My mother is in her mid-60's and is an avid tea drinker, she also has barely any sense of taste or smell due to health related issues (not covid). Even though she care barely taste or smell, she still has a favorite tea. Kroger brand ginger and turmeric tea. She will buy out the entire stock on a weekly basis. It's her fave tea, and as tea drinkers know, if they change the recipe it's hard to find something the same. So when she came home early from a weekend trip from our cabin up north due to the snow, imagine her dismay as she finds her tea "tasting too citrusy."

I had just come home from running errands and as the family nose (strongest sense of taste/smell) my brother rushes me and asks me to smell the box of tea bags to see if it is indeed more citrus than before. Note: I was asked to smell the tea BAG, not the cup of tea.

I smell it, it indeed smells strongly of citrus, I read the ingredients of the tea and it includes orange peel. We start examining all the stocked boxes of tea to see if there was a recipe change, but can't find any difference. My mother is sorely disappointed as we've all come to the conclusion that they've changed the recipe but not enough for the ingredient list to change (which does happen). As they go to gather the boxes and find receipts to return them to the store I try to cheer her up by using my advanced sense of taste to make her replacement tea using plain tea with added spices from our spice collection.

As I walk across the kitchen the smell hits me like a train, Vinegar. Almost like a flashback I remember I had left the kettle with a 80/20 vinegar water solution sitting over night to descale it as we have VERY hard water and it was getting gross.

I turn around, cover my face with my hands in a mixture of shame and embarrassment.

I tell my mom that I had put the vinegar into the kettle last night to descale it and was going to finish cleaning it before she got home, well she got home early and I got distracted by my poor mother losing one of the few things she can drink and enjoy.

My mother just stares at me and my brother is stunned as I explain that her tea isn't "Too lemony," it's that she's been sipping hot vinegar tea.

"Well, now that makes sense!" she says and we all laugh, I'm on the floor covering my face, laughing, and apologizing. I'm so embarrassed. I'm shocked that no one connected the strong smell of vinegar (for me at least) to the sour tea, my mom gets a pass but my brother might also be losing his sense of smell if he didn't notice it. My eyes were watering as I poured out the still steaming diluted vinegar into the sink.

My mother never knew that I had been descaling her kettle on a semiregular basis for years, I'm more grossed out that she drank some of the flakey white buildup that must have come away with the vinegar and didn't notice it.

Either way, we put the boxes of tea away and had a good laugh. My mother now knows I've been keeping her kettle shiny like new in secret (it wasn't a secret, just that the only time I can leave it to soak is when she's away,) we've got a new funny family story to go along with the "fruit hat fiasco," "green bean mace blinding xmas," and the "annual cast iron pan kitchen fire".

What I feel REALLY bad about is how my poor mom is adjusting to getting dentures and now has all these massive canker sores in her mouth from attempting to nurse a cup of hot vinegar tea as she wonders if they changed the recipe on her. She's not mad at me as it was an honest mistake and she thinks it's really funny, but I do feel bad.

TL;DR

I leave a vinegar solution over night in the kettle to descale hard water build up, mom comes home early and due to lack of taste/smell makes herself a cup of tea, is confused as to why the recipe of her fave tea is changed, but it's actually that she's drinking hot diluted vinegar and can only taste a slight tart/sourness.