Office tea round in danger of drying up as workers can't spare the time

[alfred russel]

You're missing the point: the wait is part of the whole thing. It's equivalent to the smoke break in terms of creating break point in the day.

The era when Britons smoked and took tea must have basically involved only short spurts of work.

"Good day, nigel."
"Good day, william. Fancy a tea?"
"Why certainly, I thought you would never ask."
*tea break*
*20 minutes later because the whole office is waiting on the kettle*
"Nigel, top marks on the tea."
"Thank you William, you are too kind. Have you seen the report from headquarters?"
"Why yes Nigel, I have. But enough of the grindstone, lets have a fag."
"Splendid idea William!"

It is no wonder their empire collapsed. It was a very different Briton that built that empire. Back then the place of tea and cigarettes in the workday was taken by racism and genocide.

[Syt]

For hot water for tea I use the hot water spigot on the office kitchen coffee maker. Water is steaming hot, enough for tea, and it's fast, no waiting for a kettle to boil. But maybe that's not cool for Brits as they may need actual boiling water.  I think such automation could revolutionize British work place breaks! But I'm sure that half the fun of waiting for water to boil is talking with fellow workers who are also waiting.   

We have that, too, but our British people use the kettle instead.

[Razgovory]

We have mass individual tea-making in our office. At peak hours (e.g. 9.15am) the kitchen can be crowded with a dozen people all waiting for one of our bank of three kettles to boil.

The Catholic Church is weird in Britain.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think British-style black tea is supposed to be made with truly boiling water.

Correct.

KRonn has clearly not encountered the intense fury generated when somebody uses merely hot water for making tea.

[Sheilbh]

We have mass individual tea-making in our office. At peak hours (e.g. 9.15am) the kitchen can be crowded with a dozen people all waiting for one of our bank of three kettles to boil.

My work was very much desk-group/department based tea and coffee making.

The era when Britons smoked and took tea must have basically involved only short spurts of work.

We do have one of the consistently lowest levels of productivity per hour in the developed world

KRonn has clearly not encountered the intense fury generated when somebody uses merely hot water for making tea.

Or if they tried to take away the 'stand around the kettle and have a chat' time from workers