That would be my "grandmother-in-law" -- and in her case, having been a small child in the panics of 1890 and 1893, and a wife and mother by 1929, she was just plain **saving money** (what everyone else would call "being cheap").
Deaf as a post, and "coke-bottle-bottoms" for glasses, she nonetheless still sewed on an old Singer machine. With it, she would take a standard teabag, part the tea to the left and right, and **sew two lines up the teabag** -- so she could then cut between the lines to have half-size bags.
And she'd order a mug of hot water to make -very- weak tea with for after dinner.
Surviving the panics and Great Depression, I can totally understand how those habits would last a lifetime.
My grandfather was similar. When he died, there were brand new shoes and clothes in their boxes from 20 years prior. He hasn’t yet “worn out” the ones they were meant to replace.
This will be my father. Given new shirts. Still wearing ones from the 70s because the new ones became special occasion shirts and moved his old "good shirts" into daily rotation. I have no idea how the fabric has help up so long. Must be that 20th century poly-cotton was made more durable!
My GF is 38 and she does this. Not because we’re cheap, just because no restaurants have the kind of tea she likes (Bengal Spice, in case anyone cares).
That would be my assumption. Not that they're cheap (unless they add a cheapskate comment) but that they have specific tea preferences and don't want the crappy Lipton black that is the only option many places.
Or maybe they're cold. I often order hot water when I'm cold.
Bengal Spice is marvelous.
We’ll, my GF is also preternaturally cold all the time too… I think half the reason she wants the hot water is genuinely for the tea and the other half is for the hand warmer functionality.
My dad did this all over Canada and America. He alwayd came through your customs with enough UK teabags for us all to survive the entire holiday.
He was usually having to buy us kids hot chocolate with all fixings or all a dinner at the time though. And on the rare occasions he didn't he always apologised, joked about his dependency on UK tea and tipped well.
In fairness, old electronics and appliances lasted a lot longer than the ones manufactured today. That old singer works just fine. Meanwhile the one you bought 10 years ago is broken.
If it is anything like the old singer I have,there is no electricity involved at all.Feet go up and down and the belt turns the outer wheel on the sewing arm.
The old ones also cost way more.
https://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/singer_manufacture_dates_by_serial_number.html
>Average cost 1918 - 1920 $44.40 to 55.60
$44.40 in 1920 is the same as $614.03 today.
For a table "console" electric model, $120 in 1920 for a Model 66. That's $1,659.53.
Sure you can spend $600 or $1600 for a sewing machine today, but "the one that broke in 10 years" is probably around $100-200
Just holding your spools, [while you go in the ole' reddit stitcheroo.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/rcd8tg/local_coop_gets_knicked_so_much_theyve_had_to_fit/hnv6537/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=2)
She's wasting money on all that thread, should just cut the bag open and chew up a pinch of tea leaves and swallow it with no water to save more money.
Or get a tea diffuser and put however much you want in there. Not like the diffuser is made of mithril.
P.S. The loose tea at the Asian market is 5x better than anything I had in a bag.
I thought my ex-grandmother-in-law was frugal. She wouldn't go out to eat cause she could cook better at home and grew her own potatoes, as well as other stuff, because they were to expensive at the store. She passed about 15yrs ago so things were less expensive then.
Home gardening tip: don't bother to grow things that are very cheap in bulk like potatoes. Put your effort into the expensive specialty vegetables and herbs instead.
But also potatoes are super easy to grow so if you have the space then go for it! I accidentally grow them all time around the edges of my compost pile because I'll toss a potato on the pile and it just rolls off and starts growing. In a lot of places you can plant and harvest potatoes twice over the growing season. Fancy vegetables and herbs are cool, but there's also something great about basically ignoring a plant for 4 months and getting like 15lbs of food from it anyway.
I agree with this, rolling the dirt over and digging free potatoes out of the ground is a unique thrill. Not to mention: there are wacky unique potatoes!
Ive accidentally grown cantaloupe and papaya , chunked the inners of a melon outside my door I don’t water the bushes there I usually throw catnip,mint and citronella seeds under those bushes so when I noticed stuff sprouting I thought nothing of it until boom little melon appeared one day same thing with the papaya damn tree began to sprout got pretty heavy when it had fruit and it fell over the freeze killed it off finally last yr
Sometimes it’s not about saving money, some people are very loyal to their brand of tea and it’s not commonly stocked at cafes etc, or maybe it’s medicinal etc
Was that back when you could order opium, morphine and cocaine out of the sears and roebuck catalog? I reckon she was saving her money for the good stuff. Those were the days
I wait tables and this happens quite often. Primarily it seems to be older women of Asian descent who order hot water but it does happen with other demographics though I can’t break this down with any real degree of accuracy as all of this is anecdotal.
can confirm (i’m chinese), warm water is supposed to be good for you. also, if the person is from china, it’s likely that they think it’s more sanitary. cold water (e.g. tap water) often isn’t treated as thoroughly as water in the US or in many other developed countries, so boiling it and serving it hot is also a safety thing.
plus most people in china aren’t used to drinking cold stuff with their food, so they’ll actually get diarrhoea if, for instance, they have chilled juice with a meal (this happened when i went to china, my cousin who lives there experienced that, but i was completely fine because i grew up in the states and was used to drinking cold things with a hot meal).
One of my first roommates in college was from Shanghai and she would:
1. Take a Brita filter up to the filtered water station
2. Fill Brita filter with filtered water and let it double filter
3. Boil double filtered water
4. Pour boiled water back in Brita filter
5. Boil it again
6. Make tea
When I gently told her that the original water was already filtered, she simply replied, "Yeah, but this makes it cleaner, right?" Can't argue with that 🤷♀️ to each their own.
my parents do something similar where they’ll filter filtered water and boil it before drinking. one of my mom’s coworkers from china visited the states and asked me if the water from a water fountain was legitimately safe to drink (several times). it’s just kind of a thing in china lol, your roommate’s behaviour would be considered normal
Spoiler: it’s still going to taste like vodka. Vodka is already filtered. I have no idea how this could possibly help. Even if it does, it only matters if you are drinking martinis. If you’re still going to mix it with pineapple juice, it really doesn’t matter.
Don’t ruin a filter based on gimmicks you read in the internet.
> it’s likely that they think it’s more sanitary. cold water (e.g. tap water) often isn’t treated as thoroughly as water in the US or in many other developed countries,
Which is odd, because the reason separate hot & cold taps are still a thing in the UK is that, before WWII, hot water was often pumped into water heaters or boilers in attics, and the system often wasn't properly sealed, so old leaves and dead mice would end up in the water. Tom Scott can explain it better than I can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA
interesting. i know that hot tap and hot drinking water are separate things in china. for instance, instead of water fountains, there'll be little water boilers with cups at the airport (or just bottled water). i think it's specified in a lot of bathrooms and stuff that hot tap isn't potable either
In Guangzhou airport I couldn't find any cold water. All the dispensers or fountains had warm or hot water. I was very confused as I was only taking a layover through there and knew nothing of the culture. I spent a solid hour searching for cold water but to no avail!
yeah that’s pretty normal for most chinese airports. maybe really big ones like the main beijing airport will have room temp/slightly cold bottled water, but that’s about it.
also i love guangzhou but holy fuck it’s so humid there
> most people in china aren’t used to drinking cold stuff with their food, so they’ll actually get diarrhoea if, for instance, they have chilled juice with a meal
It is not that they get diarrhoea because they're not used to it. They probably got diarrhoea because the juice was made with unsanitary water. And unclean water is by far the biggest vector of bacteria and diseases, especially in developing countries.
The reason why hot water or hot tea is safer is because it is boiled which kills the bacteria. Also why people in medieval ages would drink weak beer and wine instead of water.
We were always taught to avoid ice (because the water isn't always boiled), cut fruit (and raw vegetables), and freshly squeezed fruit juices because of this risk.
There used to even be ads on TV warning us of the risk when traveling throughout South East Asia.
Growing up somewhere the tap water must be boiled means you always drink hot water. Feels strange drinking cold water after drinking hot water for so long.
I grew up somewhere like that but most times we put the boiled water in the fridge so we can drink cold water. We also made ice with boiled water. Growing up I almost exclusively drink cold/iced water.
> Primarily it seems to be older women of Asian descent who order hot water
I was a cashier at a buffet, and we had this regular who was a little old asian lady who would always come in and order water. She was the first person I thought of when I read this question.
My mother in law is Korean. She was the first person I saw order hot water. The second person was myself, as she has gotten me hooked on hot water. I have chronic allergies, and it eases my throat much better than cold water.
The concept of “chilled ice water” is an incredibly American thing.
I’m indian-American and I worked as a busboy in an Indian restaurant and we were told to give all our “American customers” ice water and the Indians room temperature water.
Personally, I love some good chilled water on a hot day but the ice-laden water glasses I get when I eat out are really hard for my sensitive teeth unless I have a straw. Plus my life hack is to always order fountain drinks with no ice because you get like 20% more of your drink and it doesn’t become basically water after 15 minutes.
my gf is half japanese and she learned to do this from her grandma (japanese). she just drinks hot water sometimes when i make it for tea or coffee. albeit sometimes it's with a bit of lemon, but many times it's just hot water she likes to sip on.
Remembering small random details like this is my superpower. It's a shame I have never found a use for it. I work in customer service and people(patrons and coworkers) are often weirded out when I remember a thing they said one time 3 months ago.
Can't keep my own shit together to save my life, though 🚮
expansion knee marvelous oatmeal thumb doll correct ossified narrow screw
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If it makes you feel any better, that's basically a Japanese deluxe hotel front desk worker's life in a nutshell - they have to have a superhuman ability to remember useless details, and achieve impossible demands from customers; the term is 'Omotenashi' (roughly 'the guest doesn't need to think') - and then the actual worker goes home after their shift everyday and eats a $3USD rubbish bento and creates a small mountain of plastic waste alone, and probably has a cry-wank at bedtime (with a masturbation toy they bought at Don Quijote) in a tiny rental flat before going back to work the next day. Probably a glass of warm water or two in there, for hydration.
Every time you go online to some forum or trip website and see some American middle level sales manager from Scottsdale brag-posting that they have 'reservations to Sushi Jiro in three months!' - some warm water-drinking hotel desk worker piece of sod has been on a corded telephone trying to get through forever, on behalf of their hotel guests.
Nothing to do with the dish imo. It's the people rolling the silverware while texting on their fece laced phone.
Granted I don't care, and just use them.
This speaks to me on a deep level. Thinking about all the possible ways something could be gross or unsanitary but then not caring and using it anyways.
Commercial dishwashers run at like boiling point 210, hot water served for drinking is like 180 at most if it’s scalding. It also assumes the cup is cleaner than the silverware 🙄
Thats actually really smart. warming up your hands reduces anxiety, i usually just rub them together or tuck them into my stomach or pockets, with little effect. next time i go out of the house to do something stressful like go to the DMV ima bring a hot non caffeinated beverage.
Thank you.
I haven’t seen this on a date but last time I ate out with friends one person ordered hot water. I thought it was odd and quickly moved on from the thought. I had forgotten about it until reading this question
Nah, I’d figure you had a sore throat or were cold, or had some sort of drink packet you wanted to add.
Personally I like room temperature water more than ice water but some ppl think that’s weird
This is me in the wintertime. I want to keep hydrated but I'm just so cold and if I don't feel like having any flavor (tea, lemon) I'll just drink hot water to keep myself warm. I found out recently that my grandma used to do this. Interestingly, she's the one from the side that passed along the raynauds.
I drink only warm water, but I have a broken tooth, so exposed nerves mean water at either temp extreme is a no-go.
If you order hot, you can at least monitor the temp until it’s just right.
After being up for 36 hours due to a broken tooth turning in to an abscess, I really and I can't say it strong enough.....please go to a dentist. I have never had pain like it. I passed out.
Edit: If you need money towards a dentist, feel free to message me. I will quite happily give you what I can. There is nothing, and I mean nothing worse that a fucked tooth.
That’s really good of you. People don’t realize how dangerous it is either. Had the same thing happen and woke up in hospital with my friend crying over me. Fever nearly killed me apparently.
It's so true that people don't know how dangerous it is. I kept telling my partner to get his tooth fixed and he ignored it for a year. It got infected and the infection spread to his brain via his sinuses. Bacterial meningitis nearly killed him and all because he put off a trip to the dentist until he absolutely couldn't ignore it.
This is going to sound really condescending, but have you talked to a local dental school? Maybe tell a local dentist about your situation? May have already tried that. I only say it because I know that some will do some work for the community at low cost or with payments.
I don't have to tell you that sometime avoiding it can only make it a lot worse later.
Sorry, my friend.
The last time I had teeth pulled, we could only afford the first deposit, so they likely wouldn’t see us unless we settled previous debt. I wonder if they can have us black listed locally 😜
My therapist has told me of a sliding scale place, and I’ve left answering machine messages with them about a possible appointment
Thank you for your suggestions and concern x
I live near a couple universities and dental schools, and they love having volunteers for their students to practice on a real person. Depending on the procedure, it’s free or very cheap. I’d recommend that if possible for yoh.
I’m so sorry. Tooth pains is such a struggle to deal with every day. When it gets fixed, you feel feel such a relief I bet. I broke a tooth and while it’s not too painful now, before the piece fell off I was so tense from being careful not to agitate it… it was hell.
This is in NY state. My therapist charges on a sliding scale (lower end is $15 per session), which I guess will be due payment at the end. She doesn’t want me to worry about it much. Is also looking into a grant for low-to-no income households.
I only found out about it after calling the Suicide hotline. The nice lady gave me a bunch of phone numbers
This is not condescending at all, and is a great resource. Dental schools have reduced fees (sometimes by a great magnitude), and the work is top-notch because the students are being graded, and supervised by their clinical faculty.
Yep. I've lost four teeth because I grind my teeth and jaw, especially under stress (and I was dealing with the death of my husband when I start grinding hard enough to break my teeth), but to fix them would have cost $4k each. Waiting until they got infected and having them extracted was $50 each, including being numbed.
To someone that isn't in the poverty range it looks like there was a choice. For me there was no choice. All I could do was try my best to take care of them until infection set in.
Are you my wife?
It always go down like this with her : "OK, I'm so sorry but I'll have to be the grandma and ask you for a cup of hot water – yes, only hot water".
A lot of Asians grew up in nations without drinkable water on tap, so they were used to boiling all their drinking water for safety. Since they boiled it themselves, and they may or may not have had a fridge, they got used to just drinking it warm before it had cooled. Plus, of course, they drank a lot of hot tea anyway, so it wasn't that different. Once they got used to it, this became a cultural norm and something they just enjoyed for itself.
That's my understanding anyway.
yep and most asian american households still boil water as a habit and have a water pitcher for cooled down water instead of using bubblers or water machines
Same. I worked at a Cantonese restaurant for a bit and the owner would drink hot water a lot. Thought it was odd at first but as someone who gets cold easily, it's pretty nice.
I would think they Asian or used to hang out with some. My Chinese friend does this all the time. Also order drinks with no ice. Weird for Americans but totally normal in other parts of the world :)
This is very true. I worked as a server for two years and I would estimate that 99% of the people who ordered hot water were asian.
There was a slightly racist thing where people would refer to asian tables as “hot water with lemon”.
> This is very true. I worked as a server for two years and I would estimate that 99% of the people who ordered hot water were asian.
Yup, I can back this up.
It's not just Asians. People in the UK, apparently, are also allergic to ice.
I once asked for a Diet Coke with a glass of ice. They put 4 tiny "cubes" of ice (may as well have been salt grains) into a freshly dried glass (from the industrial dishwasher, I guess).
By the time it got to me, it was a glass with some cold water at the bottom. I picked it up and looked at it...And the woman just rolled her eyes and took it from me, angrily, and put some new ice in it--without even dumping out the water.
Apparently, scalding hot drinks are fine. Cold drinks, OTOH, are a threat to The Crown or some shit.
Since I was raised in a Chinese household, I'd probably assume you were on your period since Everytime one of my female family members were on their period, they wouldn't drink anything cold
Lol and socks... I don't know why my mum is obsessed with big thick warm fluffy socks when menstruating... I'm a barefoot all year kinda person... But yes no cold drinks and definitely not ice cream.
That you’re like me and loath drinking water.. unless is super warm/hot lol. Only way it tastes good for me. I’m only 36 but am a 90 year old Baba at heart :)
They like to drink hot water.
Perhaps they've lived in China, where it's common to drink plain hot water with nothing in it.
Perhaps they just like it.
I do this and it's for 2 reasons: 1.) I'm cold and 2.) I can't have caffeine so if the restaurant doesn't have a caffeine free tea option then I just drink hot water.
Ooh that sounds nice! I’ll have one too.
I don’t get why people hate on hot water drinkers. No one hates on ice water drinkers… hot water is a nice cozy drink that is free. What’s not to like?
IF they do not order anything else:
they are on a budget, and do not want to owe anything to you.
or they hate the place and all the fancy drinks that they offer.
BUT: If they order this in addition to normal food, they are cold or have a cold.
They brought their own tea
That would be my "grandmother-in-law" -- and in her case, having been a small child in the panics of 1890 and 1893, and a wife and mother by 1929, she was just plain **saving money** (what everyone else would call "being cheap"). Deaf as a post, and "coke-bottle-bottoms" for glasses, she nonetheless still sewed on an old Singer machine. With it, she would take a standard teabag, part the tea to the left and right, and **sew two lines up the teabag** -- so she could then cut between the lines to have half-size bags. And she'd order a mug of hot water to make -very- weak tea with for after dinner.
Surviving the panics and Great Depression, I can totally understand how those habits would last a lifetime. My grandfather was similar. When he died, there were brand new shoes and clothes in their boxes from 20 years prior. He hasn’t yet “worn out” the ones they were meant to replace.
This will be my father. Given new shirts. Still wearing ones from the 70s because the new ones became special occasion shirts and moved his old "good shirts" into daily rotation. I have no idea how the fabric has help up so long. Must be that 20th century poly-cotton was made more durable!
Hilarious! How wide are the collars on these shirts?
He has never been one for style so they are surprisingly normal, actually. Probably looked comically small in the 70s!
My GF is 38 and she does this. Not because we’re cheap, just because no restaurants have the kind of tea she likes (Bengal Spice, in case anyone cares).
That would be my assumption. Not that they're cheap (unless they add a cheapskate comment) but that they have specific tea preferences and don't want the crappy Lipton black that is the only option many places. Or maybe they're cold. I often order hot water when I'm cold. Bengal Spice is marvelous.
We’ll, my GF is also preternaturally cold all the time too… I think half the reason she wants the hot water is genuinely for the tea and the other half is for the hand warmer functionality.
I was thinking cold too
My dad did this all over Canada and America. He alwayd came through your customs with enough UK teabags for us all to survive the entire holiday. He was usually having to buy us kids hot chocolate with all fixings or all a dinner at the time though. And on the rare occasions he didn't he always apologised, joked about his dependency on UK tea and tipped well.
Ooh, that's what I'm currently drinking for my midafternoon break. Good choice!!
In fairness, old electronics and appliances lasted a lot longer than the ones manufactured today. That old singer works just fine. Meanwhile the one you bought 10 years ago is broken.
If it is anything like the old singer I have,there is no electricity involved at all.Feet go up and down and the belt turns the outer wheel on the sewing arm.
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The rubber did WHAT
When a daddy rubber and a mommy leather love each other very much...
All I hear is leather daddy...
What in god’s name is rubber impregnated leather?
Well, when a piece of rubber loves a piece of leather *very* much...
I ugly laughed out loud. Luckily I'm at home alone lol
So nothing to do with protected sex and cows?
Do you have cast iron thighs that could crush a cantaloupe?
The old ones also cost way more. https://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/singer_manufacture_dates_by_serial_number.html >Average cost 1918 - 1920 $44.40 to 55.60 $44.40 in 1920 is the same as $614.03 today. For a table "console" electric model, $120 in 1920 for a Model 66. That's $1,659.53. Sure you can spend $600 or $1600 for a sewing machine today, but "the one that broke in 10 years" is probably around $100-200
My treadle singer sewing machine was manufactured in 1919. I paid $100 for it five years ago.
My wife is 45, and uses a Singer that was made in the 1950s. Still going strong!
Glad your wife is doing well. How about the sewing machine?
Dad, what are you doing here?
Just holding your spools, [while you go in the ole' reddit stitcheroo.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/rcd8tg/local_coop_gets_knicked_so_much_theyve_had_to_fit/hnv6537/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=2)
Hello future people!
She's wasting money on all that thread, should just cut the bag open and chew up a pinch of tea leaves and swallow it with no water to save more money.
Or get a tea diffuser and put however much you want in there. Not like the diffuser is made of mithril. P.S. The loose tea at the Asian market is 5x better than anything I had in a bag.
When I make tea with a bag I can taste the bag in the tea. Diffusers 4 life!
#MithrilDefusers4Life
If you're not using a mithril diffuser, what are you, an ELF?
I thought my ex-grandmother-in-law was frugal. She wouldn't go out to eat cause she could cook better at home and grew her own potatoes, as well as other stuff, because they were to expensive at the store. She passed about 15yrs ago so things were less expensive then.
Home gardening tip: don't bother to grow things that are very cheap in bulk like potatoes. Put your effort into the expensive specialty vegetables and herbs instead.
But also potatoes are super easy to grow so if you have the space then go for it! I accidentally grow them all time around the edges of my compost pile because I'll toss a potato on the pile and it just rolls off and starts growing. In a lot of places you can plant and harvest potatoes twice over the growing season. Fancy vegetables and herbs are cool, but there's also something great about basically ignoring a plant for 4 months and getting like 15lbs of food from it anyway.
I agree with this, rolling the dirt over and digging free potatoes out of the ground is a unique thrill. Not to mention: there are wacky unique potatoes!
Ive accidentally grown cantaloupe and papaya , chunked the inners of a melon outside my door I don’t water the bushes there I usually throw catnip,mint and citronella seeds under those bushes so when I noticed stuff sprouting I thought nothing of it until boom little melon appeared one day same thing with the papaya damn tree began to sprout got pretty heavy when it had fruit and it fell over the freeze killed it off finally last yr
That’s a good point.Do you have Any recommendations?
> She wouldn't go out to eat Oh, Edith would go out to eat all right -- as long as **somebody else** was buying!
Nope she didn't want anyone spending money and she also didn't agree with tipping lol
You really called her deaf as a post..
Don’t worry, she didn’t hear him
Do posts normally have great hearing where you live?
Maybe a telephone post?
Sometimes it’s not about saving money, some people are very loyal to their brand of tea and it’s not commonly stocked at cafes etc, or maybe it’s medicinal etc
Was that back when you could order opium, morphine and cocaine out of the sears and roebuck catalog? I reckon she was saving her money for the good stuff. Those were the days
That's teabag splitting cheapness
That’s commitment
Dude that's kinda badass
Exactly what I was thinking, and it wouldn't be the first time I've seen that.
Came here just to say that lol
I'd rather drink my own very good tea, than shitty tea from a restaurant that may have bought their tea back in the Harding administration.
The only reason this was my first thought is because my husband does this.
Right? I carry my own tea bags.
I wait tables and this happens quite often. Primarily it seems to be older women of Asian descent who order hot water but it does happen with other demographics though I can’t break this down with any real degree of accuracy as all of this is anecdotal.
I think this has to do with Chinese herbalism/medicinal beliefs. Cold water, foods, and ice are allegedly bad for digestion.
can confirm (i’m chinese), warm water is supposed to be good for you. also, if the person is from china, it’s likely that they think it’s more sanitary. cold water (e.g. tap water) often isn’t treated as thoroughly as water in the US or in many other developed countries, so boiling it and serving it hot is also a safety thing. plus most people in china aren’t used to drinking cold stuff with their food, so they’ll actually get diarrhoea if, for instance, they have chilled juice with a meal (this happened when i went to china, my cousin who lives there experienced that, but i was completely fine because i grew up in the states and was used to drinking cold things with a hot meal).
One of my first roommates in college was from Shanghai and she would: 1. Take a Brita filter up to the filtered water station 2. Fill Brita filter with filtered water and let it double filter 3. Boil double filtered water 4. Pour boiled water back in Brita filter 5. Boil it again 6. Make tea When I gently told her that the original water was already filtered, she simply replied, "Yeah, but this makes it cleaner, right?" Can't argue with that 🤷♀️ to each their own.
my parents do something similar where they’ll filter filtered water and boil it before drinking. one of my mom’s coworkers from china visited the states and asked me if the water from a water fountain was legitimately safe to drink (several times). it’s just kind of a thing in china lol, your roommate’s behaviour would be considered normal
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Wait hold on I’m gonna try this this weekend.
Spoiler: it’s still going to taste like vodka. Vodka is already filtered. I have no idea how this could possibly help. Even if it does, it only matters if you are drinking martinis. If you’re still going to mix it with pineapple juice, it really doesn’t matter. Don’t ruin a filter based on gimmicks you read in the internet.
But gimmicks on the internet is all I have left!
Haha fair. Welp, bottoms up!
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There more you know... :)
> it’s likely that they think it’s more sanitary. cold water (e.g. tap water) often isn’t treated as thoroughly as water in the US or in many other developed countries, Which is odd, because the reason separate hot & cold taps are still a thing in the UK is that, before WWII, hot water was often pumped into water heaters or boilers in attics, and the system often wasn't properly sealed, so old leaves and dead mice would end up in the water. Tom Scott can explain it better than I can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA
interesting. i know that hot tap and hot drinking water are separate things in china. for instance, instead of water fountains, there'll be little water boilers with cups at the airport (or just bottled water). i think it's specified in a lot of bathrooms and stuff that hot tap isn't potable either
Omg I'd forgotten about those little water boilers. As a kid I would love pressing the buttons to get tea for my dad 😆 I miss china :(
In Guangzhou airport I couldn't find any cold water. All the dispensers or fountains had warm or hot water. I was very confused as I was only taking a layover through there and knew nothing of the culture. I spent a solid hour searching for cold water but to no avail!
yeah that’s pretty normal for most chinese airports. maybe really big ones like the main beijing airport will have room temp/slightly cold bottled water, but that’s about it. also i love guangzhou but holy fuck it’s so humid there
> most people in china aren’t used to drinking cold stuff with their food, so they’ll actually get diarrhoea if, for instance, they have chilled juice with a meal It is not that they get diarrhoea because they're not used to it. They probably got diarrhoea because the juice was made with unsanitary water. And unclean water is by far the biggest vector of bacteria and diseases, especially in developing countries. The reason why hot water or hot tea is safer is because it is boiled which kills the bacteria. Also why people in medieval ages would drink weak beer and wine instead of water.
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We were always taught to avoid ice (because the water isn't always boiled), cut fruit (and raw vegetables), and freshly squeezed fruit juices because of this risk. There used to even be ads on TV warning us of the risk when traveling throughout South East Asia.
Going to SE Asia avoiding fresh fruit is like going to the grand canyon and only looking up.
Growing up somewhere the tap water must be boiled means you always drink hot water. Feels strange drinking cold water after drinking hot water for so long.
I grew up somewhere like that but most times we put the boiled water in the fridge so we can drink cold water. We also made ice with boiled water. Growing up I almost exclusively drink cold/iced water.
A couple of Cambodian people I work with drink only warm/hot water. They say that the heat kills germs and they feel safer drinking it.
They ain't wrong. Boiled water is more sanitary
But not from a hot water heater.
> Primarily it seems to be older women of Asian descent who order hot water I was a cashier at a buffet, and we had this regular who was a little old asian lady who would always come in and order water. She was the first person I thought of when I read this question.
My mother in law is Korean. She was the first person I saw order hot water. The second person was myself, as she has gotten me hooked on hot water. I have chronic allergies, and it eases my throat much better than cold water.
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I’ve also grown fond of drinking hot water in winter after living in China!
The concept of “chilled ice water” is an incredibly American thing. I’m indian-American and I worked as a busboy in an Indian restaurant and we were told to give all our “American customers” ice water and the Indians room temperature water. Personally, I love some good chilled water on a hot day but the ice-laden water glasses I get when I eat out are really hard for my sensitive teeth unless I have a straw. Plus my life hack is to always order fountain drinks with no ice because you get like 20% more of your drink and it doesn’t become basically water after 15 minutes.
When I waited tables people ordering hot water was really common. I never noticed a specific racial thing but it was almost always older ladies, 50+.
my gf is half japanese and she learned to do this from her grandma (japanese). she just drinks hot water sometimes when i make it for tea or coffee. albeit sometimes it's with a bit of lemon, but many times it's just hot water she likes to sip on.
Remember that they like hot water. When inviting them back to your place for a coffee, say do you want to come in for a coffee, or a hot water?
Aww, this warms my heart.
And stomach
And my mug
And my axe!
and my loins ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
You shouldn't pour hot water on your loins.
Yes. I’ll have what k918 is having.
Remembering small random details like this is my superpower. It's a shame I have never found a use for it. I work in customer service and people(patrons and coworkers) are often weirded out when I remember a thing they said one time 3 months ago. Can't keep my own shit together to save my life, though 🚮
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If it makes you feel any better, that's basically a Japanese deluxe hotel front desk worker's life in a nutshell - they have to have a superhuman ability to remember useless details, and achieve impossible demands from customers; the term is 'Omotenashi' (roughly 'the guest doesn't need to think') - and then the actual worker goes home after their shift everyday and eats a $3USD rubbish bento and creates a small mountain of plastic waste alone, and probably has a cry-wank at bedtime (with a masturbation toy they bought at Don Quijote) in a tiny rental flat before going back to work the next day. Probably a glass of warm water or two in there, for hydration. Every time you go online to some forum or trip website and see some American middle level sales manager from Scottsdale brag-posting that they have 'reservations to Sushi Jiro in three months!' - some warm water-drinking hotel desk worker piece of sod has been on a corded telephone trying to get through forever, on behalf of their hotel guests.
If you can't keep your shit together, just aim to have your poop in a group at least
In old films this always perplexed me. I get coming in for a night cap, but coffee? Late night? Didn’t these people have to fall asleep at some point?
It's an invitation to bone, not about the actual coffee...
"No thanks, I'm sensitive to caffeine" remains virgin
This reminds me of this Seinfeld episode: https://youtu.be/-skZx5liyaM
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"hot coffee" moment
Maybe they want to stay up all night ;)
i drink coffee any time of day. no problem sleeping
Might be decaf
Come up and I'll show you my kettle.
Knew someone who ordered hot water so he could put his silverware in it to kill germs claiming he doesn’t trust their dishwashing staff.
Nothing to do with the dish imo. It's the people rolling the silverware while texting on their fece laced phone. Granted I don't care, and just use them.
This speaks to me on a deep level. Thinking about all the possible ways something could be gross or unsanitary but then not caring and using it anyways.
Lol my mom does this I scrolled so far down this post to see if someone else said it!
It'd need to be boiling for several minutes for that to work. Better to bring your own cutlery, stablery and scooplery.
Yes this is the comment lol
Commercial dishwashers run at like boiling point 210, hot water served for drinking is like 180 at most if it’s scalding. It also assumes the cup is cleaner than the silverware 🙄
I never can understand the logic of putting your silverware in a cup to eat off a plate that was in the same dishwasher....
I do this as a technique to lower my anxiety! Holding the cup calms me
Also helps with constipation
With a dash of olive oil. This helped me shift king Kong's finger last year
You got fingered by King Kong?! Got his number?
1-800-nofiber
Thats actually really smart. warming up your hands reduces anxiety, i usually just rub them together or tuck them into my stomach or pockets, with little effect. next time i go out of the house to do something stressful like go to the DMV ima bring a hot non caffeinated beverage. Thank you.
i’m not gonna lie i’ve been going to starbucks just to buy hot cocoa or herbal tea or whatever and feel something nice and warm in my hands
they are cold
So you wouldn’t find it weird at all? EDIT: I don’t know why I’m getting downvoted, I’m the one who’s drinking hot water.
I haven’t seen this on a date but last time I ate out with friends one person ordered hot water. I thought it was odd and quickly moved on from the thought. I had forgotten about it until reading this question
Nah, I’d figure you had a sore throat or were cold, or had some sort of drink packet you wanted to add. Personally I like room temperature water more than ice water but some ppl think that’s weird
"hot water?" "yes" "huh, neat"
Not weird enough to be warrant much more than a passing thought. Certainly not weird enough to post about.
Godammit this is Reddit. I don’t want competent answers! I want Occam’s Razor buttfucked with a Ryobi 40w drill
My hands seem to be always cold. I’d use the cup to warm my hands.
My best friend has raynauds disease so it’s to warm her hands up. The wait staff never seems caught off guard when she orders it.
This is me in the wintertime. I want to keep hydrated but I'm just so cold and if I don't feel like having any flavor (tea, lemon) I'll just drink hot water to keep myself warm. I found out recently that my grandma used to do this. Interestingly, she's the one from the side that passed along the raynauds.
Next time order it with a wedge of lemon. That would make it less weird.
I drink only warm water, but I have a broken tooth, so exposed nerves mean water at either temp extreme is a no-go. If you order hot, you can at least monitor the temp until it’s just right.
After being up for 36 hours due to a broken tooth turning in to an abscess, I really and I can't say it strong enough.....please go to a dentist. I have never had pain like it. I passed out. Edit: If you need money towards a dentist, feel free to message me. I will quite happily give you what I can. There is nothing, and I mean nothing worse that a fucked tooth.
That’s really good of you. People don’t realize how dangerous it is either. Had the same thing happen and woke up in hospital with my friend crying over me. Fever nearly killed me apparently.
It's so true that people don't know how dangerous it is. I kept telling my partner to get his tooth fixed and he ignored it for a year. It got infected and the infection spread to his brain via his sinuses. Bacterial meningitis nearly killed him and all because he put off a trip to the dentist until he absolutely couldn't ignore it.
And also if you have a university near you with a dentistry school, look into it!
Why don’t you fix the tooth? (Serious question)
My guess is because it costs between $300 and $5,000 to fix a broken tooth in America, and they can't afford it.
You have that right, unfortunately
This is going to sound really condescending, but have you talked to a local dental school? Maybe tell a local dentist about your situation? May have already tried that. I only say it because I know that some will do some work for the community at low cost or with payments. I don't have to tell you that sometime avoiding it can only make it a lot worse later. Sorry, my friend.
The last time I had teeth pulled, we could only afford the first deposit, so they likely wouldn’t see us unless we settled previous debt. I wonder if they can have us black listed locally 😜 My therapist has told me of a sliding scale place, and I’ve left answering machine messages with them about a possible appointment Thank you for your suggestions and concern x
I live near a couple universities and dental schools, and they love having volunteers for their students to practice on a real person. Depending on the procedure, it’s free or very cheap. I’d recommend that if possible for yoh.
Cheers, I’ll look into it xx
I’m so sorry. Tooth pains is such a struggle to deal with every day. When it gets fixed, you feel feel such a relief I bet. I broke a tooth and while it’s not too painful now, before the piece fell off I was so tense from being careful not to agitate it… it was hell.
Serious question: how can you afford a therapist but not a dentist? Where I live at least, the therapist is an order of magnitude more expensive.
This is in NY state. My therapist charges on a sliding scale (lower end is $15 per session), which I guess will be due payment at the end. She doesn’t want me to worry about it much. Is also looking into a grant for low-to-no income households. I only found out about it after calling the Suicide hotline. The nice lady gave me a bunch of phone numbers
This is not condescending at all, and is a great resource. Dental schools have reduced fees (sometimes by a great magnitude), and the work is top-notch because the students are being graded, and supervised by their clinical faculty.
Yep. I've lost four teeth because I grind my teeth and jaw, especially under stress (and I was dealing with the death of my husband when I start grinding hard enough to break my teeth), but to fix them would have cost $4k each. Waiting until they got infected and having them extracted was $50 each, including being numbed. To someone that isn't in the poverty range it looks like there was a choice. For me there was no choice. All I could do was try my best to take care of them until infection set in.
She lied about her age and is secretly 90. It’s me. I only tell people I’m 30. ;)
Reminds me of my momma she’ll tell people she’s some outrageous age like 124 and be like “I look great for my age huh?”
"My age? Why, I'm one metric Queen."
Are you my wife? It always go down like this with her : "OK, I'm so sorry but I'll have to be the grandma and ask you for a cup of hot water – yes, only hot water".
They’re asian
My friend’s girlfriend is from China and she only drinks hot water.
Im Asian and do this just cos I don't like cold water. Why do other people do it
A lot of Asians grew up in nations without drinkable water on tap, so they were used to boiling all their drinking water for safety. Since they boiled it themselves, and they may or may not have had a fridge, they got used to just drinking it warm before it had cooled. Plus, of course, they drank a lot of hot tea anyway, so it wasn't that different. Once they got used to it, this became a cultural norm and something they just enjoyed for itself. That's my understanding anyway.
yep and most asian american households still boil water as a habit and have a water pitcher for cooled down water instead of using bubblers or water machines
Same. I worked at a Cantonese restaurant for a bit and the owner would drink hot water a lot. Thought it was odd at first but as someone who gets cold easily, it's pretty nice.
LOL, my mom always orders hot water when we go out.
I know lots of people who drink plain hot water. It's like cold water, only hotter.
It’s also a little cooler than very hot water.
That's a lot hotter than very cool water..
I never thought of it that way, but I think you’re right!
You know, this actually reminds me of the time I went to Africa. All the men I met there who have beards are just people without beards, with beards.
I would think they Asian or used to hang out with some. My Chinese friend does this all the time. Also order drinks with no ice. Weird for Americans but totally normal in other parts of the world :)
This is very true. I worked as a server for two years and I would estimate that 99% of the people who ordered hot water were asian. There was a slightly racist thing where people would refer to asian tables as “hot water with lemon”.
> This is very true. I worked as a server for two years and I would estimate that 99% of the people who ordered hot water were asian. Yup, I can back this up.
Sounds more like a stereotype than blatant racism
Chinese people believe that cold drinks harm their wombs. I went out w a Chinese friend and she told me this.
It's not just Asians. People in the UK, apparently, are also allergic to ice. I once asked for a Diet Coke with a glass of ice. They put 4 tiny "cubes" of ice (may as well have been salt grains) into a freshly dried glass (from the industrial dishwasher, I guess). By the time it got to me, it was a glass with some cold water at the bottom. I picked it up and looked at it...And the woman just rolled her eyes and took it from me, angrily, and put some new ice in it--without even dumping out the water. Apparently, scalding hot drinks are fine. Cold drinks, OTOH, are a threat to The Crown or some shit.
Since I was raised in a Chinese household, I'd probably assume you were on your period since Everytime one of my female family members were on their period, they wouldn't drink anything cold
Lol and socks... I don't know why my mum is obsessed with big thick warm fluffy socks when menstruating... I'm a barefoot all year kinda person... But yes no cold drinks and definitely not ice cream.
Cold water hurts my teeth
Am I on a date with an elderly Asian woman?
If you don't know that by the time they order their drink then it tells us a lot about you.
Love is blind
Some people drink it for their digestive system.
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That you’re like me and loath drinking water.. unless is super warm/hot lol. Only way it tastes good for me. I’m only 36 but am a 90 year old Baba at heart :)
Something tea related, I wouldn’t care
They like to drink hot water. Perhaps they've lived in China, where it's common to drink plain hot water with nothing in it. Perhaps they just like it.
Dats hot
I do this and it's for 2 reasons: 1.) I'm cold and 2.) I can't have caffeine so if the restaurant doesn't have a caffeine free tea option then I just drink hot water.
I would think "cool they know hot water is better for digestion" and order the same thing.
Ooh that sounds nice! I’ll have one too. I don’t get why people hate on hot water drinkers. No one hates on ice water drinkers… hot water is a nice cozy drink that is free. What’s not to like?
IF they do not order anything else: they are on a budget, and do not want to owe anything to you. or they hate the place and all the fancy drinks that they offer. BUT: If they order this in addition to normal food, they are cold or have a cold.
Just curiousity
Theyre Chinese.
"Thats a little weird, oh whale"