by Artemis » Thu May 25, 2006 11:04 am
A: Coffee and tea are in fact one drink, which is highly environment-specific - coffee is happiest when made in shops, and tea prefers a nice homely surrounding. As with many food-chain animals, they taste better if they're happy.
Yes, incidentally, coffeetea is an animal - it's a relation of the otter, with some interbreeding believed to have gone on sometime around 50-40,000 BC with Jamaican platypusses (as opposed to the Australian sort - you can tell which is which, because the Australian ones never do limbo. I can personally confirm this, I've seen platypusses in the zoo, and they didn't do any limbo at all, nor had they even bothered setting up a limbo bar in their enclosure). The coffeetea is a microscopic organism (how the platypusses managed to get it on with them is anyone's guess) that quite likes hot water, mugs, and fine china cups. Being stirred with teaspoons or dunked with biscuits also seems to suit coffeetea when they're prepared in a home, and thus in a tea-ish mood - coffee-inclined coffeetea isn't so hot in biscuits, but does like to be in proximity to the morning newspaper.
Now, lest any of you feel inclined to no longer drink coffee and/or tea on finding out that it's an animal, I can assure you that coffeetea is quite happy to be drunk by humans. Since first coming into contact with human civilisation, coffeetea has developed a sophisticated and, believe it or not, peaceful religion, based around being served in cups and drunk. They believe that when drunk, good coffeetea, after a brief stay in the Bladder of Judgement, passes through the Toilet of Paradise, and spends the rest of eternity frolicking in the Plumbing System of Eternal Contentment, along with those alligators who live in the sewers.
Obviously, people have gotten it all wrong about the business with the 'coffee grounds' and 'tea leaves'. That's just summoning equipment needed for the coffee or tea ceremony - it doesn't contain the drink, it just calls it into being from the natural habitat of coffeetea, which is a subterranean world connected to our world by one portal only, accessible by mortals through a long and arduous journey. I do know where the portal to coffeetealand is, but I promised not to tell (though I can give you a hint: you need to start in Upper Mongolia, never take more than three steps in a row without pretending to sneeze, and always keep your socks pulled up just below your knees). Coffeetea responds to a variety of preparations, but coffee grounds and tea leaves are the basic ingredients discovered by alchemists centuries ago, and remain the best way of getting a response today. Mothballs also work, as do cat flea collars, but few people are willing to make their morning cuppa with those.
Q: What came first, the powered flight technology, or the overbooking?
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