Reproduced with the kind permission of Jococa Cats, Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK.
When Nigel Owen first peered into an animal carrier delivered to the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum, he saw a pair of orange eyes staring back at him. He later noticed a furry blue face pressed against the carrier’s front screen.
Nigel soon learned that the British Shorthair is docile, friendly, and rarely destructive — cheering news, considering that the museum had been given two British Shorthairs. And because they are large cats, British Shorthairs are reputed to prefer not to be picked up. Lapsang and Souchong, the two cats featured in Dead as a Scone and The Final Crumpet, were named after a smoke-flavored tea.