This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Drink Orders: From YKTTW
Scifantasy: Regarding the Please Elaborate about "if a person's alone at a bar drinking water": I didn't put in the original, but I suspect the point was, someone who's drinking water alone (or drinking a soft drink that looks like booze alone) might be planning something nefarious: looking for a target for a rohypnol-based attack, for example. The drinking is in order to blend in while keeping sharp.
I think.
Po8: "Four words: 'Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.'" Which always cracked me up. If you don't say "hot", does the computer actually serve you iced Earl Grey? Uggh. Worse yet, if you don't say "tea", do you get the actual Earl? Worst of all, since you said "hot"… Point is, it seems like "Earl Grey" would be sufficient.
Scifantasy: It probably would be, but Picard wants his requirements to be crystal clear, and it fits his personality to be very precise and formal about it. (It's also possibly a requirement for the replicator, given that I've seen "tea, raspberry, iced" in an Expanded Universe novel, but one imagines the computer's smarter than that.)
But "hot" is probably necessary, because there's a difference between "warm" and "hot," especially with tea.
Arakhor: Tea, especially in Britain and Europe, should only be served hot without even questioning it. The usual question in the UK is "sugar with your tea?" Iced tea on the other hand is revolting and should have been removed from existence before production!
Dammerung: Limey fool! Iced tea is a most excellent beverage. But you must brew it yourself with quality leaves, not that Lipton crap. Also, avoid Southern iced tea which is repulsive - they put so much sugar in it, that it no longer solutes into the drink.
Phartman: Up. Yours. Sweet tea is excellent, and I've never seen or had any with such a cartoonish excess of sugar. Oh, don't tell me; you're another one of those "experts" on Southern culture who's never set foot in the South. That's quite an exclusive club you belong to, pal.
Dammerung: Actually I went to college abroad, and by abroad I mean the South. The people tended to be atavistic throwbacks to the Bronze Age, or very intelligent and sweet with no in-between. I learned a lot about the Civil War - surprising how much we cheer the violent rejection of the right to self-determination these days. The tea was still terrible.
