This should have been the most ordinary small talk, but Agent keenly caught the difference in it. Aunt Kane had said "hot water," not "hot tea" or "hot coffee." That was far too strange.
Of course, in Eastern culture, patients were generally advised not to drink tea or coffee. Traditional Chinese Medicine held that tea could counteract medicine, and milk was also discouraged because it was considered a "trigger food." It was best to drink only hot water.
But Western culture was not like that. Westerners had no tradition of drinking hot water at all. This was actually due to history: both Easterners and Westerners had once faced the question of how to sterilize and disinfect water. They knew drinking raw water directly could cause problems, so they developed different methods to make water safe to drink.
Easterners chose the simplest method: boiling it. This also benefited from the earlier development of pottery and ironware in the East, which allowed for better cooking.
Westerners, meanwhile, brewed water into small beer. The fermentation process killed most harmful bacteria and viruses. Most people in the Middle Ages drank only small beer, which also gave them their long-standing beer culture.
For that reason, they had no habit of drinking hot water by itself. In their eyes, heating water was for brewing something, such as tea or coffee. Moreover, they believed such invigorating drinks were beneficial for illness.
So when someone was sick, people making small talk would often say, "Have some hot tea," or "Have some hot coffee," rather than say "Drink more hot water" as Easterners did.
Agent had not observed any other Eastern traits in Aunt Kane. Not a single one. The cultural differences between East and West were enormous; anyone who had come into contact with the other side would