BBC’s Tremendous Tea Bill

British media organization the BBC spent over £230,000 on cups of tea and teabags, the Daily Telegraph revealed this week, following a ‘Freedom of Information Act (FOI)’ order about the corporation’s refreshment bill.

Responding to the order, top BBC exec John Pickles said the six figure payment was split across 300 separate locations with £49,800 going on tea made in staff kitchens and the rest on meetings.

“BBC Policy allows for the provision of tea in meetings where the meeting needs to be for two hours or longer or when entertaining a person or organisation from outside the BBC,” he explained.

“Because of the way orders are recorded it is not always possible to say exactly how much of a hospitality request relates to tea, but using available information I estimate that around £179,500 was spent on tea for meetings in the year 2009/10,” he said. (Telegraph: http://bit.ly/lHDVUx )

The revelations emerged over 5 years after the uber-powerful corporation published ground breaking research on the health giving qualities of the once illicit stimulant, quoting the findings of health nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton from Nutrition Communications.

"Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water,” said the Doctor.

“Water is essentially replacing fluid,” she explained, “Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so its got two things going for it." (More tea: http://bit.ly/lYh6KE )

The universal popularity of drinking tea was illustrated by Yoko Ono in a chat with Skrufff in 2004 when she recalled indulging in the drink in the late 70s with her husband John Lennon as an alternative to wild nights at Studio 54.

"We never went there because as John used to say 'we're two people who are proud to have never been to Studio 54', because all of our friends used to go,” she recalled. “We were people then who preferred to make a cup of tea and read books at home.”

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff