I STILL REMEMBER the pall that fell over my family’s kitchen when I clicked open the door of the microwave and placed a cup of tea inside.
‘I don’t know what they’re teaching you above*,’ my father hissed as he motioned at me to reopen the microwave. “But there’s no need to be microwaving tea in this house.”
*Note to anyone unfamiliar with the lingo; ‘above’ in this instance refers to Dublin, but it can be used to denote anywhere aside from your current location.
Still agape, he assured me – with more than a hint of sarcasm – that himself and my mother could surely spare another teabag, and to simply make myself another cup if the first had gone cold.
I had absolutely no issue giving my almost full cup a quick blitz in the microwave rather than go through the rigmarole of waiting for the kettle to boil and the tea to brew for a second time, but I knew I had crossed a line in this instance.
Broaching the subject with peers afterwards, it seems that the matter is a relatively divisive one, and since it’s Ireland and it’s tea-related, tension ran quite high.
Deliberating over the pros and cons, we couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on whether microwaving your tea was a form of sacrilege or not.
But what about you? Have you any issue with quickly heating up a cup of tea in the microwave if you’ve taken too long to drink it?
