Tea

After nearly three weeks of having to boil pans of water, i finally managed to get round to buying a kettle yesterday - and having a decent cup of tea - something that makes living here so much more easier. The kettle itself cost $24.99 - about 14 pounds - which i don' think is too bad personally. However, when you consider that for the same price you can get a pretty reasonable coffee maker, it seems rather highly priced. Y'see, tea - as we know it - isn't so much of a common thing over here (as i'm sure most of you are aware anyway). The drink of choice here is coffee so thick that you could easily confuse it with rocket fuel. If it turned out that Starbucks helped sponsor the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, i wouldn't bat an eyelid. The fondness for coffee is especially obvious on a morning. Remember that old American drama cliche of people chugging coffee on the way to work - well, it's absolutely true. Is it any wonder that coffee chains are absolutely loaded. It's said that the Starbucks in Times Square actually loses money (the rent there being so high) but the corporation doesn't care because of the prestige of having a shop there. An American Corporation not caring about losing money? Sounds like Enron all over again.

Of course, this obsession with coffee means that the chances of me finding a nice cuppa are pretty slim outside of my own home and even in the places that do do it, you have to remember to ask for hot tea. Ask for tea (as those of you who've been to the US before will know) and you get iced tea. Ah, Iced tea - a drink that i could never have imagined i would like but, y'know (the Americanisms keep slipping in), it's actually pretty good. Especially in the South with the heat and the humidity. You can get it as sweetened or unsweetened - i tend to go for the former (they use syrup to sweeten it, i'm told) as i can't shake the image of a moudly cup of morning-after tea whenever i have the unsweetened. So, for those of you who plan on visiting me (pretty much everyone reading this page from the sound of it), I'd advise giving the iced tea a try - you never know, you may like it. Otherwise be prepared for lots of "you want hot tea?" replies in many mocking tones. Or is that just the way Americans normally speak?