South African woman makes 249 cups of tea in an hour, sets Guinness World Record

A South African woman has made a Guinness World Record for brewing and serving 249 cups of tea in an hour, or over 4 cups a minute. Ingar Valentyn, a resident of South Africa’s Wupperthal, set out to break the previous record of 150 cups brewed in an hour. Using rooibos tea, a plant which is native to South Africa, Valentyn brewed a red herbal tea to set the world record.

Valentyn used multiple teapots, which were filled with multiple teabags, in order to be as efficient as possible. But as part of the world record challenge, Valentyn also needed to ensure that all the tea she was brewing did not go to waste. A group of students and local community members were there to help her break the record. Each cup needed to contain at least 142 ml of tea and the tea needed to be brewed for at least two minutes.

Though she was maintaining good speed, about 20 minutes into the challenge Valentyn ran into a hurdle. With over 90 cups served at the time, she was beginning to run out of clean cups. However, the group of students helped clean the dirty cups. While Valentyn expected to have brewed around 170 cups of tea, she beat her own estimate as the officiators revealed that she had managed to brew 249 cups in total, with one cup being disqualified for not having enough beverage.