Time for a cuppa - or is it?

Tea. Apart from being a conversational aide, tea can be a conversation in itself; revealing our somewhat bizarre individual habits and preferences. Today for example, I waited until I got in to work to have my first cup of the day – it gives me an easy first task in the office and helps me settle into the day. But my colleague on the other hand, can’t leave the house without having downed a few cups and as for amount of milk he pours in… well he might as well have a tea milkshake.

But it gets really interesting when you look at tea politics in the workplace. As far as I see it there are two camps on the subject; one that thinks that every time you make a cup of tea for yourself (or even consider a cup), you should automatically ask everyone around you if they want a cup. If you don’t you are ‘sneaking off’, ‘being selfish’ or something else derogatory. Because tea, of course, is the great British social glue.

However like all traditions, they change over time. A recent survey found that 2.5 million British workers say they are ‘too busy’ to make tea for everyone within ear shot of them. Apart from wanting to just make a cuppa and get back on with work, it seems there are deeper issues going on, like the fact that they might have to make a cup for their boss who never reciprocates. Thankfully that isn’t the issue here, but if I was to make a spreadsheet (not that I’m planning to), a few patterns might emerge.

And now it seems that another potential end of time bell for the tea round is the emergence of take out coffee. Apparently, it’s now as popular to pop out for an expensive coffee as it is to search for a clean mug in the office kitchen cupboard.

But if tea politics are still brewing in your office, then there are a couple of gadgets that might make your life easier: a tea round app that selects whose turn it is to make a cup at random and an iKettle so that you can boil the kettle from your desk. The latter though sends warning signals to me – imagine your colleague gets to the kettle before you do!