Johannesburg – A Western Cape woman has smashed the Guinness World Record by making 249 cups of tea in the space of an hour.
Ingar Valentyn of Wupperthal, a small town in the Cederberg mountains of the Western Cup, smashed the previous record of 150 by 99 cups.
Valentyn was on top form, averaging four cups of rooibos flavoured tea per minute.
“I think I’ve done 170,” she was quoted as saying by the Guinness World Records blog, but in actual fact she had smashed the record by a lot more.
Valentyn’s world record-breaking tea attempt was aired on an episode of “Stumbo Record Breakers” which airs on Sundays on e.tv.
“Congratulations Ingar Valentyn on not only breaking a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS ®️ Title but for smashing it by making 99 more cups of tea than required to break the record.
“You made Wupperthal proud, you made South Africa proud and you made us proud,” Stumbo SA later wrote on Facebook.
But for Valentyn, who worked in the tourism industry in Wupperthal, the world record attempt was important to her as she was using it as a vehicle to attract tourism back to her home town which was a site of devastation after wildfires swept through it in December 2018, leaving only a few buildings standing and more than 200 people homeless.
Valentyn lost her childhood home as well and the fires also destroyed guest houses in the area, which she managed.
Four years after the tragedy, the people have rebuilt and the tea record attempt was inspired by the community’s resilience.
“For me to attempt the record will open many doors for the community, in terms of tourism and in terms of the rooibos tea, because we have many rooibos tea farmers,” she said.
Valentyn attempted her record using three rooibos flavours – original, vanilla and strawberry.
Her strategy was to put four teabags in each teapot, producing four cups of tea.
The rules state that each teabag had to be steeped for two minutes.
Her efficiency first strategy was to pour the first three teapots and add in the teabags, before quickly moving onto the next batch.
Another rule was that food must not go to waste, so she had local pupils and community members on tea drinking duty.
A Guinness World Records official adjudicator, Sofia Greenacre, examined each cup to ensure it was filled to the minimum level of 142ml.
Guinness World Records said Valentyn had already managed to make 92 cups in the space of 20 minutes.
Despite running out of clean cups, her tea drinkers helped to rinse the cups and in the end, she managed to produce 250 cups of tea.
One cup was disqualified as it was not full enough.
“Ingar smashed the record, which was lovely to see, and Wupperthal has to be the most beautiful backdrop I’ve perhaps been on for a record attempt. I’m absolutely gobsmacked,” said Greenacre, an adjudicator.
IOL