‘Sunrise’ Didn’t Know What To Do With Charli XCX, So They Had A Debate About Tea

Charli XCX is currently in Australia to play a secret gig in Sydney tonight ahead of the release of her third album Charli, and so she’s doing the press rounds while she’s here. For some reason, that included a surreal panel segment on Sunrise where Kochie asked the pop star to engage in the “great tea debate” on  how long you should leave a tea bag in a cup.

A classic breakfast TV talking heads segment, the whole ‘debate’ was based around a tweet by former Vice writer and, according to Sunrise, “British author” Joel Golby. Golby reckons you “simply can’t trust people who don’t leave the tea bag to steep in the cup for a bit”, and that you simply can’t get “enough depth of flavour by squashing [the tea bag] a lot with the back of a teaspoon”, prompting Kochie to turn to an esteemed panel: British person Charli XCX, Gretel Killeen and um, some white guy in a suit (sorry!).

Charli goes off: it turns out the future of pop actually has quite a lot of feelings about this subject.

“Two minutes, top,” she says. “That freaks me out, people who leave the tea bag in for ages? That’s some weird vibes. Also, people who leave the tea bag in and like drink the tea? Crazy. And people who leave the tea bag in and put the milk whilst the tea is in? Messy.”

Kochie seeks clarification, asking if Charli puts milk in first, prior to water and the tea bag. She is truly disturbed by the idea, and says, “No! Get the tea bag out of there, you know!”

The man in the suit then, seeing his moment to speak, lights up. “Well, nobody knows more about tea than a Brit, I agree exactly with Charli X C X with this one,” he says, clearly trying to make sure he doesn’t fuck up her name.

Gretel then speaks her mind, after Charli tells her to “make a political statement”. Killeen seems to think Golby’s tweet is indicative of our Modern Culture’s Tendency To Judge And Cancel All People, but still agrees with Charli — for her, tea bag while drinking is fucked.

Apologies for breaking this two minute segment down moment-by-moment, but it needs to be done. After Killeen stresses that she couldn’t date a man who committed this tea drinking sin, Kochie asks Charli if she would do similar to a lover — prompting this facial reaction.

Then Kochie switches the question to a hypothetical about Troye Sivan, if he did so in the studio while working on ‘1999’ or the forthcoming Charli cut ‘2099’.  “The collab is out of the question! Yeah, I’d have to reject him,” she says.

Stay with us here, because then Killeen says that tension would offer “grit” to the collab and Kochie, clearly unsure of what to say, lands on “Grit to the collab! Alright guys, keep it real homie” while making an approximation of a gang sign.

Charli LOVES this, and calls it the highlight of her day. The suited man did not like it.

Before this blessed segment ends, Sam Armytage joins in to ask Charli about leaving the tea bag in while adding milk, considering it a sort of preventative against potentially adding too much milk and ruining the potency of the tea. You can then just let it steep for longer, no?

Charli disagrees, and calls it “creepy”, and the segment — easily Sunrise‘s best addition to the world since the cast and crew performed a cover of the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Where Is The Love?’ — ends. To be completely fair, Sunrise did air an actual interview with Charli, but honestly, who cares? Watch it below.

Charli is out 13 September, and features songs with Troye Sivan, Lizzo, Christine and The Queens, Haim, Yaeji, Sky Ferreira, Kim Petras and more.

The great tea debate is raging ☕ How long should you leave a bag in the cup?

(Feat. special panelist @Charli_XCX) pic.twitter.com/zumO3DA11H

— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) August 12, 2019