When you’re a start-up, there’s often a lot of change and variability. Your development tools are changing, your staff numbers are growing, and generally everyone is running around doing at least four or five different things at once. While this is all incredibly exciting, and what makes me personally enjoy the start-up environment over a big business, it does mean that you cling to stability where you can get it. In the case of the Spoonfed team, this stability comes from our ritual of making tea with our trusty old, run down water heater and consuming it, which occurs nearly ever hour.

Imagine our dismay and horror, then, when that small plastic pot of dependability gave out with nothing more dramatic than a fizzle. From where was the tea to come? What would we do without the hourly caffeine fix? A gloom descended over the office (or perhaps that was just the London weather… this week it’s a bit hard to tell). Throughout the afternoon, someone would start up, as if to begin the tea making process, but then remember the earlier tragedy.

The next morning, a shiny espresso machine was taking up counter space next to the sink, a source of delight to the coffee drinkers and at least a temporary fix for the caffeine consumption issues but still we felt the void our fallible tea maker had left. Another day passed in a tea-less haze.

Today, in addition to the snazzy espresso maker, we also have a sleek new water heater for tea. Honestly, this thing is the BMW of water heating – the ultimate heating machine, all black and reflective. The tea is back, folks, and we are quite happy about it. But our old chipped and broken white water heater still sits in the corner of the counter, unplugged and unwanted. Perhaps it’s time that it was replaced with a newer, better model but we can’t forget the good times had with the original tea maker. I’d like to think that, in some small way, this is what being a start up is all about. You develop with tools that others might look down upon, or a tea maker that is clearly nearing the end of its days. At some point, you drop the security blanket and upgrade to the newer, better model but never forget tea times past and how they got you to where you are today.

Or maybe I’m just happy to have tea back in the office.

Get the official commentary from the Spoonfed team about what’s on in London at our Spoonfed Reviews page.