Tea

As you are no doubt aware Sri Lanka is one of the globe's major tea producers and tea is one of the pillars of the Sri Lankan economy.

What I have realised since commencing work is that it is also an office institution in a way that has been weeded out of British and Australian culture. Do you remember the old tea trolleys that used to come round the office? No, neither do I, but I remember people talking about what a shame it was that they were no longer around. And being amazed when a friend at PwC said that they still had a tea "service". I mean it's so "Upstairs Downstairs".

But in SL the great tea trolley service is alive and kicking. Every day at 10am and 3pm sharp, the office "peons" (the local equivalent of "oddjob" person), bring around tea in 'your' cup. Now you have no choice in the cup selection, but once you have used a cup that is then yours. I haven't managed to communicate how I actually like to drink tea, despite several attempts, partly because the lasses who make it are so sweet I don't want to hurt their feelings! And my sort of tea is very different from that drunk here - for starters tea in SL is drunk black, with a big spoon of sugar and very very strong (directly opposite of how I actually like tea!)

So when I said yes to my first cup of tea, it came to me super strong, super sugared and with milk (because I am white - therefore tea with milk). And due to the lack of refrigeration in SL, milk is powdered. For a few days I politely pretended to drink the tea, and then not being able to stand it any longer took to emptying it down the loo. I was then ridiculed by Marco the Head of Security who caught me doing this one day (probably less for the loo trick and more because I was drinking tea, not coffee!), and decided to lose the milk. So for the last month I've been working on getting no sugar, but haven't succeeded yet. Every time I sign-language 'no sugar' they smile sweetly and nod, and then the next cup comes, full of the stuff! No wonder that diabetes is a growing phenomena in SL.