Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

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My father is from yorkshire and my mom is from texas. I've lived up and down the UK for 20 years, been all over europe and asia. One thing I've learned is that basically, america is not unique for this. The paradigm you are describing is between rural and metropolitan.

Metropolitan londoners move with culture at ease, and so do parisians, berliners, etc. But ask the opinion of a brit in benidorm and you will get similar confusion on local customs, a similar feeling that "the UK is the only place that exists, the rest of the world is a holiday spot". The provincial sort, people who live in small town or city, people who are not well travelled; their entire world view can be defined within a country.

And also, for the record, the school uniforms do still baffle me a bit. I tend to play UK apologist in the US and US apologist in the UK. So for full balance, the lack of electric kettles in the US also baffles me. Trust me, Brits who visit me in the US are just as vocal about their bafflement with the local customs as the inverse...

The US has electric kettles and I think they’re becoming more popular, they’re just a lot less convenient than in the UK because boiling water with 110v is slower.

It's more their absolute ubiquity in the UK. You can depend on every home having one, it's a fixture.

Yeah, but I bet you don't have iced tea makers there. ;-)

Fun fact: growing up in Texas, I'd never seen hot tea until my mid-teens, despite drinking iced tea every day. That's why Brits have electric kettles everywhere. We call them hot-pots and they were at least common for students to have, mainly for making instant noodles.

Also funny: the normal sized tea bag I saw growing up was gallon sized.

Even now, as an adult living in Europe that does have an electric kettle, I don't use it much, and I'm not sure it's worth the counter space. They don't heat water much faster than the stove or microwave, and unless you're making loads of tea, as British folks are wont to do, it's not obvious why you'd need one. I bought one when I was experimenting with an Aeropress, but now have an espresso machine.

My Texan mom was visiting me in London and we went to a bit of an upscale café. My mom tried to order an iced tea, the server politely informed her that they did not serve iced tea. She then proceeded to say "Oh darlin', in that case I'll have a glass of ice and a cup of tea."

I ended up with my first hot tea ever by ordering tea in Mexico, as I would have in Texas. I was very confused when I got a mug of water and a tea bag. I was 15-ish. I'd literally never heard of anyone drinking tea hot. (This was in the mid-90s, so reading stuff on the internet wasn't much of a thing.)

Europeans, on the other hand, seem to be baffled by the concept that iced tea is just, you know, cold black tea, not a soft drink you buy at the store. I've seriously had people ask me how to make it.

> I got a mug of water and a tea bag.

This drives me spare when visiting the US!

Pour the boiling water (> 90 C) onto the bloody tea! Preferably loose tea in a teapot, but a bag in a mug will do.

Why in gods name I'm brought a mug of lukewarm water with sperate teabag, even in a five-star hotel, and expected to get a decent brew of strong black tea is beyond the wit of my understanding..... And don't get me started on having to flag down a waiter to ask for a teaspoon and milk jug every-sodding-time!

(At this point, somebody from the USA will invariably post claiming to be a tea connoisseur, and tediously explain why lukewarm brews are superior and the proper Indian/Chinese/Japanese/Antarctic way of doing things and that British drink shite tea. My response to this is "bugger off").

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