You be the judge: should my wife stop using her coffee spoon in my tea?

Penelope should rinse the teaspoon after she makes her coffee, but she says this is too much effort

My wife, Penelope, drinks mainly coffee while I drink mainly tea. We make drinks for each other when working from home, but Penelope uses the same teaspoon she makes her instant coffee with for my tea.

She swirls the coffee around in her cup and then takes my teabag out with the same spoon, with coffee granules stuck on the end. After she squeezes the teabag against the side of the cup and stirs it with the spoon, my tea tastes like instant coffee. It’s annoying, as I hate the taste.

I see tea as a weaker and more delicate drink than instant coffee, so it’s not fair to mix the flavours, especially this way round.

Penelope says I can’t possibly taste the coffee, but of course I can. Even I get the teaspoons mixed up sometimes because the teaspoon we use stays on the cork mat beside the kettle all day. It ruins my drinks.

«I see tea as a weaker and more delicate drink than instant coffee, so it’s not fair to mix the flavours»

I’ve asked Penelope to toss the spoon in the sink or take a new one out for me after she makes a coffee, but she never does. I will walk innocently into the kitchen and see this teaspoon lying down in wait, like a trap. We agree that space is scarce so we don’t want to use lots of different teaspoons.

It’s a frivolous problem, but it affects my tea each day. The solution is for Penelope to rinse the teaspoon after making her coffee, but she says this is too much effort.

This whole thing is a lockdown hangover, because we are both home more now – and often work from home at the same time. We have been living together for a decade but I only really noticed the spoon thing during lockdown, and now I can’t unsee it.

Penelope is more house proud than me but less “on it’” when it comes to being tidy in general. A conflict-free solution might involve us both just having coffee from the cafetiere, but I can’t drink that all day.

I don’t have a tea support group I can talk to about this issue, so I hope the readers will agree with me. I just want my tea to taste pure.

The defence: Penelope

Washing the spoon under the tap is an extra step. Why bother if he can’t taste the coffee? (click to visit)

I don’t think the way I make Ellis’s tea is a big issue at all. We have one teaspoon by the kettle which is used for both tea and coffee, and I will admit that I use the same spoon for both. I don’t believe you can taste the difference.

I don’t want to have 1,500 teaspoons that have only been used once all over the house, so I reuse the same spoon. I think the only reason Ellis has an issue with this now is because he has seen me reusing it – but if he hadn’t seen it, I don’t believe he would know. The taste is simply not strong enough.