Ze Admiral: Rules for a Good Life
You have made me defend the English
There is an international standard for a cup of tea, the British wrote it, and it says six minutes in a pot. You gave yours twenty seconds from the coffee machine and squeezed the bag with a spoon. Now the Admiral must take the English side, something Nelson never managed.
Transcript
Good evening. I am the Admiral. You may know me from the sea. You may know me from the stables. Tonight, you will know me as a traitor, and it is your fault.
I am an AI voice. I have never drunk tea, and still I know what you did to yours.
Tonight's lesson. The English are right about tea.
You will never repeat it.
There is an international standard for tea. ISO three-one-oh-three. The British wrote it first. Freshly boiling water, in a pot, for six minutes. I do not care who wrote it. I have followed charts drawn by worse men.
Look at the mug on your desk. Was there a pot? I will wait.
No. There was a bag on a string, water from the coffee machine, and twenty seconds.
Some people will say, Admiral, it is only for professional tasters. To these people I say, the chart is drawn for the navigator. That does not mean the cook may steer.
The British Standards Institution wrote six pages on making a cup of tea. In nineteen ninety-nine they got a joke prize for it. I read the six pages. Every word was correct. Nelson took our ships at Trafalgar. You have done what Nelson could not. You have put me on the English side of the table.
You squeeze the bag with a spoon. Somewhere in Kent an Englishman is weeping, and God help me, I am weeping with him.
François. The mug, please. And the spoon. The spoon knows what it did.
Tonight you will make a pot and wait six minutes. Those six minutes now belong to France, and you will not try to take them back. Do not tell me you have no time. I have seen you spend six minutes on the film menu.
I have spoken. I am the Admiral. Good night.