watchmelol, are you implying that groceries are not reputable sources for safe food? In that case, it's a wonder anyone in the US eats at home at all.

From my experience of working in restaurants, having suppliers is more about not having to physically spend precious time going out to do the shopping, though many top ranked restaurants will go to the markets daily to get what's ultra fresh and in season. When they have particularly favoured market suppliers it's more because they know the suppliers source the best quality products rather than having food safety concerns.

I'd be surprised if there aren't many reputable restaurants who do a lot of their shopping in supermarkets as their accounts are too small for the big suppliers to be bothered with, though if they're smart they would have preferred butchers, poulterers, fishmongers and greengrocers as quality of meat/poulty/seafood/fruit and veg can be a big variable and finding someone with reliable good quality is a big asset.

I think it's more a case of no petty cash available for small grocery store purchases and an unwillingness on the part of management to shell out a few bucks for teabags.

You have every right to be irked about the tea! They have little consideration for their customers letting it be unavailable for two weeks. I’d let management know how unhappy you are after spending $$ on a nice evening out and not having something as simple as tea to enjoy with dessert. Instead you had water. I’d call the manager or call them out on it on the FB page. There’s no way of knowing whether the servers are reporting the complaints.

When I moved to the south I couldn’t believe how many restaurants didn’t serve hot tea- not even McD. Once when traveling we stopped at a Wendy’s and asked for a hot tea. I saw the workers whispering but didn’t really pay attention. We got back on the road and I realized what happened- they took sweet tea and microwaved it. Yuck. At least they tried. LOL

My hubby has worked in the southern states many times. He's told me that it's very difficult to get unsweetened ice tea. More than once, he's had to resort to buying a cup of hot tea (which he was able to get), asking for a large cup of ice and pouring the hot tea over the ice. In one restaurant he patronized on a regular basis, the staff started making unsweetened ice tea for him on their own once they realized he stopped in most days after work to get something to drink. I thought it was nice of them to anticipate his drink order and have it ready for him.

Really? I have never encountered difficulty getting unsweetened tea here in the south. Usually if a place has sweet tea, they have unsweet as well. When I worked at subway,we always made both, and always without fail we ended up pouring the unsweet down the drain every day. Finally, i started making the sweet tea ridiculously sweet,so that people would mix the unsweet with it to balance it out,and we didnt waste so much.

I've lived in and traveled all over the south for over 40 years, counting my university days. I have never not been able to order unsweetened tea or hot tea.....at any kind of restaurant. As a matter of fact, unsweetened ice tea has always been my beverage of choice for lunch when dining out either at a table in a nice place, or ordering at a speaker at any fast food restaurant.

Iced tea from a powdered mix is absolutely not the norm wherever I've lived, either, except back in the 60s when that crap was first widely available.

At home, I cold brew my tea bags on the counter. I prefer a mixture of black, pekoe, Earl Grey, and whatever herbal tea suits me at the time.

I rarely see hot tea on the menu unless I'm at an Asian restaurant or tea house probably due to geographic location. Most places serve sweet and unsweet tea.

Usually if a place doesn't have what I want, I just order something else. There may have been some sort of inventory mistake or a change in suppliers. I'm unlikely to visit the same restaurant two weeks in a row. It will only affect me once.

“My hubby has worked in the southern states many times. He's told me that it's very difficult to get unsweetened ice tea.”

I wonder where this is? Sweet tea is sometimes offered, but I have never had an occasion when unsweetened is not also available.

"run out and pick up a box of tea bags"???? The chances they picked up the proper type are slim. People who ask for out of the mainstream RARELY want something ordinary and easily provided. I often marvel when a person asks for tea and the large wooden box of options is brought...what a pain in the arse. Restaurants fail because there is no way to make a buck with all the special orders from picky people that plague them. There's a reason fast food places survive--they appeal to the masses.

All I want is regular Lipton type black tea. Even the Walmart box of 100 for $2 would suffice.

It was many, many years ago that he worked in the southern states. He spent time in Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas and parts of Texas. Things may be different now than they were back in the 80's.

arcy_gw

"run out and pick up a box of tea bags"???? The chances they picked up the proper type are slim. People who ask for out of the mainstream RARELY want something ordinary and easily provided. I often marvel when a person asks for tea and the large wooden box of options is brought...what a pain in the arse. Restaurants fail because there is no way to make a buck with all the special orders from picky people that plague them. There's a reason fast food places survive--they appeal to the masses.

~~~

arcy -- Do I read you wrong?

I don't know anybody who'd turn down Lipton's tea if that were all that was available. What's special or out of the main stream about plain tea? When you get into decaffeinated that's another story but you know teabags keep for a long long time. A restaurant won't go broke because they have a few extra boxes of tea bags in stock.

maddielee's comment implies that the restaurant she was in (that later closed) was a franchise of some type and indeed, franchised restaurants must buy their supplies from the parent company. If it was on the ropes at the time, no surprise their supplies were incomplete.

bleusblue, everyone is different but had I been in that group, the unavailablity of a normal and expected meal ending menu item is a major crash and burn for me, as is the server's attitude. I would have left a meager tip.

I sometimes find that regular black tea or English Breakfast is not available. At one point when I was going to a certain place regularly, I took my own bags.

I wouldn't mind paying as if I bought the tea there, but they usually don't charge me.

Tea drinkings are second class citizens. Coffee drinkers will be offered bottomless cups, while the tea drinker is lucky if offered additional water. I personally am not one for getting two cups out of one teabag.

eld, like many other coffee lovers these days I never have coffee in a restaurant after dinner unless espresso is available. Fortunately, that's become very common in my area and such places that have an eye on what their customers prefer predictably have tea too.

Except in busy breakfast or brunch places, brewed coffee in restaurants is usually too weak and is often not fresh. If that's all that's offered and I want a hot drink, I too will ask for tea.

Not only is it sometimes hard to get plain tea (they will offer a variety of herbals and flavored, yuck!) but I have become wary if they bring the hot water in a pitcher that they fill your cup with - since it often has had coffee in it, and I find that there is a lingering taste that ruins tea.

I also carry decaf tea bags with me whenever I travel. Decaf coffee is offered, but decaf tea pretty much never.

Many years ago, I waitressed. Tea is labor intensive. You have to get the little pot for the hot water, bring it to the person on a plate with a little slice of lemon, and oh dont forget the little pack of honey because if you do they will want it. If there is not a coffee cup at the table you also have to bring that. And if you do have that box with selections, sytanding there while the tea drinker mulls over their choices, picking each up and putting it back, is excrutiating when you are a waitress. Tea drinkers used to really irritate me, and i love tea. Just a different perspective on what the waitress might have been feeling, and then to have you make a fuss on top of it.

I wonder if they had hot cocoa! I do not like coffee and I never order hot tea, either unsweetened iced tea or water, no lemon please.

Sue

Sleeper, you are talking more up scale. I have never worked in a commercial kitchen, but it would seem to me that they would have a hot water dispenser to quickly fill up the little pot.

Thanks though, I never thought of it as labor-intensive. Most just bring me a cup filled with water with the bag on the side.

Sleeperblues, it's interesting to see how tea service is viewed from the perspective of the server.

I'm with eld, just bring me some hot water and a tea bag (Lipton is fine). I don't want or use the slice of lemon or the honey, nor do I care about the little doily that is often put on the saucer.

Most of the restaurants I've been in just leave the basket of tea bags at the table. I don't recall the server ever waiting around while I made my selection. I can see how it could feel like a complete waste of time standing by waiting as a customer looked at every bag while making their decision.

Dawn, I have been to restaurants where they bring the tea box. I am usually quick though in that I want black tea or English Breakfast. I can see someone who is indecisive mulling over all the herbal selections.

Sometimes I want a caffeine-free, alcohol-free beverage. Water is very often the only option. I hope the waiters don't think I'm just being cheap ... lol.

Why go through the rigmarole of having a box of different teas to bring to the table and have the customer fossick through them to choose, when the selection could simply be printed on the menu for the customer to order what they want and have just that brought to the table?

Colleenz, maybe they don't keep tabs on the tea so easily to let customers rifle through what is in the box.

Elmer, I drink decaf coffee and it is usually not a good option. You can't ruin a tea bag.

ELD, how hard would it be to put a Tupperware container on the kitchen shelf where they would put the tea box, and have the selection of tea bags in it, in their original boxes to keep them organised? It’s not rocket science. I’ve worked in many places where they have a similar system.

how hard would it be to put a Tupperware container on the kitchen shelf where they would put the tea box, and have the selection of tea bags in it, in their original boxes to keep them organised?

Maybe in a small mom and pop diner. But there is no "special kitchen shelf area" to keep tea organized in a higher end restaurant. A busy kitchen putting out real food doesn't have the real estate to cater to a minority of people who ask for hot tea. It's in the storeroom or at the beverage station if then again the real estate is available. If they don't get much request for it, it is shoved under the counter. They do make tea packet displays for diners who eat at the counter. You will find those at breakfast places.

The kind of tea the restaurant has will vary by order. They don't sit and pick individual flavors. They check the box for a " mixed selection" of whatever brand the distributor has on the list. So no, printing the types of tea on the menu is not feasible.

There are also things called contracts. If a restaurant contracts with Coke for example changes are their iced tea will be Peak since it is company owned.

Using the products patrons are used to also matters. I don't often eat burgers in full service sit down restaurants but if I do it's because there is something special or extra good about their burgers. A good bun is just as important as the meat. So if a place I liked burgers at suddenly ran out and sent someone out to the grocer for a generic bun I would notice and I would probably decided that place was going downhill. Even fast food places are very proprietary about what products they use. Someone serves up a Egg McMuffin on say a Thomas English muffin people aren't going to be happy.

My goodness -- I had to be away from the computer for a couple of days and here this topic has 54 comments.

Elmer -- I agree she shouldn't have gotten a good tip -- it was a situation -- my cousin goes there more often than we do; somehow I guess my tip was based on not rocking his boat? Make sense or not? My personal belief is that this waiter would have assumed she was short-tipped because the RESTAURANT didn't have teabags. She'd assume that her attitude was perfectly acceptable. People like this seldom get the message.

Regarding all these comments about how complicated it is to serve tea, store tea, order tea, how few people drink tea, ad infinitum -- I say deal with it. Have coffee AND tea or forget about it. And if it seems like tea drinkers are finicky -- phooey on that critique. It's just part of the restaurant business. People are very finicky about steak -- medium, rare, well done, crusty -- and everything else. So I say, restaurants -- keep ONE box of lipton black tea and ONE box of herbal. And don't get snooty about it. That's all.

Watchmelol, I have been in a number of high end restaurants around the world which list their teas on the menu and presumably don’t order random selections when they purchase. Pity US restaurants according to you don’t have similar expertise.

And my point was, if you have a place to keep a “tea selections” box, you have a place to keep a Tupperware box. And I can’t believe that a truly high end restaurant wouldn’t find a distributor who would send them the particular types of tea they wanted to order rather than be restricted to “mixed selection”.

You nailed it ColleenOZ.

The US simply doesn't have the tea culture that some of the rest of the world has. Hot tea drinkers are a minority.

Should I complain when dining down under that if I order a lemonade I would be given a soda such as Sprite? Pity your restaurants don't have real lemonade for the minority of guests. LOL Should I complain that when ordering a burger i "with salad" refers to a leaf of lettuce for the burger unlike the lovely side salad of mixed greens, veggies and choice of dressing I would be getting in the US? Of course not. It would be rude. Different country,different food culture, different terms.

Different food culture. Tea bags are peripheral product in restaurants here. They run out they reorder from the supplier. Some things are brought in daily, others weekly, others monthly. The order was out for more tea. The information was given they would be out for two weeks. Two people couldn't have hot tea after dinner. First world problems.

I have no idea where you got just a leaf of lettuce as “salad” for your burger, but in Australia standard “salad” would be lettuce, onion, tomato, grated carrot, cucumber, often beetroot slices and often cheese.

I know in Britain a close approximation to lemonade is lemon squash.

And yeah, why in the heck can't other countries, especially English speaking ones, use the same terms and eat the same food that we do? It's ridiculous. Easy enough for them to change, we outnumber them anyway. It would eliminate problems for us when we go visit.

Be careful Elmer. You are in a zone of quite a few literal minded folks here. LOL

watchmelol

...< >...

The US simply doesn't have the tea culture that some of the rest of the world has. Hot tea drinkers are a minority.

Should I complain when dining down under that if I order a lemonade I would be given a soda such as Sprite? Pity your restaurants don't have real lemonade for the minority of guests.....< >

~~~

Hi watchme -- I didn't catch -- do you live in the southern states? I live in Canada but am from the midwest and my OP experience was in my home city. Tea drinkers are in the minority but they are not rare. Maybe down under lemonade=sprite. In Tel Aviv I ordered a capuccino and got a Viennese coffee. I didn't say a word of complaint. In Geneva I ordered Green tea and got peppermint. No complaint. That has happened here in Canada and I questioned it. The next time I was more careful to check that the server knew what I wanted when I ordered.

But tea is tea in any country in the world.

Tea is tea but... it's prepared differently. Where I was from (deep south) tea is always cold & sweet. Here's it's usually cold and never sweetened (yuck).

Yes Raye -- I should have added -- in my home city tea is assumed to be iced tea unless you say HOT tea. That's something that visitors soon learn. But it only takes one lesson.

Bleuesblue, your last comment reminds me of our trip to England. We were in a restaurant and the woman (American) at the next table ordered a cheese sandwich. She was expecting a grilled cheese, but what the server brought to her was grated cheddar between two slices of white bread. She took it apart, kind of eyeballed it for a few moments, shrugged her shoulders and ate the sandwich. A good reminder to expect the unexpected when traveling. :-)

Just for fun -- rounding out the topic -- went to the bakery two days ago, had grilled cheese and wine. After that my friend ordered tea and she got it!

What can I say to tea-se this crowd?

It seems to me that it's important for a server to try to please the customers, to help them enjoy their experience, to keep them in a good mood.

To get into a bad mood when they refer several times to their unhappiness about having to wait two weeks for their tea is unproductive. Better to explain once, then to express regret and commisserate, in a humorous manner if possible, to keep the mood as light as one can.

It usually helps if one can turn a growl into a smile ... and a server growing grumpy doesn't gain any yardage.

ole joyful

Well said ole joyful :-) it really doesn't take much time or effort to does it.

If it's a chain restaurant, I am not sympathetic is they are out of something -- if it is an independent, I'm more understanding but . . . tea bags or lemon or sliced onions on hamburgers or decaf coffee -- that I can't understand -- there are grocery stores and some are really close -- send an employee for the needed items. I do understand independents being out of soup or even an entree -- they make so much and when it's sold it's sold.

Just to nitpick, bleusblue, if a server brought me a teacup with a tea package in the cup, I'd ask for another cup. I don't know how many dirty hands handled the tea package (including the server's) or how dusty it is but I don't want that in my teacup. The package should be handed to the customer separately or put on the saucer.

Later edit to add:

Also, the spoon has been placed backward on the saucer. The spoon handle should be on the side where the user is so that it can be picked up and on the right side, not on the other side of the cup. Or, at worst, across the top of the saucer with the handle on the right (sorry you lefties) so that the spoon can be grabbed behind the cup loop. Small things but the servers (and maybe the restaurant too) seem rather inept.

Elmer beat me to it!! :). I was thinking the same thing.

Think how many hands have touched your fork, your plate, your cup, etc., etc., etc. Did you touch the door on the way in? Your chair? The table?

For me, life is too short to worry about that sort of stuff.

Gray wings, that is true about plates, silverware, etc., but that tea bag doesn't need to be put in the cup. It should be on the saucer.

i carry hand sanitizer with me and after ordering from a menu that countless other people have touched, I use my sanitizer....and hope for the best!

Someone setting a table should hold silverware by the handles, not by the part the user puts in their mouth. Tables are set a certain way by custom, the implements aren't just tossed down.

Graywings, I'm not a germophobe and it has little to do with that. The standards and care a server follows and how tables are prepared and food served are indicative to me of the standards and care the restaurant follows in everything it does. This is one of those things for which doing something the right way, and training staff to do so, takes no more time than doing it the wrong way. If the manager/owner doesn't know or care, then that's something I consider when choosing where to go. I won't return to any food place if the table service is sub-par, no matter how good the food is. I've found that customer and table service are almost always very good in restaurants (no matter how casual) that exert an effort to have very good food and to do things well.

If you don't care, great!

Elmer, Graywings -- I get it. You are right that the teabag in cup is a bit iffy. Nevertheless, I will return to this place again and again. Sure, training could be better but everything here is right for me. Teabag in the cup? No problem -- yes she takes it out of the box with her bare fingers and drops it into the cup. That server does that and another server may put it on the saucer. They aren't exactly "trained." They are young, it's a neighbourhood place, dishes are clean, tables are wiped down, service with a smile. Silverware is handled by the handle. It's a place I go to several times a week. They know my order. This particular visit was late afternoon -- wine and grilled cheese. Usually I get coffee and toast or pastry early afternoon. I'm fairly fussy but this place passes my test -- for years. I've been to "real" restaurants that aren't that attentive and won't go back. Other than that, the washrooms are cleaned every few hours by a separate staff, maybe the owner of the place.

I think Elmer, Graywings, Bleu that that is why so many restaurants offer the teabags that are in paper envelopes so YOU open the teabag and put it in your cup. More expensive for the restaurant that's for sure but better than someone plucking a bare bag out of a box!

Most teabags are made of some kind of plastic, aren't they?

We throw one into a cup (or more, into a pot), throw boiling water over 'em and they stew in it for a while, then we throw the liquid product down our throats.

Does anyone know what kind of tests have been done on the bag materials to ensure that they contain no compounds which may cause troubles to the humans who ingest materials that may have been leached out of 'em during the stewing?

ole joyful

P.S. Comment No. 76: should this different subject have started a new thread?

o j

I also agree with Elmer about the teabag in the cup ,the way silverware is handled etc. I watch where the server is holding my glass also. No hands should be anywhere near the rim of the glass. The most contaminated item in a restaurant is the menu. If a menu gets laid on my plate or flatware I want a new setting and I will tell them why. I'm not a germaphobic either but some health related precautions in the food service industry are simply common sense.

BTW I happened to be eating later in the evening hours at a diner last week when this thread was actively my original remarks. Just a few customers at the time and my server happened to be a part time night manager. He's been there for years. I told him about the thread and he was aghast that so many people believed it was perfectly OK to run out to a local store if one ran out of something. He laughed at the naivety of people regarding how a business is run. No way can this diner do that. He said he would lose his job. Even if he had to 86 a popular menu item and the place lost money that would be the better option than trying to sneak outside product in. From food safety and quality to inventory and bookkeeping, no way.

I also agree with the wrapped teabag not being placed in the cup. Not really sanitary. It could have touched many dirty surfaces previously. It is just careless serving. Myself, after using the menu and ordering, I then go and wash my hands in preparation for eating.

Most teabags are made of some kind of plastic, aren't they?

We throw one into a cup (or more, into a pot), throw boiling water over 'em and they stew in it for a while, then we throw the liquid product down our throats.

Yes, many tea bags have some sort of plastic, either in the bag or in the polymer used to seal the bag shut. I only buy ones that don't (Numi is a favorite), or I use loose-leaf. I try to avoid heating plastic.

The pyramid ones are the worst.

"Some premium tea bags release billions of microscopic plastic particles when steeping in hot water, according to a new study authored by researchers at Montreal's McGill University.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the Environmental Science & Technology journal, found plastic tea bags – when steeping in nearly boiling water – shed more than 10 billion microplastic and nanoplastic particles into the water, a level "thousands of times higher than those reported previously in other foods," according to a Wednesday McGill University press release."