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The Tea Souls: The Russian Drink of Choice
              Is Not (Always) Vodka
              By Brian Hieggelke (Adaptation)
                                                                   thread
                                                                   spoils
              Published in Newcity, February 5, 2015.              Glossary on
                                                                   page 94
              When people hear that I am from Russia, they often jokingly
              (or very possibly not) ask me whether I drink vodka for
              breakfast. Or, more seriously, they ask whether everyone
              in Russia drinks vodka all the time. Vodka has become a
              national symbol of my country, along with bears and cold
              winters. This, however, is a gross misconception. I do not
              drink vodka for breakfast. In fact, the truth is that vodka is not
              always the alcoholic beverage of choice;        jokingly (adv.):
              many of my acquaintances prefer whiskey         bromeando
                                                              misconception
              or wine. But there is another drink that truly   (n.): idea errónea,
                                                              equivocada
              does deserve to be placed on the Russian        acclaim (n.):
              flag and carried with pride in its universal    alabanza
                                                              weak (adj.): débil
              acclaim. That drink is tea.

              People in the United States are used to teabags. However,
              they are too weak for a good cup of tea. I remember
              that when the concept of teabags appeared in Russia
              (right around the collapse of the Soviet Union), it did gain
              popularity, along with candy bars and hamburgers, but also
              became the butt of endless jokes, such as: “Soon, instead
              of the tea ‘Cheerfulness’, another tea named ‘Greediness’
              will be on sale; it will have all the teabags tied to one single
              thread.”


              Teabags are deficient at a different level as well: they
              portion your tea-drinking, limiting it to one cup at a time (if
              you want another one, you can, of course, but it interrupts
              the continuity of the process of tea-drinking and spoils
              the mood). I learned how to drink tea the Russian way
              when I was a kid and spent long warm summers at my
              grandmother’s house in a small Russian village.


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