Pouring in NYC this afternoon, so I ducked into one of those specialty coffee places. I waited behind two other wet people ordering from a barista so sprightly I could only assume he’d been hitting the product. When it was my turn I asked for a cup of tea. He pirouetted, grabbed a teabag, pulled the hot water, and said, “I can tell you how tea started. I mean, if you have time.”
“It’s raining, go ahead.”
“Well, a couple of thousand years ago the emperor of China used to drink hot water three times a day and then one day he was sitting in the garden and a leaf fell into his water and when his servants tried to take it away and give him another he said no because it was fate so he’d drink it and see what happened so they all watched and they were scared but afterwards he felt so great he wanted more of those leaves in his water the next day. And that’s how tea started.”
He grinned, gave me my tea, looked past me at the wet young man behind me and said, “What can I get you?”
I love New York.
Great story. I mean all of it, from the rainy day right through the emperor’s risky behavior.
Great story – from the rainy escape, the cheerful barista to the risk taking emperor.