Learning little cultural quirks about Americans is a fascinating journey. Like how they say “y’all” a bunch, or how a combination of the gun lobby and generational racism manifested as police barely batting an eye at angry white chuds armed with military-grade weaponry literally invading state capitol buildings because a global pandemic shut all the Wendy’s, or how they don’t have electric kettles in their homes.
While the latter fact may have taken a good couple of years to reconcile, it is my solemn duty to inform you that the Americans are at it again. This time with the great British leveller: Tea.
A deeply chaotic TikTok video has attracted the ire of anyone who’s ever sought salvation at the business end of a Bushells, thanks to its truly insane tea-making method.
TikTok user jchelle36, an American woman by the name of “Michelle” who reportedly lives in the UK, posted the truly ghastly video which almost immediately attracted the rabid hooting of the masses.
In said video, Michelle guides her daughter through the insane process: Filling a mug with water, putting it in the microwave, pouring an unholy amount of milk in, only then dunking a tea bag in, and topping it off by dusting the full-to-bursting mug with a metric tonne of sugar.
I regret to inform you the Tea Butcher is at it again https://t.co/0LKyy3Epec
— Toby Earle 🇺🇦 (@TobyonTV) June 8, 2020
“And that’s how you make hot tea,” she signs off with.
And that’s how you make hot tea.
Putting aside the obvious Milk First controversy, which is a hornet’s nest unto itself, everything about this outrageous method is borderline treason. For starters, she lives in the UK where electric kettles exist. There are no excuses for putting water in the microwave here. Absolutely none. It is not something that should ever have been considered.
But beyond that, the sugar pour at the end. My god. My god.
The video’s reception on Twitter has been about as good as you’d expect.
If she made me tea like that I’d throw it in the harbour.
— The Dutch Assassin (@MikeRochester79) June 8, 2020
putting the tea bag in the mug was literally the only thing that was correct
— Bram Bram Bigelow (@StuBram2) June 8, 2020
— Stuart Coleman (@BasedOnFactors) June 8, 2020
This has to be a troll.
— Alanah #BlackLivesMatter (@Charalanahzard) June 8, 2020
This is too much. This has tipped me over. Not today. I’ve just spent the last minute shouting the lyrics to ‘I’m a little teapot’ whilst doing the actions, as tears stream down my face, eventually finding their resting place on my tea stained dressing gown.
— Nicky Cunningham (@pacifistfighter) June 8, 2020
You notice how she used the child as a shield in breach of the Geneva Convention as well?
— Emmanuel Goldstein (@ExitedBritain) June 8, 2020
The definitive take on the matter though comes from someone choosing not to react angrily with knee-jerk epithets, but rather from someone brave enough to at least try the method out for themselves before judgment is passed.
Fixed that video of the American woman making tea wrong pic.twitter.com/etJc7FWyBp
— Tom Hourigan (@TomHourigan) June 8, 2020
A considered response, finally.
