Three of us went out for a curry the other week, it was lovely food and good fun but then we finished our main courses and L fancied some coffee (she drinks tea too, don’t worry).
The waiter presented us with a teapot and we protested that L had ordered coffee, but the waiter assured us that he knew that – this indeed was the coffee.
A specially set up 'action' shot that unfortunately does nothing to illustrate how weird having coffee come out of a teapot was.
Maybe the waiter had heard KD and I discussing the mess-with-your-mind tea latte at North Tea Power and decided to mess with our minds some more? I found it most confusing to see the teapot but smell coffee. More importantly, if you ordered tea and the teapot had previously had coffee in it, what would it taste like? Is this why some tea tastes so unusual?
Tea for you and me 
May 20, 2012 at 9:34 am
That’s very weird and makes me wonder if you have a point about strange tasting tea. Surely most cafes/restaurants don’t do this though? It’s madness! I do think that most cafes use the same teapots for herbal and black teas though. I’ve had tea with a slight mint taste or some sort of floral taste before and I think it’s due to the pot having had peppermint or herbal tea in it previously. If I ran a cafe I’d have separate teapots for black and herbal teas, especially if the pots were metal. If they were ceramic it might not be so bad, so long as they were slooshed out before making a new pot, but how many places actually do that, I wonder?
May 20, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I don’t think many cafes do use different teapots (though if I remember rightly use a different pot for each different tea they sell) but they should at least keep tea and coffee separate! Fruit tea especially makes black tea taste funny, at home I have a pot for black tea, one for fruit/herbal tea and one for green tea. Let me know if you do decide to run a cafe!
May 20, 2012 at 6:24 pm
You’re quite right, if they’re going to keep any drinks separate it should be tea and coffee, I’m still astonished by your post. I must confess, I have been known to make peppermint tea in the same pot as black tea, but it gets a thorough wash afterwards, so as not to taint my black tea. I don’t think I could ever run a cafe, I’m in awe of the people who do it. My sister wants to run one, and I think she’d be very good on the teapots front.