[Avodah] Can I make Kiddush or Havdalah on a cup of coffee or tea?

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Feb 07, 2021 at 08:29:15PM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> It's true that the AhS 296:13 does mention "teh matok - sweet tea", but you
> might be reading too much into that. He doesn't specifically exclude
> unsweetened tea. It might simply be that this was the common way of
> drinking it.

Well, in OC 89:23 he notes that some prohibit drinking tea with sugar
before davening -- but only wwith sugar. He is unsure why they would say
that, since the sugar is just to give the hot drink a little flavor. How
does that make sweatened tea "akhilah"? Others allow tea drunk through
a sugar cube, but not if the sugar is dissolved in the tea. (One of the
places where the AhS cites the MB.)

There, he does conclude "ve'eino iqar". I am just pointing out that
elsewhere in the AhS, tea and tea with sugar are different things. So,
I wouldn't just assume he added the word "matoq" here simply because
that's the norm.

(In fact, on a metzi'us level, I don't think sugar was cheap enough in
Litta for one to assume one was getting sugar with their tea. I would
want evidence it even was their norm. In siman 89, he gives the din for
tea but if the tea is with sugar.... As opposed to if the se'if saw a
need to call the first case "tea without sugar" or "unsweatened tea".)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   greater vanity in others; it makes us vain,
Author: Widen Your Tent      in fact, of our modesty.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF            -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980)