The Soup Bowl

A weekend or so ago my darling H.P. and I decided to take a mini vacation and hide away for the weekend. We left the teens with nana for supervision. We stayed at a lovely hotel and I went in search of my morning cup of tea. The hotel for all is nicety offered styrofoam cups for its morning coffee and tea drinking. Now any good tea snob knows styrofoam cups do not work for tea. Oh the taste the taste it just can not be done! So off we went to find a coffee shop that would provide me with a steaming cup of hot water. Because being the tea snob I am I carry my own tea bags with me. Well we find a common popular place know around the country (star) and headed in thinking success. You see on past vacations they have been wonderful, I have gone in and asked for a large cup of hot water and they have provided it at no charge. Its not styrofoam but a recycled paper product and although its not china it works so well in a pinch. But not this stars no she looks at me funny. You want a cup of hot water? Why yes I do. Do you want a tea bag with that - H.P. is quick to say no she has her own. That gets me a very strange look like I am a real snob which I am. Then she asks am I staying or going with my hot water. Well what does it matter but I say I am staying and order a muffin to go with it. I receive my hot water not in a paper cup or a mug but a soup bowl. You know those large things they try to pass off as cups with a handle on the side but they really are soup bowls. It is not china so it does not keep the water hot and it does not require one tea bag but at least three I think. It cools so quickly and it does not fit comfortably in my hands as my cups do at home. I am so disappointed. This is not the way to start off my day. I drink what I can from this soup bowl and surrender to the fact that I will not be enjoying a nice cup of steaming hot tea this morning. I mean tea in a soup bowl who does that.