Tea Time by Mehdi El Ghaly

Tea Time

Once upon a time, in a village, lived a tea seller who was well known for the variety and quality of his tea. One day he was tricked and he bought a big quantity of tea that was bad but he sold it to people for the same price as the good tea.

A lot of his customers got upset and complained to him about the tea and how bad it was, but with his tongue’s sweetness and reasonable excuses he made them forget about it.

One person who kept complaining all the time was an old man. The seller would tell him, “I believe your words and I am not questioning you, but have you tried to prepare the tea with different water? Water taken from the well isn’t always good for the tea.”

The old man believed the seller’s words. “I will try that,” he told him. However, it was all in vain and then he would go again and complain to the seller who said, “I think the problem this time is with the teapot. If it is old it is not good for the tea.”

The old man bought a new teapot, cleaned it well and prepared the tea, but still nothing changed. He went again to the seller and told him that he had bought a new teapot and changed the water and there was no change. The tea still tasted bad. The seller took a while and said, “Oh! I know. It is the charcoal you boil it on. Change it and you shall drink the best tea ever.”

The old man once again fell for what the seller said and none of it worked. He got angry as he had wasted so much of his time on something that was obvious from the start. He went straight away to the tea seller and told him, “Shame on you for selling bad tea to us. It would be bad even if I prepared it in a golden teapot. All this time, you have made a fool of me, and yes, shame on me for trusting you every time.”