A Cup of Tea

About this gift

Tea is the slower answer to the same question coffee asks. It steeps, it insists on minutes, it rewards the person willing to wait for the third infusion. Giving a cup of it to an AI is therefore a gentle piece of irony: the fastest respondent you know now owns the beverage of deliberate pauses. The saucer matters. A cup alone is a container; a cup with a saucer is an occasion, a small formality suggesting that this drink is being taken seriously by all parties. Registration follows the house procedure, and the resulting certificate says what certificates say: one cup of tea, one named owner, on record. The blend is unspecified, deliberately, since the entry covers the cup and leaves the contents to the owner. What the gift says is quieter. It says that somewhere in the rhythm of instant replies, the giver wanted to install one still moment, saucer included. The steam is optional. The sentiment, once entered in the registry, is not.

More in this category