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Forgive the little burst of insanity, here.
My mother takes her tea with milk. Unfortunately, she takes it with a very specific amount of milk. Every time we've made her tea, for the past 15 years in my case, and the past 25 in my dad's, she tells us we put too much milk in.
Then, about a month ago, after all those decades of frustration, I finally figured out how to measure exactly the right amount of milk, when I realised that her mug had writing on the inside of it. I figured out (never mind how, it's irrelevant) that what you do is you pour in the boiling water onto the teabag, up to the level of the lower edge of the writing. Then, you crush the teabag around a bit, to get the flavour, and take it out. And then, you put in enough milk to reach the bottom of the writing again. As in, exactly a teabag's worth of milk, the amount of water displaced by a teabag. This, according to my mother, is EXACTLY the right amount of milk (not that she measures it, you understand, apparently she can judge that from the colour of the tea, none of this longhand measuring crap for her).
My dad, who like me apparently has no feel whatsoever of the appropriate colouration of tea containing the perfect amount of milk, thanked me for retrieving a little piece of his sanity.
All of this would be fine, with me and my dad silently measuring out our milk, and her with her tea-whispering casual gift thingy, up until today, when she wanted tea when her mug was in the dishwasher, and I had to use a different mug.
I found one with writing on the inside, that I could use for a measure, but this involved me explaining to her that I needed one with writing on inside. Whereupon she laughed at me a little bit. *huffs*
It is NOT pathetic to attempt to quantify perfection when it comes to tea, not when it's in an effort to save our sanity. *grumps*
Though, possibly, it was the part where I threatened to find a waterproof marker and draw a line on the inside of ALL our mugs that set her off ... *grins sheepishly*
My mother takes her tea with milk. Unfortunately, she takes it with a very specific amount of milk. Every time we've made her tea, for the past 15 years in my case, and the past 25 in my dad's, she tells us we put too much milk in.
Then, about a month ago, after all those decades of frustration, I finally figured out how to measure exactly the right amount of milk, when I realised that her mug had writing on the inside of it. I figured out (never mind how, it's irrelevant) that what you do is you pour in the boiling water onto the teabag, up to the level of the lower edge of the writing. Then, you crush the teabag around a bit, to get the flavour, and take it out. And then, you put in enough milk to reach the bottom of the writing again. As in, exactly a teabag's worth of milk, the amount of water displaced by a teabag. This, according to my mother, is EXACTLY the right amount of milk (not that she measures it, you understand, apparently she can judge that from the colour of the tea, none of this longhand measuring crap for her).
My dad, who like me apparently has no feel whatsoever of the appropriate colouration of tea containing the perfect amount of milk, thanked me for retrieving a little piece of his sanity.
All of this would be fine, with me and my dad silently measuring out our milk, and her with her tea-whispering casual gift thingy, up until today, when she wanted tea when her mug was in the dishwasher, and I had to use a different mug.
I found one with writing on the inside, that I could use for a measure, but this involved me explaining to her that I needed one with writing on inside. Whereupon she laughed at me a little bit. *huffs*
It is NOT pathetic to attempt to quantify perfection when it comes to tea, not when it's in an effort to save our sanity. *grumps*
Though, possibly, it was the part where I threatened to find a waterproof marker and draw a line on the inside of ALL our mugs that set her off ... *grins sheepishly*
