A South African woman broke a Guinness World Record after she made the most cups of tea, that too in just an hour. Ingar Valentyn of Wupperthal chose to make rooibos tea for her world record attempt. It is a red herbal tea made from the leaves of South Africa's spalathus linearis shrub. She used its three flavours- original, vanilla and strawberry.
Ingar had to make a minimum of 150 cups of tea in an hour to break the record, and she started her world record attempt strategically. "She put four teabags in each teapot, which makes four cups of tea. To qualify as proper rooibos tea, each teabag needed to be steeped for at least two minutes. To maximize efficiency, as soon as Ingar poured the first three teapots and added in the teabags, she quickly moved onto the next batch," wrote Guinness World Records in a blog.
Guinness World Records have clear policies about food-related records, so they assisted Ingar with a group of tea drinkers comprising students and locals. However, she faced a considerable problem twenty minutes into the attempt as she was almost out of clean cups. Soon, the locals joined hands and washed the very cups they had drunk from.
As the hour drew to a close, Ingar was confident to have surpassed the 150 mark and thought to have served 170 cups. But she was wrong with the numbers; instead of 170, she made 250 cups of tea in an hour. However, one cup was disqualified as it failed to match the minimum level requirement, 142 ml, and the official count turned out to be 249. This means that she made over four cups per minute! Quite impressive, right?
{{/usCountry}}As the hour drew to a close, Ingar was confident to have surpassed the 150 mark and thought to have served 170 cups. But she was wrong with the numbers; instead of 170, she made 250 cups of tea in an hour. However, one cup was disqualified as it failed to match the minimum level requirement, 142 ml, and the official count turned out to be 249. This means that she made over four cups per minute! Quite impressive, right?
{{/usCountry}}According to Guinness World Records, Ingar attempted the record to promote tourism and rooibos tea and to celebrate the resilience of the Wupperthal community after December 2018 wildfire that caused massive destruction and left over 200 people homeless. Ingar was among those people. "I'm very excited about the record and for our community of Wupperthal," said Ingar Valentyn to Guinness World Records.