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Apparently sugar in cement is a thing: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sugar+concrete

Sugar retards the setting process. Of course people who work with concrete would know this.

I think we've just been given a glimpse into the lore and practices of a foreign profession.

I remember my dad telling me about working on a site where the homeowners had decided they wanted a brown concrete driveway to match the house - and subsequently used a large amount of brown sugar to colourise their cement. It never set.

I like to think that was discovered when somebody was eating a cake or something next to cement mixer.

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