1901; Queen of the UK
1837-1901) fondness for tea and although the influence of the British royalty
on the fashions of society was often negligible, in this she seems to have led
the way.
Forks
in evolution: The ducktail, the whale tail and the tea tray
There
was much thoughtful engineering which made the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7
such a formidable car in competition both in terms of what was taken out (most
creature comforts) and what was put in (horsepower, light weight components and a braking
system said to cost about as much as a new Volkswagen Beetle) but what caught
the eye of most were the lurid graphics along the sides (Yellow, Blue, Green, Red and
Blood Orange among the choices) and the spoiler which sprouted from the rear;
it came to be called the “Ducktail” (bürzel in German) and was the subject of Patent 2238704: “The invention relates to a passenger car
with a rear spoiler – one preferably mounted between side panels - and an
aerodynamic device in the rear to increase the dynamic rear wheel pressure.”
1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 during wind tunnel testing of the Ducktail spoiler (left) and a production version with blue graphics (right).
The
911 Carrera RS 2.7 was a homologation special and Porsche planned to build only
the 500 identical road-legal versions examples demanded to qualify the thing to
be eligible competition under the Group 4 (Gran Turismo) regulations. Although its 210 hp (156 kW) doesn’t sound
impressive fifty years on (and even in the era there were many more powerful
machines), weighing a svelte 960 KG (3086 lb), it could reach 100km/h (60
mph) in 5.8 seconds and touch 245 km/h (152 mph). Given the performance, the Ducktail was a
necessity to ensure there was at speed no dangerous lift at the rear but the
factory was soon compelled to issue a bulletin warning that anyone fitting a
ducktail to any other 911 would also have to fit the factory's front spoiler because,
without the front unit, the rear down-force would become “excessive”, lifting
the nose, the result: instant instability.
As it turned out, demand was greater than expected and eventually 1580
cars were built, many with a few of the creature comforts restored and today the
1973 Carrera is among the most collectable of the 911s; sales over US$2 million
have been recorded.
1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0 with whale tail.
The
delicate lines of the 911 were spoiled when the 1974 models were released, the “impact”
bumpers grafted on to satisfy US regulations an unhappy addition but in fairness
to Porsche, their implementation was aesthetically more successful than many,
notably their Stuttgart neighbors Mercedes-Benz which appeared to have taken for
inspiration the naval rams once fitted beneath the waterlines of battleships
and there to sink smaller vessels by ramming; at least on warships they
couldn’t be seen. The Ducktail however
survived the legislative onslaught and became available on the new Carrera
coupe (fitted as standard in North American markets) which was a pure road car
without any of the compromises which made its raw-boned predecessor so
engaging.
Later
in the year however, a variant of the rear spoiler evolved for the 911 Carrera
RS 3.0, this time rendered as a larger, flatter piece with rubber edges, the trailing
edge rakishly upturned; it came to be called the “Whale Tail.” Actually to speak of the Whale Tail as an
item is a little misleading because the evolution continued and it was only the
early examples which used the simple construction with a recessed grille which
tracked the line of the engine cover, blending into the uninterrupted flat
expanse of the spoiler itself. By 1976
the (pre-intercooler) Turbo Carrera (the 930, the so-called “widow-maker”) was
fitted with a Whale Tail with a second grille inset into the spoiler itself and
to complicate the parts catalogue further, the secondary grille on the RoW
(rest of the world) cars was smaller than that fitted to vehicles destined for
North America; again the increasingly rigid US regulations the cause. As the years went by, the Whale Tail continued
to change.
The Whale Tail (left) and the Tea Tray (right)
By 1978, there was another evolutionary fork, the 911 Turbo’s spoiler becoming the “Tea Tray”, distinguished by a continuous raised rubber lip around the sides and rear edge. The recessed grilles were replaced by a large, inset louvered plastic grille, needed to accommodate the additional height of the intercooler while the base of the assembly became a wide pedestal mounted through the engine cover and although there were detail changes, the Tea Tray was fitted to 930s (and atmospheric cars with the M491 option) until the retirement of the long-serving (the 1974-1989 911s often called “G Series” although technically that should apply only to the 1974 model year production but such is the visual similarity the use persists) platform in 1989.
Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) explaining the Volkswagen (which as the range proliferated would come to be called the "Type 1") Beetle to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) during the ceremony marking the laying of the foundation stone at the site of the Volkswagen factory, Fallersleben, Wolfsburg in Germany's Lower Saxony region, 26 May 1938 (which Christians mark as the Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, commemorating the bodily Ascension of Christ to Heaven) (left). The visit would have been a pleasant diversion for Hitler who was at the time immersed in planning for the Nazi's takeover of Czechoslovakia and later the same day, during a secret meeting, the professor would display a scale-model of an upcoming high-performance version (right).
Tea Tray on 930 Turbo Cabriolet (left) and Taco on 996.1 GT3 (right)
The
Ducktail, Whale Tail and Tea Tray remain the best known of the Porsche spoilers
but there were others including the “Swan Neck” but the most photogenic was the
“Taco”. It was introduced on the 911 GT3
(RoW 996.1) and was so admired the factory later made it available as part of an
optional aero-kit. The nickname is of
course an allusion to the Mexican culinary staple, the resemblance quite
obvious when viewed in profile although it has also been dubbed the “Pacman”. The 996.1 GT3, production of
which was limited to 1868 units, was first displayed at the 1999 Frankfurt
Motor Show and was one of the dual-purpose 911s (for road and track, the GT3 badge
appearing several times since) and like all the spoilers, the Taco was
functional and it needed to be, the 300 lbs (136 KG) downforce generated at the
top speed of 304 km/h (189 mph) required to ensure the thing remained in contact with planet Earth.
Spoilers and other aerodynamic aids can be re-purposed. A young lady with a tea tray (with coffee pot) (left) and laundry hanging on a the wing of a 1969 Dodge Daytona (right). In period, between stints on the tracks, drivers would hang their sweat-laden racing suits on the wings of Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds.
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