8–12 minutes

Infinite Tea: How Surplus Becomes an Experience

Word of Affirmation for today: ” What Humanity Doesn’t Provide, I Provide my Self as Opportunity/ Advancement/Idea/Ascension “. The intensity of their restrain comes as fuel to my bettering. Any shared energy provides for my future, conscious and unconscious. I thank my silent stars for our greatest ruse and our expressive ones for our temporal protection.

You see how in hospitality, like when you’re a customer, especially you might be on the table and either salt or whatever ends and finishes, but you want a refill. But then also the waiters, they’re busy or whatnot, or you might not see them. One thing that can be added to it is like a little Bluetooth-wired type of situation. A couple of buttons on the table that allows the customer to signal the fact that they might be missing salt, or that they might be missing or they might want a tea refill. And I was thinking about it, and it came to mind because at Weird, parents, our restaurant chain, we will have a tea offering where we’ll come into play the moment we realize that we produce more tea than we would use if served individually, and it might not be a specific tea that we’ve yet to, or we haven’t expanded yet to manufacture our own, like creams and whatnot, for whatever reason. So let’s say that it’s before that. But after realizing that we produce more, the mentality that we will have at SHS, also about how things come up, or different ventures, or different recipes get added on our menus, is that we would look at surpluses. Okay, we have a surplus of teas. Well, what we do is we add on the menu the Infinite Tea, meaning that having those buttons on the tables will give the customer the ability to click on. Well, we would have, obviously, because it wouldn’t be an incorporation, but it would be something that we would have created prior, like a starting point. We have the freedom to incorporate it as a given, making it easier for further integration, or making it easier to also look and see what the best device is. Because we could either have a digital infrastructure that they can access on their phones by scanning. We can tell them, oh, by scanning these, we suggest holding it open throughout the whole experience, just because you can easily signal us what you might be missing on your table, and it will show up on our screen, and we’ll be able to directly know exactly where something is missing so that we can attend to you as quickly as possible, and their dining experience doesn’t get interrupted twice. So they only get interrupted the time that they actually get what they wanted or needed, which is the best way possible, to be fair, especially if you’re in a conversation. You don’t want to have to stop the conversation just to ask. Well, initially find a waiter that is available, wait for them to come to you, and when they’re there, then you can consider asking what you’ve waited for, and then you have to wait for the waiter to then go and collect what they received as an order, just to bring it back to you, when the whole process in between can be removed by a simple digitalization or incorporation of a digital pad in the tables, if the tables are big enough. So to also attend and tend to space. How much space does one have available? If someone doesn’t have as much space, then they can have it maybe made as a digital infrastructure. So the customer uses their own infrastructure, meaning their phones, and if there is enough space, then considering adding it in the tables, either giving them tablets, or directly inserting a little screen at the top of the table in a corner where the customer can click on salt or tea, whatever. So for example, for the tea, the tea that never ends, they can create a story of different flavors within the same mug. We will give big mugs of tea, and every time that they ask for a new tea, we will bring them the new tea, but we won’t remove the bag from the old cup unless they ask, of course, because the experience is to create your own tea flavor or tea concoction by starting with one flavor and then moving towards others, or just refill on the same. The choice is completely up to the customer. But that is just a side idea. The main focus, right, is about the integration of a system that directly notifies the waiter, especially in busy places. In places that don’t get much traction, that’s fine. The human contact will always be the best, but to minimize friction in places that do get busy, at least having that list of needs on tables directly available on the pass allows the waiter to, and I say this because I was one, allows the waiter to see exactly, okay, we’re missing salt at table da da da, take the salt, which technically most of the time it’s right in front of them, and then go to this table and then come back. But also, or they see that they have salt missing at three different tables, they can take on multiple salts from one place and then do the whole round. Without it, they might be giving it to one, and then the second one asks as well, and you have to go back to the station where the salt is at just to get the salt and get back, and by the time that you do so, you also get asked about the pepper, which was in the same place as the salt, so if you had known before, you could have been able to organize your journey towards it in a better way, so that it would have minimized the amount of time that it would have taken to solve all those frictions. Because they’re not problems. They’re needs. Well, they’re wants that become needs to come together with the meal that they’re having. But it’s important to know exactly what it is because obviously dining these days, it’s not a need. It’s more of a luxury experience that we all have, because the need would be to eat.

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Infinite Tea: How Surplus Becomes an Experience

Sometimes the beginning of a new idea is simply looking at what we already have and asking: what else could this become?

Within SHS, this is part of how our menus, services and ventures will grow. We will look at what our ecosystem produces, what we use, and what remains available. That surplus becomes a starting point for creation.

We produce more tea than we use through individual servings. Okay. What can we create with that?

Perhaps we have not yet developed the facilities to turn it into other products. Perhaps those possibilities will come later. But we already have tea, a restaurant, people sitting together, and the opportunity to give them something they can enjoy now.

So we introduce Infinite Tea.

The tea that never ends.

You receive a large mug and choose your first flavour. When you want more, you can continue with the same tea or move into another. We leave the previous bag in your mug unless you ask us to remove it. Each addition can develop what came before. Your tea becomes a story of flavours, a concoction you create throughout your visit.

You might arrive knowing exactly what you like and leave having discovered something you would never have thought to order.

That experience began with surplus.

Something we already had became something more people could enjoy. This is how I want us to think about the circular economy we ought to create: what is available in one part of our ecosystem should open possibilities throughout the rest of it. Production informs hospitality. Hospitality gives that production somewhere to circulate. What people enjoy, combine and ask for can then inform what we grow and create next.

We should be able to look at abundance and recognise an invitation.

And once we introduce Infinite Tea, another question follows: how do we make the experience flow?

Nobody wants to spend their conversation looking over someone’s shoulder, trying to catch a waiter’s eye for a refill.

I was a waiter. I know how much unnecessary movement happens because the information reaches you in fragments.

You bring salt to one table. Another table sees you and asks for salt too. You return to the station, collect it, and come back. Then somebody asks for pepper—which was right beside the salt.

If you had known all of that before leaving the station, you could have collected everything and attended to the tables in one round.

So, from the beginning, our restaurant design can include a simple way for customers to signal what they want.

Salt. Pepper. A tea refill.

A few buttons, a small screen integrated into a corner of the table, or a digital page opened by scanning a code. The form depends on the space. A smaller table might make better use of the customer’s phone. Somewhere with more room could have a dedicated device built into the experience.

The request appears against the table number on a screen at the pass or service station. Staff can see what is wanted before setting off.

Now the waiter can collect the salt for three tables, the pepper for another, and organise the journey with that knowledge.

And the customer can carry on talking.

They do not have to find someone, attract their attention, wait for them to approach, pause the conversation to explain, and then wait again while the item is collected. They signal the request, and the next interruption can be the arrival of what they wanted.

Human contact has its place throughout hospitality. In a busy room, giving that contact better timing allows everyone more space to enjoy it.

This is also why the system belongs in our thinking from the beginning. When a new offering emerges from surplus, we already have a way to support it. Infinite Tea can join the menu and the table’s request options together. The experience and the means of delivering it develop in relationship with each other.

That is how ideas connect within SHS.

We notice surplus tea. We create an offering. We consider how people will experience it. We recognise where service could flow more easily. We introduce a system that also helps with salt, pepper and other requests across the restaurant.

One observation opens several possibilities because we follow its relationships.

And we remain clear about what we are attending to. Eating is the underlying need. Dining out is an experience built around it. The salt, the refill, the uninterrupted conversation—all belong to how someone wants to enjoy the meal they have chosen.

There is room to care about that.

There is room to organise it thoughtfully.

The circular economy begins to take shape when we stop treating surplus as the end of a process and start allowing it to become the beginning of another.

We have more tea.

What could that make possible?


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