Tea Culture

I noticed it immediately. On my first day of work actually.
It must be some stereotypical politeness that is ingrained in their culture combined with some desire to not waste energy on something that would only be for themselves. But ANY time ANYONE feels like a cup of tea or coffee (this is London, it’s obviously tea. The coffee is for the sole Italian who works here) they stand up and pose the question to the office: “hot drinks?”

Inevitably most of the office in turn lets out an enthusiastic squeal of .. ‘oh yes… indeed, that would be lovely!” The person than collects everyone’s mugs, plugs in the kettle and proceeds to fix everyone drinks. It all seems so civilized and considerate. And it is. And it happens about every 35 minutes, like clockwork. I knew I was moving to the island of tea, but I didn’t expect this sort of ritualistic addiction.

What’s also interesting is the mad stash of cookies …err.. biscuits as the Brits call them, in our communal kitchen. Seriously, there are about a dozen different kinds, plus snack sized kit kats in our fridge that seem to get restocked nightly. And whenever one girl in my office does the hot drink round, she does a “biscuits?” round while she waits for the kettle to boil. Now since I’m new, I don’t want to be rude so I say yes to everything, but as a result I’ve eaten more junk this past month than I have all year!

On the bright side, I think the obsession with biscuits explains the teeth.