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[KittyTac]

How narrow-minded of them.....

It is in the raws... dwarfs are alcohol dependent. Dwarves might have a "ceremony", but "tea" is not likely to be a main component.

It would be interesting to see rituals/ceremonies being performed as a Socialize activity, similar to dancing, poetry, and music.

Did you read my post? Eventually, dwarves will stop being the "main" race, as others will become officially playable. No-magic worlds will have only humans, anyhow.

I'm not sure any of that is true.  I think dwarves will be the default, even in no-magic realms.  Others may sidestep into the limelight a bit, and other races will be more supported, but Dwarves will never cease to be the primary protagonists (or antagonists, depending on how long you've been playing for).

Well, Toady has stated somewhere (I don't remember exactly where, maybe a FOTF reply?), that dwarves will stop being the primary protagonists around the Magic release. They won't make sense in no-magic worlds, as those will only have humans. Go ask a FOTF question if it bothers you.

[Rowanas]

How narrow-minded of them.....

It is in the raws... dwarfs are alcohol dependent. Dwarves might have a "ceremony", but "tea" is not likely to be a main component.

It would be interesting to see rituals/ceremonies being performed as a Socialize activity, similar to dancing, poetry, and music.

Did you read my post? Eventually, dwarves will stop being the "main" race, as others will become officially playable. No-magic worlds will have only humans, anyhow.

I'm not sure any of that is true.  I think dwarves will be the default, even in no-magic realms.  Others may sidestep into the limelight a bit, and other races will be more supported, but Dwarves will never cease to be the primary protagonists (or antagonists, depending on how long you've been playing for).

Well, Toady has stated somewhere (I don't remember exactly where, maybe a FOTF reply?), that dwarves will stop being the primary protagonists around the Magic release. They won't make sense in no-magic worlds, as those will only have humans. Go ask a FOTF question if it bothers you.

You've come across a little bit antagonistic there, but your suggestion is valid, so I shall.

[anewaname]

How narrow-minded of them.....

It is in the raws... dwarfs are alcohol dependent. Dwarves might have a "ceremony", but "tea" is not likely to be a main component.

It would be interesting to see rituals/ceremonies being performed as a Socialize activity, similar to dancing, poetry, and music.

Did you read my post? Eventually, dwarves will stop being the "main" race, as others will become officially playable. No-magic worlds will have only humans, anyhow.

Yes. I just think the idea of a "ceremony" needs to be separated from the idea of "tea", and the idea of "tea" needs to be separated from "dwarf".

Any civilization can have customs (including ceremonies, rituals, and rites. I only vaguely know the difference between these words and there are probably more words for these activities.) But they all are actions that originally had an additional meaning and help create or reinforce the bond of an individual with a community.

In a world that does have dwarfs, I cannot see that those dwarfs would ever have a "ceremony" involving "tea", unless the ceremony represented some hardship their ancestors endured (such as having to survive on fermented tea leaves while they desperately sought plants that would yield a higher alcohol content).

Then why would they have a ritual involving singing or anything else?  Dwarves are allowed to like things.  I like the funny voice I get from helium even though I'm oxygen dependent, and I enjoy putting non-nutritional herbs and spices on my food, despite being nutrition dpendent.

Do your helium or flavoring activities cause you pain or make you feel sick? The DF dwarfs have an alcohol dependency and fulfilling their drinking needs with a non-alcoholic beverage results in long-term negative thoughts and an effectively reduced physical output. You would not find a group of DF dwarfs that enjoy a "tea ceremony" for the sake of the "tea", because of how the dwarfs are biologically defined in the raws.

Dwarfs have these customs/traditions/ceremonies/rituals, such as singing, because it is an activity that multiple dwarfs prefer, not because a single dwarf prefers it. Their reason for preferring the activity might differ, but they engage in the activity in a similar way because they all find some meaning or positive feeling from performing it; possibly related to their beliefs of loyalty, friendship, duty, tradition, etc. Why would tea be involved in a dwarven custom/tradition/ceremony unless it had some special meaning in the activity?

And I am just expressing an opinion on this. It would be cool to see civs have or develop customs over time.

[Dorsidwarf]

I don’t draw your connection between “tea is not on their list of requirements to survive” and “tea is bad for them and makes them ill and only an idiot dwarf would drink it”. Humans don’t drink tea in order to get hydrated/vital nutrients either (caffeine addiction joke in 3 2 1), but we do eat plenty of food with little broad nutritional value that would lead to serious degradation in our health if solely  eaten for years at a time.

[GoblinCookie]

Do your helium or flavoring activities cause you pain or make you feel sick? The DF dwarfs have an alcohol dependency and fulfilling their drinking needs with a non-alcoholic beverage results in long-term negative thoughts and an effectively reduced physical output. You would not find a group of DF dwarfs that enjoy a "tea ceremony" for the sake of the "tea", because of how the dwarfs are biologically defined in the raws.

Dwarfs have these customs/traditions/ceremonies/rituals, such as singing, because it is an activity that multiple dwarfs prefer, not because a single dwarf prefers it. Their reason for preferring the activity might differ, but they engage in the activity in a similar way because they all find some meaning or positive feeling from performing it; possibly related to their beliefs of loyalty, friendship, duty, tradition, etc. Why would tea be involved in a dwarven custom/tradition/ceremony unless it had some special meaning in the activity?

And I am just expressing an opinion on this. It would be cool to see civs have or develop customs over time.

It does not follow that just because dwarves have a biological need to drink some quantity of alcohol they won't drink other things as well; the alcohol dependency is a total non sequitur. 

[anewaname]

Dwarfs dislike drinking water and greatly dislike "muddy" water. That is in the game, and is an consequence of the alcohol dependency.

Have you ever drank water from a natural pond, with leaves rotting in it? Please get a good mental image of that water with little bits of rotted vegetation.

Compare the image of pond water to an image of real tea... Not the easily-made bagged tea, but the type where there are tea leaves in the bottom of the pot and after filling the cup, little bits of tea leaves float around.

Most dwarfs are going to look at tea as pond water... It doesn't matter if it is hot. It is dirty water that has no alcohol content.

There might be a few dwarfs that like the flavor, but they are not going to convince many others to join them in a "tea ceremony". "He felt satisfied after participating in a ceremony with a friend. He felt disgusted after drinking nasty water.

I suspect that players who enjoy tea would like to think that their dwarfs would enjoy tea, but I suspect that is more an issue of players applying their own feelings to the dwarfs.

[Egan_BW]

You seem to have a strange idea of how dwarves work.

[Starver]

You seem to have a strange idea of how dwarves work.

They whistle while doing it, don't they?

[mightymushroom]

By that point @GoblinCookie it would pretty much be a 'social function' mug alterative rather than a liquid holder, unless taverns ESPECIALLY asked for teapots & jugs to use to pour exact amounts into dwarves cups.

The social function part is optional, you could simply use a teapot to carry water to drink in adventure mode for instance, so mechanically it is very much an ordinary liquid dispenser like a jug.  Having jugs in taverns along the lines your describe would go a way to making taverns more efficient, instead of having to get a mug for each customer, the customers all take a mug when they arrive and then the barman goes around with a jug of alcohol to serve them.

Admittedly that isn't generally how taverns work in RL, but it is certainly more efficient. 

I've been in plenty of restaurants that serve coffee in pretty much this exact manner, everyone gets a cup and the server goes around pouring out of a universal carafe. And, although not distributed quite so freely, there are establishments that provide pitchers of (usually only a cheap brand of) beer to a whole table at a time as well as doing individual servings. So the method seems viable, at least at a sufficiently low price point (commensurate with relatively low customer expectations?).

[GoblinCookie]

I've been in plenty of restaurants that serve coffee in pretty much this exact manner, everyone gets a cup and the server goes around pouring out of a universal carafe. And, although not distributed quite so freely, there are establishments that provide pitchers of (usually only a cheap brand of) beer to a whole table at a time as well as doing individual servings. So the method seems viable, at least at a sufficiently low price point (commensurate with relatively low customer expectations?).

I don't see how from the customers POV there is any real difference between getting individual drinks of the same kind or everyone getting served the same kind of drink from a pitcher.  To a certain extent it is a cultural thing, the most efficient way to serve a large number of people is for everyone to line up on a table and then the bartender to go around with a pitcher to pour everyone a glass of whatever it is.  That does not however seem to be culturally preferred, probably because of individualism, which isn't an option for dwarves anyway. 

[Rowanas]

Dwarfs dislike drinking water and greatly dislike "muddy" water. That is in the game, and is an consequence of the alcohol dependency.

Have you ever drank water from a natural pond, with leaves rotting in it? Please get a good mental image of that water with little bits of rotted vegetation.

Compare the image of pond water to an image of real tea... Not the easily-made bagged tea, but the type where there are tea leaves in the bottom of the pot and after filling the cup, little bits of tea leaves float around.

Most dwarfs are going to look at tea as pond water... It doesn't matter if it is hot. It is dirty water that has no alcohol content.

There might be a few dwarfs that like the flavor, but they are not going to convince many others to join them in a "tea ceremony". "He felt satisfied after participating in a ceremony with a friend. He felt disgusted after drinking nasty water.

I suspect that players who enjoy tea would like to think that their dwarfs would enjoy tea, but I suspect that is more an issue of players applying their own feelings to the dwarfs.

I feel revulsion at the thought of drinking dirty pond water, but I still drink tea, and an alcoholic (a human who depends upon alcohol) can still drink shit that isn't alcohol and enjoy it.  Furthermore, as dorsi and GC have already said - requiring something is not an impediment to consuming other things, whether to your detriment or not.  I get that you like the idea of dwarves being physically incapable of drinking anything but alcohol (and in DF, there's no need to discover fermentation and have thousands of years of non-alcoholic dwarves), but it is, in my opinion, dumb, and presents dwarves as two dimensional little things, rather than building them up into believable people in a fantasy universe.

[GoblinCookie]

Dwarfs dislike drinking water and greatly dislike "muddy" water. That is in the game, and is an consequence of the alcohol dependency.

Have you ever drank water from a natural pond, with leaves rotting in it? Please get a good mental image of that water with little bits of rotted vegetation.

Compare the image of pond water to an image of real tea... Not the easily-made bagged tea, but the type where there are tea leaves in the bottom of the pot and after filling the cup, little bits of tea leaves float around.

Most dwarfs are going to look at tea as pond water... It doesn't matter if it is hot. It is dirty water that has no alcohol content.

There might be a few dwarfs that like the flavor, but they are not going to convince many others to join them in a "tea ceremony". "He felt satisfied after participating in a ceremony with a friend. He felt disgusted after drinking nasty water.

I suspect that players who enjoy tea would like to think that their dwarfs would enjoy tea, but I suspect that is more an issue of players applying their own feelings to the dwarfs.

I feel revulsion at the thought of drinking dirty pond water, but I still drink tea, and an alcoholic (a human who depends upon alcohol) can still drink shit that isn't alcohol and enjoy it.  Furthermore, as dorsi and GC have already said - requiring something is not an impediment to consuming other things, whether to your detriment or not.  I get that you like the idea of dwarves being physically incapable of drinking anything but alcohol (and in DF, there's no need to discover fermentation and have thousands of years of non-alcoholic dwarves), but it is, in my opinion, dumb, and presents dwarves as two dimensional little things, rather than building them up into believable people in a fantasy universe.

Dwarves will drink water if they can't get alcohol and it does not do them any harm, provided it comes from a well they don't get unhappy thoughts plus sick/injured dwarves only get water.  However there is an issue here in that we can't have dwarves drink tea until their alcohol quota has been met.

[Starver]

Unless...

[anewaname]

Some dwarfs may prefer tea.... I am not disagreeing with that.

I am disagreeing with the idea that there will be enough dwarfs who prefer tea for that civilization to create and sustain a "tea" ceremony. Ceremonies (and rituals/customs/etc) require groups of individuals to create and sustain the ceremony through time. These groups of individuals require a common interest in the ceremony.

Please make a list of about ten ceremonies/traditions/rituals/customs/etc that you know of... then for each entry on your list, determine a few reasons these ceremonies developed. Which of those ceremonies could continue to exist if the number of interested individuals dropped too low? If any of these ceremonies have been discontinued, determine some reasons why this happened.

In the DF worlds, elves probably have ceremonies involving trees... I have a few nature-loving dwarfs that would enjoy a "tree ceremony" but most of my dwarfs would hold it in contempt. This is the difference between personal preferences and cultural preferences.

Group activities require groups of individuals, not individuals.

[KittyTac]

I think you are ignoring my argument that you won't always be playing dorfs.