Page 66 - @ccess 2 Reader´s Book

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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