From: utzoo!decvax!watmath!dssg Newsgroups: net.jokes Title: Koala tea Article-I.D.: watmath.2555 Posted: Tue Jun 8 15:52:03 1982 Received: Thu Jun 10 00:56:05 1982 And now one for all you Shakespear bufs. A hardened English globetrotter has been spending some time in Australia. When the time to go back to jolly old England is drawing near, his guide points this fact out, and they start their journey to the coast. They are coming along on schedule (which was close cut) when at 3 with the port almost in sight, and the boat to leave in a short while, he notes that he will have to have tea at 4, or course. The guide is so persuaded and they go slightly out of their way to the little town of Mercy where the guide has promised him a superb cup of tea. They come to a little inn where an aging lady takes their order and is persuaded to hurry. She comes back with the requested tea, and the Englishman enjoys it immensely. In fact it THE most wonderful cup of tea he has ever had. However the boat is about to leave so they are off as soon as they are done. Years later he returns to mercy in quest of this recipe. He finds the little town of Mercy again, and asks the lady whether he can have the recipe. She invites him to see how it is done. In the kitchen she has a large pot. This is filled with hot water. She goes out to fetch a koala bear, and dunks it lavishly into the pot, stirs it round etc. etc. The Englishman observer a multitude of filth that has come off the koala and is now floating in the tea water, but the lady unperturbed, fills a pot and fills his cup from it. He protests, of course, and asks whether the filth ought not to be gotten out somehow, to which the lady in a shocked manner replies:"The koala tea of Mercy is not strained". (For those of you not familiar with the reference (like myself when I first heard it) it's from The Merchant of Venice).