Tea, tea, everywhere you looked there was tea on this week’s episode of The Amazing Race. It would be normal to think that since this leg of the race started in China and ended in India that incorporating tea into the challenges was logical. HA! The joke is on us. Yeah, yeah, the tea connection to the two countries was made as Phil explained how tea arrived and left India through Kolkata but the real reason for all the tea was because Snapple has introduced two new Amazing Race Teas! The Travelocity Gnome has always been a blatant reminder of that company’s product placement (and a logical one as well), but Snapple? I sincerely hope that this does not become a trend where each leg is designed around and sponsored by another company. I’d hate to see The Amazing Race become a slave to product placement like The Biggest Loser has — and yes, I know it it helps pay for the show’s production costs but there has to be a more subtle way to do it.
But back to the race … teams were not too thrilled to not be leaving China as they started the race, instead having to have a tea tasting for no apparent reason. It’s shocking that no one assumed this would somehow be incorporated into another task somewhere down the road but at least Ron & Christina were able to ask the tea server what the flavors were (mango and papaya) while Mallory smelled the tea and declared it to be peach.
From the tea tasting, teams were whisked from China to India (no airport drama this week) and were shocked by the sheer number of people at the airport at midnight. From the airport, teams grabbed cabs as quickly as possible and each team implored their drivers to go as fast as they could, and for once the drivers listened. Too well, in fact. Seriously, it was like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride as the cabs swerved, sped and veered through the crowded streets. Ron & Christina’s cab was nearly T-boned by an oncoming truck! Of course, all of this was happening in the middle of the night and the location they were all trying to get to was closed until 10 AM the next morning.
The teams that had already arrived at the Town Hall location had some fun with three latecomers by telling them to run down the street to check in for a spot in line. Like last week’s impromptu basketball game while waiting for a train, it’s nice to see these moments of the teams having fun with each other. The prank didn’t impact the game in any way, but it was good for a few laughs and let everyone blow off some steam after those harrowing cab rides.
Lucky for the teams, the task at hand — tasting and recognizing the tea they had tasted in China — took place after those cab rides because the one team mate who had to drink a couple of hundred cups of tea would surely have wet themselves while dodging oncoming traffic. I don’t know if Ron’s knowledge of the tea flavors helped him, but he smartly started smelling the tea before tasting it and found the right cup on his first try. Other teams didn’t do so well, but after going through cup after cup of tea, it came down to Flight Time and Luke and poor Luke fell back into his habit of becoming super-frustrated at a task and nearly gave up. Margie was a great supporter and Luke persevered – he finally just took a tray of cups to the judge and downed one after another until he got the right one – but the only thing that was going to save them at that point was a non-elimination leg. Unfortunately, this was not one of those legs and it was heartbreaking to see Luke sobbing but heartwarming to see Margie console him as they checked in last. It was also amazing to see the workers at the Town Hall cheer Luke on earlier as he finally found that elusive cup of tea.
There was more tea nonsense as teams received a Snapple bottle as a clue — well, the clue was inside the lid (something that Kisha & Jen failed to realize but it still wasn’t much of a setback) — and the teams had to choose between delivering books to a school or painting a statue of a Hindu god. Some teams assumed the book delivery could take longer because they had to get directions and tell their school bus driver where to go. And those school buses were just cages on wheels! Turns it out takes longer to paint and decorate a statue than it does to deliver books, and maybe if Margie & Luke had done the book challenge they just may have beaten Flight Time & Big Easy to the Pit Stop, especially after Flight Time kicked over a bucket of paint that splashed on the bottom part of their statue which required some touch-ups.
As teams cabbed it to the Pit Stop, Ron & Christina once again barely escaped with their lives as their cabbie narrowly avoided a collision with a bus (they finally decided to get another cab), but Gary & Mallory were the first team to check in. And their prize? They got to be the first people to taste the new Amazing Race Teas by Snapple! Oh, they also got a special night of dinner with some Bollywood style entertainment and ONE MILLION … rupees, which was about $20,000 so that’s not too shabby even if they did have to appear in a Snapple commercial to get it. Come to think of it, I wonder if these are some leftover bottles of tea from that Celebrity Apprentice challenge last season?
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Mar 28, 2011 @ 08:58 EST5EDT
