Japanese Woman Blasts Male Coworker for Sexist Office Tradition of Serving Men Tea

A Japanese woman shattered a common workplace custom called “ochakumi” where female office workers are expected to make and serve tea to male coworkers and company superiors after she got fed up with the sexist tradition.

Japanese Twitter user caron_M01 was at her limit after hearing a male coworker dropped a sexist remark regarding their office tradition “ochakumi,” which literally translates to “tea squad,” when he said: “Tea just tastes better when a girl pours it for you, you know.”

Frustrated, the woman suddenly replied with a tough comeback that certainly left a mark on the man’s ego.

“Ahhh, I see. It’s just like how yakiniku [Korean barbecue] tastes better when a guy pays for it,” she wrote in her now-deleted Twitter post, as translated by SoraNews24.

Many social media users applauded her reply. Some of them wrote:

“So cool!!!”

“That guy should know what kind of tea he likes better than anyone else, so it stands to reason that he’d get the ‘best-tasting’ tea by making it himself.”

“You ought to put poison in that jerk’s tea.”

This practice is not designated to any specific position in a typical Japanese office. It is an added responsibility that most companies pass down to female workers on top of their professional obligations. However, this custom is now becoming uncommon unlike back in 1980s to early 1990s.

After pointing out the inequality in her workplace, the office’s management finally did something to address the culture in their environment by implementing a new policy where all junior employees, regardless if they are men or women, will now make and serve tea for their senior coworkers.

However, one of the Twitter users who commented in her post expressed that it would be nice if all of coworkers, regardless of rank, pitch in by making and serving tea.

Feature Image via Wikimedia Commons / Georges Seguin (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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