Pouring Tea

Photo by Brian Patrick Tagalog on Unsplash

“What are you doing?” Jackie blurted before she could stop herself. This wasn’t the way to start a first date. Especially when Mark had now spilled the tea he was pouring for her, startled by her outburst.

“What do you mean? I was just pouring the tea.”

The chagrined look on Mark’s face made a familiar guilt rise up. Jackie blinked back tears. She was ruining everything. Again. “I’m sorry. That’s just not the best way to make tea. You should put the milk in first.”

Now Mark looked intrigued. That was at least better. “Why is that?” he asked.

Determined not to go into a scientific explanation, which would make things even worse, Jackie said, “It tastes better when you pour the tea into the milk. It heats it up more slowly than if you dump a little bit of milk into a cup of hot tea.”

To Jackie’s intense relief, Mark smiled. “So that’s why my mother always poured the milk first. I bet the milk is chemically altered if it gets heated up too fast.”

Jackie relaxed. This date actually had a chance. It seemed that Mark was willing to talk a little science. Smiling back at him, she said, “That’s exactly what happens.”

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This story doesn’t exactly follow the Reedsy prompt from which it sprang. The prompt suggested writing a story about an argument about something ordinary and gave tea as an example. The characters in this story don’t argue, but my father-in-law and I used to—about this very thing.

Dad was from England and was very set in his ways around tea (and other things as well). It wasn’t until years after I had given up and accepted drinking tea his way when I was with him that I saw the study that proved exactly what Jackie says in this story.

The better part of valor was to not bring the study up to Dad. I have to admit that I didn’t take that path. I told him about it. Of course, nothing changed. We continued to drink tea his way.