Humanity never fails to disappoint me.
Just when you think that only good things are happening, like racing cars being launched into space*, you see something that, like a Hall and Oates Christmas Album**, takes what literally should be sheer joy and metaphorically locks it in a rusty box full of spiders.
In the tea game, it’s fair to say that the enduring nadir of the tea journey is the teab*g, that wretched and vile contraption that is one part bad tea, one part unnecessary bits of paper, string , metal, glue etc, one part lack of trust in tea drinkers to be anything other than ham-fisted simpletons incapable of operating a teapot and one part a delivery system for converting near-slavery into obscene profits.
But now, in an effort to disprove the idea that we’ve sunk as low as we can go, a UK tea company (that’s a bad start in itself) has created a teab*g (of course) that is flavoured like digestive biscuits.
Flavouring, per se, I am not against. But in this case, it’s the why.
Apparently, the drooling noddlepates that drink their tea cannot be trusted to dunk a biscuit without horrific consequences. It’s just too complicated.
What? Some of these people no doubt have responsible jobs, like rubbish collector or head pencil sharpener at a private educational institution. They may be licensed to drive a car, allowed to breed and permitted to write letters to the editor.
“Dear Sir, it is with overwhelming relief that my tea company has freed me from the tyranny of dunking. Along with the invention of slip-on shoes and underpants that have “back” and front” and “up” and “down” marked upon them, it is the greatest event of my life. I can now devote both of my brain cells to my day job as train signal controller for 17 tracks.”
I don’t ever, ever want to be on the road with cars around me driven by people who can’t master dunking a biscuit.
And what about biscuit makers? Are they to be cut out of the loop. I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with them when it’s flaming-torches-and-pitchforks time.
I must call for a campaign of civil disobedience over this. Depending on your moral compass, your best options are to commit one or more of these mildly criminal acts:
- Shoplift them and burn them in the car park
- Sneak stickers marked “only for simpletons” into your supermarket and label every box.
- Stand next to them and scream “Oh, the humanity!” every time someone picks one up.
- Run for parliament and have them banned.
I won’t name the tea company. I won’t give them the publicity. I do call on them to take reasonable steps, like drowning their entire product development team in a vat of Assam.
What next, people? What next?
* meaning that they aren’t being driven around out roads by idiots
** it does exist, and I think we can safely assume it’s soul-destroying
Oh, dear. I have never dunked a biscuit…they are too good just by themselves, in between a sip of tea!
It’s been too long a while since I’ve seen a well-placed Robert rant, and – yes – this sounds insipid. (Emphasis on the “sip”.)
Oh dear. Another UK publicity idea that needs a product to go with it. Sorry chaps we don’t all subscribe in the UK to the tat of living in the fast lane. Although I have been to meetings about tea where most of the gathered asked for coffee.
I could go on al length about trying to sell good quality tea to the great unwashed. Who laughingly opine that they ‘ don’t like this fancy stuff, and only drink proper tea’. That’s in a teab*g to you and me. Sometimes I nearly loose the will to live.
We moved to England to sell good quality tea. Lasted 3 months. I feel your pain.
What companies can find to try to generate interest and sales…