Some very British thoughts of a nice cup of tea

Over my working career I have become somewhat of a tea addict. I hold the all comers office record for the most cups drunk in a day- 18 cuppas! I am however the worst of the worst at making rounds. My colleague Phil is great, Gary slightly less so and Tim even worse than me (he doesn’t understand the concept of milk either).

That’s the way I like it.

I dress it up and laugh about it, saying that my charge out rate is too high to make it cost effective but at the heart of it all I don’t like making tea for other people, so I don’t. What would take a scant minute or so just for me turns into a gargantuan quest for tea, that involves remembering the drinking requirements of three other people (that vary depending on mood and time of day), washing up the mugs properly and sorting out a tray to bring them all back on. It’s a 5 minute affair which has me completely disillusioned about not just my hot beverage but pretty much the whole of mankind by the time I’m back at my desk.

And it’s as bad when someone makes me a brew too, it’s never quite how I’d like it or indeed as frequent as I’d like it. I have a cup of tea because I want a hot drink, not as part of some arcane unwritten social interaction. I don’t feel like there is a fundamental imbalance because the made for others vs made for me score at the end of a week looks something like 5 – 40.

I do try and instil a sense of service in the kids, and the lad loves helping out. The tea thing isn’t about this really. I suppose for me tea is a person thing, a bit of privacy and a hot drink. That’s probably why I don’t tend to drink it at home. Kids and scalding hot beverages don’t tend to mix very well.

Do you have any tea quirks?

SHARE: