Tea Traitor??

Here in Italy, when people find out I'm English, they assume several things:

1. I don't speak Italian (not true...even if my grammar is shoddy)
2. The summer heat must be awful for me and my 'pale skin' (often true)
and
3. I drink tea. At 5pm. (sorry fellow Brits, this is definitely not true!)

Regarding the latter, it's not that I don't like tea...I just don't love it. I haven't actually been into coffee for that long- only since I arrived on Italian shores and realised what I had been missing, did I jump into caffeine city. But tea? I've never taken to it that much. Every now and again when I'm back in the UK I'll have a mug of PG Tips with milk and one sugar, and it does the job. But I can't claim to be head over heels for it.

Believe it or not, even with the abundance of delicious coffee on offer, Italians do actually drink tea every once in a while. But yes, you guessed it: no milk, slice of lemon. I always thought this was sacrilege, even despite my rather unenthusiastic approach to tea. It should be with milk or sugar or both or neither. Why does the lemon have to join in?? How European, I thought.

Well, that was until I tried it. The boyfriend had the sniffles recently (yes, I was the one who gave them to him....woops) and so decided to order a tea at our local coffee bar. It came in this cute little teapot/cup ensemble, which I absolutely loved:

And it also came with these:

So far so good. But look what appeared in the cup!

I gasped, and started going on about how it was the 'wrong' way to have tea, until by man finally persuaded me to a) be quiet, and b) try it. So I did.

And it was lovely. It really was very nice with that bit of lemon floating about in it. So there you have it folks, I am a traitor to my country's tea drinking traditions. Although, if I stick to the milk and sugar option when on British shores, I may be able to hide my filthy tea with lemon habit whilst I'm in Italy...

Have a great weekend folks! Whatever hot beverage you choose....