The most honest cup is at a rest stop.

It was raining. I had four hours left to drive.

The cup was paper. The lid was the kind you have to fight with. The tea was — and I mean this sincerely — exactly what it needed to be. Red Rose. Two creams, two sugars. A truck idling in the next lane. The smell of wet asphalt through the open door.

There is a kind of tea snobbery that doesn't survive the 401 in October. I am, on most days, susceptible to it. Tonight I was not.

Drink Red Rose, double-double

Place a Tim Hortons off the 401

Cost $2.45 CAD