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Accepting anything offered to you on the first offer is a bit rude. Basically, you are a guest of someone and shouldn't be a burden on them. They have to prove to you that you are not a burden, and then once that is clear you don't feel bad being served. Then your tea comes with cake, ham sandwiches and biscuit which is beyond the scope of the initial drink you were offered.

very culturally dependent. In Germany, the first offer is the offer. If you refuse it, there will not be a second one; and making a second, third offer, in turn, would be rude in Germany, as it is pestering and assumes I'm lying with the first answer or I don't know what I want. How dare you assume this? :D

The English always think the Germans terribly rude. In turn, Germans find these English (also Irish, I guess) conventions of running around things fifteen times for ritual terribly exhausting, a complete waste of time and honestly, just an outright lie.

Take email rules. Germans ridicule this "Hi, how are you, how's the family?" loop before the email (or phone call, or meeting) comes to "I need this from you." A German mail is "Hi, I need this. Thanks." That is not rude at all; the contrary, you did not force your family on me and didn't pretend to care about things that you do NOT care about, and you didn't impose on me with private things from strangers that I do not care about. (in the English mail, signified by the fact that there are no actual answers. "Fine!" .... Great, that was useless and just signaled openly that we really do not care and the question was, in fact, a lie.)

if by 'lie' you mean part of the culturally specific social ritual which is an essential glue knitting disparate people together, then yes, it's a lie.

we lie all the time to knit people together, yes, of course. The key is in the "culturally specific" part. What kinds of lies are coded as rude and what kinds of lies are coded as glue? This differs, which was all I'm saying. I don't want to take the ritual from the English; I just want to keep them from making it universal (the English are very good at making whatever they do universal around the globe. ahem)

This isn't just different between cultures, it's different between status positions, scenes, relationship levels. If someone I'm just getting to know asks me for lunch and I don't feel like it, I'll say "I'd love to, I can't" if I do want to keep making a relationship with that person. If someone's an old friend, I'll say, "I don't want to", knowing that our friendship won't be hurt by that.

It's not a lie. Often the "how are you" is answered with "not bad", i.e. nothing much to say or don't want to talk about it, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it turns into a conversation about how life is going, or the problems you're having, or what you're looking forward to at the weekend or on your holiday. Or maybe just some idle chat about how hot it's been. Not only is this inevitably more fun than whatever the meeting was supposed to be about, it allows you to become closer with your colleagues.

It's basically just giving some room for that social interaction, which may or may not be used.

I'd argue that's only really the case face to face but very rarely by email

though it's not giving room in general; if it actually does depends on whether, in this context, it MAY be used or not, which the question itself doesn't communicate. This makes it a hornet's nest to actually use it. A purely ritual "how are you" met with actual emotional expression might make the situation quite awkward.

Thus, there are deeper contextual frames you need to understand in order to know if that "how are you" actually means "please, open up" or it it only means "I'm just checkmarking politeness in this convo before I tell you to stay 3 hours longer today".

I'm neither english or german, but I do prefer this german approach of making single offers to visitors and being direct in work emails. Being direct doesn't have to mean bossy or rude, it just means getting to the point.

https://youtu.be/_ZzLsaP-5po

maybe I should move to germany :)

I sometimes meet foreigners who have been to Poland and learned a few phrases from the locals. Usually "How are you" is among them only because they have specifically requested this to be translated, but I've never heard this being used as a greeting in my entire life.

I remember an implicit rule in India that politeness comes in 3 waves, 1st is always ignored, 2nd too, only when you mention something a 3rd time then you can be honest and serious.

Yeah a good break down, and despite its size, Ireland has quite a variation depending on your county. As with everything trivial we'll fight you about it.

For a really good look at tea drinking read Strumpet City, apart from it being an amazing novel, has the many ways they brewed and drank tea at the turn of the century.

Irish Black tea tends to be different than English Black tea, apart from being superior of course, we source the leaves from different locations, something something due to rationing during WWII...

That kind of shit is why I hate dealing with people, same thing happens here in Poland but with food. I just started saying "nope, I'm too fat for that"

Why "hate"? I personally find fascinating that kind of implicit cultural rules.

Because once you see the pattern it can become an oppressive social requirement. I'm american but have been living in Czechia for about 15 years, and I've seen friendships blown up due to shit like "we visited and he didn't even offer us lunch", or "she didn't even offer to pay for lunch".

It's fun when you are a visitor and you can view it from a distance, but when it's the local unaware social OS, it's got a far different effect.

The food thing, specifically (probably a slavic thing) I find really fucking tedious. There is no "I'm not hungry but thank you" or "sorry I don't eat meat". Refusing food on a visit is basically equivalent to taking out a gun and shooting the family dog. You're likely to never be invited over again, and people will think you are a complete asshole. Because of this social overhead, visiting friends and family is a huge ordeal as everyone is expected to roll out the carpet and play host. No one wants to burden others, and no one wants to be burdened, so visits are fairly uncommon unless it's a bigger occasion like a birthday or holiday. There's absolutely no "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd pop in and see what you're up to".

You can train people, at least sane people you actually care about. It takes some time, but unless they are dense as neutron star, they will grok it eventually. Wrap it up in talk about honesty, being a man who talks and thinks straight. Also, this should not be the issue with young folks, only older generations are like that.

> I'm american but have been living in Czechia for about 15 years, and I've seen friendships blown up due to shit like "we visited and he didn't even offer us lunch", or "she didn't even offer to pay for lunch".

As a Czech (and a very picky eater who refuses a lot of food offered) I can't really confirm most of what you wrote. Paying for other people's lunch is not really a thing, other than perhaps in the context of a date (where the man is expected to pay).

Food is important mainly in the very old, wartime generation and even there it's mostly in the context of a family.

> Refusing food on a visit is basically equivalent to taking out a gun and shooting the family dog. You're likely to never be invited over again, and people will think you are a complete asshole.

It kind of looks like you've been having a bad time in Czechia, but this is very far from representative.

> There's absolutely no "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd pop in and see what you're up to".

This part is true, but it's IMHO a "global-north-wide" change in the past few decades. It used to be quite normal 30 years ago.

I think it's more a rural vs cities/town thing.

I grew up in the countryside in the most conservative part of the country (measured by catholic presence). This attachment to food is indeed more present in the rural countryside, but still nothing like the commenter above describes.

Sharing a meal is a strong bonding ritual.

I read long time ago a study of families who eat together and those who dont.

Families who share meals have higher cohesion and better relations.

Its important to consider where those traditions came from and maybe why they came about.

> Refusing food on a visit is basically equivalent to taking out a gun and shooting the family dog. You're likely to never be invited over again, and people will think you are a complete asshole.

Uh, you're probably overracting. Unless you said something akin to "fuck your food I don't want it"

> There's absolutely no "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd pop in and see what you're up to".

we used the side door for informal visits

the front door was only for parties

What is hard to understand to you here?

Someone comes to you and forces some random food or beverage upon you, then act annoyed if you refuse. And that kind of behaviour is not only normalized but expected based on some dumb societial traditions.

Do you also think women being married off to candidate picked by parents "fascinating" and not abhorrent ?

When that would not be annoying

man, I totally feel the same. The number of times I've been forced to eat 2-3x what I normally would, at times when I'm not even hungry are too numerous to count. American living in Prague...

Yeah, I hate this retarded dance of dishonesty and bullshit. It took me a good decade to drill it into my grandparents that NO means NO and I am a grown up man, my word reflects my honest opinion and its not going to change just because you ask 3 more times. Then people wonder why kids are dishonest if they are shown these stupid illogical things from early childhood.

On top of that overeating, overdrinking etc are simply very bad habits that your closest ones drill into you. But once you succeed, world becomes a bit better place for you.

> Households are either "Barrys Tea" or "Lyons Tea" and people are expected to have a loyal devotion to one and hatred of the other

So if you offer Barry's to a guest who is in the Lyons, are you being rude?

House rules. If you're a Lyons house and a Barrys drinker comes in, they have to put up with it. depending on how well you know them they will either quietly accept or start an argument to convince you how wrong you are

No. It would be rude to turn down a tea because you don't like the blend.

And if someone needs an emergency cup of tea they won't mind.

Two points:

It's important to note whether the milk goes in the tea first or the tea first and then the milk. When the host is serving the tea, if the milk goes in first, then the host is admitting that they have inferior (non-china) cups, since china cups are more robust and can withstand the sudden heat shock. However, I have never had tea from a china cup so I can't possibly say.

When making hay in the summer time, the tea served to the workers should have equal parts tea, water, sugar and milk. Well, that's how it tasted to me back in the day!

This is one of those things where everyone has heard a slightly different tale. I've read in other places the exact opposite: some people put milk in first in china cups because they think china is delicate and prone to cracking. Some people prefer milk afterwards so they can get the tea to the right colour. Others say that putting it in first may prevent denaturing the milk proteins.

More research is needed.

Not only was research done, it was the origin of statistical significance testing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea

Incredible! Thank you for the link. The page for the "Lady" in question adds that she preferred the milk first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Bristol

This makes sense, given some slightly more recent research into the "denatured proteins" hypothesis - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/25/science.higheredu...

Orwell was not right in everything, it seems.

How bad must the cups actually be for this story to have any relevance at all? In the 40 years that I have been drinking tea and other drinks that go into a cup, I have never witnessed one breaking because of hot water, never.

I always put very hot tea first in the cup, and then milk, because I judge the correct amount of milk by the tea color. No issues with cracking so far :) PS: I'm from eastern Europe.

If someone asks me a question, I give a clear answer, and they ask the same question again, I consider them rude and obnoxious. It feels like talking down to someone, not qanting to accept their answer. I hate that behaviour. Although, I know it is part of a social dance, I strongly believe these dances need to be abolished.

> It feels like talking down to someone, not wanting to accept their answer.

In Ireland at least, it's not talking down, but rather making the assumption that the other person is refusing only out of politeness, so as not to inconvenience you, but actually would love a cup of tea, because, well, who wouldn't?

If someone refuses tea with a good reason, like they don't drink tea, or they are had too much caffeine already today, or it's too hot, we don't argue with them

You're leaving out those of us with loyalty to Thompson's Punjana, otherwise, entirely accurate.

Also big in Iraq, for many of the same rules. I'm reading "guests of the shiek" and getting better details on these cultural norms, but I'm surprised to see basically the same thing in an Anglo country!

> Households are either "Barrys Tea" or "Lyons Tea"

That seems to be a cultural constant. In East Frisia it's Bünting or Thiele.

And I thought it was only the English who have such a close relationship to tea!

> only the English who have such a close relationship to tea

... excluding Japan, China, Russia, all of Central Asia (where I am from), and probably many other countries. So typical for HN.

I'm currently reading "Infused - Adventures in Tea" by Henrietta Lovell. She makes the good point that British people say "normal tea" to refer to English breakfast (blended black) tea, but for the majority of tea drinkers in the world "normal" is green tea.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consu..., Turkey is the top tea-consuming country per capita, with Ireland second and UK third. Interestingly, Russia isn't too far off either. I would've assumed Russia to be among the countries with the lowest per capita tea consumption, but these numbers challenge that assumption. I wonder what (cultural?) factors affect those numbers.

Piggybacking off your assumption of Russia having low tea consumption, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_tea_culture is very much a thing.

God, I love Wikipedia. Such a random thing to receive the Wikipedic treatment

Pakistan at number 4 and India isn't even listed. Yeah, I'm not going to take that list seriously.

If you have better sources than the ones on Wikipedia you're welcome to edit it.

The linked Statista source itself doesn't match the ranking in the article. And surprise, surprise it does include India

Acting to fix it would be a better use of one's own time instead of endlessly complaining. I'm going to take a look and fix it myself if you didn't already do it.

Someone removed India a few month ago for some reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries...

I can confirm that Turks do drink quite a lot of tea. When I visit my family, it's Rize çayı with every meal. People visiting? Everyone has some tea. Sitting down for some TV? More tea. Several glasses at a time usually. It might have been just because I was visiting, but if those numbers are true then it probably is because they just drink that much tea.

In terms of per capita consumption China and Japan are nowhere near the biggest tea drinking cultures in the world: There's a wide gulf between them & the top three which includes the UK & Ireland. But they in turn trail in the wake of the biggest tea drinkers of them all: the Turks.

If we're going to talk about cultures which have a close relationship with tea then the Turks beat out everyone else by a wide margin.

I wonder if this comes down to how tea is made. Per capita consumption of leaves do not account on process or type used.

Maybe per volume might be best option, but that might be very hard to track.

This isnt helpful - they are updating their priors publicly, and your implicit expectation that they should already know is absurd.