A Volley from the Canon 2: Tea, too!

I’m not prejudiced—some of my best friends are tea-drinkers!

My comments last week on coffee at coffee hour led a few to believe I was going to ignore the tea lobby entirely. Not so! As a matter of fact, they have historically suffered the most at the hands of the coffee-drinking American mainstream.

It isn’t very welcoming to be handed a Lipton tea-bag and a Styrofoam cup of cold water and told “the microwave’s over there” when you ask innocently if there is any tea. (I’ll save Styrofoam itself for another day.)

It’s really a snap to provide excellent, satisfying hot tea in very short order and with very little trouble. First, it’s essential to provide a selection of several good-quality teas, caffeinated and de-caffeinated, regular tea and herbals. They can often be found in an attractive wooden box (Sam’s Club again), but arranging an assortment in a basket or on a tray could be nice, too. Then comes the crucial ingredient—boiling water. The Brits have this knocked. They use high-speed electric boiling kettles, and good ones are now available in the U. S. (try Target). You flip the switch when tea is called for, and voila, you have boiling water in about one minute or less. There are also hot water dispensers on some Bunn-type coffee makers, and as attachments to sinks, as well.

Maybe fresh lemon slices are too much to ask at a church coffee hour. But a nice ceramic mug is welcome, and for true Anglophiles, the same little creamers provided for coffee can work great in teas, too.

We never know which seemingly small detail makes all the difference for someone we’d like to welcome to our church. It all becomes worthwhile when one person goes home from worship smiling, and thinking, “Hey, this Episcopal Church welcomes me!”