Tepidence

tepidence (n.) — TEP-i-dence. The third reheating of a drink you have no real intention of finishing. From tepid, given the ending of patience and prudence, as though it were a virtue. It is not a virtue. It is a mug, usually on a saucer, usually on a desk, and usually steaming with a confidence it has not earned.

The drink starts with genuine intent. The tea is made properly, carried carefully to the desk and set down beside the lamp and the pile of books, where it steams in a way that suggests a calm and productive morning. Then something small needs dealing with. By the time it has been dealt with, the tea has reached the temperature of the room, and the calm and productive morning has gone somewhere else.

Ninety seconds in the microwave brings the drink back, along with the strange geology of any reheated cup: scalding on top, cool underneath, and a faint ring at the edge that was not there before. One mouthful is taken out of politeness. Something else needs dealing with. In it goes again. Tepidence proper begins at the third reheating, when everybody involved, including the mug, understands how the afternoon is going to end.

In use: I have reached tepidence with this coffee, so I shall tip it away at four and make a fresh one that I also will not drink. The adjective is tepident, and it can be applied to the drink, to the desk or to the person, usually to all three at once. A tepidist is someone who has made peace with the condition and now reheats without shame. An office with more than three tepident mugs in it is said to be in a state of tepidity, and nobody should be asked for a decision there before lunch.

The real thing behind the word has very little to do with the tea. What keeps going back into the microwave is the plan: the five quiet minutes you meant to take at half past nine, still officially on the timetable and still not cancelled. As long as the mug is warm, the break is only postponed, not lost. The steam is a promise that you will sit down in a moment, and reheating the drink is a way of keeping that promise alive without ever actually keeping it.

Which is why pouring it away feels like an admission, and why it tends to happen at four o’clock, when the day can no longer pretend. It is also why the next cup is made at five past. A fresh mug means a fresh plan, and a fresh plan is, for a few hopeful minutes, exactly as hot as it looks.