A Tea Addict's Journal

I am on the road again. I brought my survival kit pot, but…. no hot water.

Hot water in this hotel, unfortunately, only comes through the coffee machine. They won’t bring up hot water for me, and even if they do, I know that they will bring it up in a carafe that doubles as a coffee carafe. What that means is that I will be drinking watered down coffee — not ideal for making tea, I think.

So…. I will have to use the coffee machine. One run of cold water through the coffee machine, though, is not enough. The water’s not very hot coming out, and not good for teas like the oldish dahongpao that I want to drink (in my mug). So…. you have to run the cold water from the tap through the coffee maker TWICE (the frontdesk person suggested using hot tap water — I think that’s lunacy). I find that the water comes out hot enough that way.

There are two problems using a drip coffee maker for just water — one is that you have to open the drip part so that water doesn’t actually go through it. If it does, you will, again, be drinking watered down coffee. The second is that the water, when going through the coffee maker the second time, will spray all over — there’s a warning about not using hot water in the coffee maker after all. It will make everything wet and burn your hand, should your hand be nearby. User beware.

It’s a lot of trouble, and the tea that comes out is far from ideal… but I’ll manage. It beats going downstairs to get Tazo teabags from the lobby Starbucks.