I wasn’t sure what forum to put this in, but since I’m entirely serious I’ll try here. I’ve often lamented the fact that in dire need of a cup of tea, when my energy levels are lowest, that making tea seems too of an much effort. Would monkeys possess the intelligence and motor control to carry out the functions necessary to make a cup of tea*?
By this I mean one monkey to boil the water, one monkey to find a clean cup and put tea in it, a monkey to pour the water, a monkey to wait three minutes and remind the final monkey to put milk and/or sugar in the tea. One monkey might be able to do two or more of these, but I reckon that you would need at least three.
Are monkeys intelligent enough for this? Can they operate as a team? Would ethical, legal and hygiene matters be a problem? I care deeply about animal rights, but I think that asking monkeys to make tea is a lot better than performing harmful tests on them.
If this proves impossible, could I get a solo monkey to make toast?
I know that there are better ways of making tea, but I’m trying to think of the most simple way from the point of view of a troupe of monkeys.
I do recall seeing a film of a helper monkey spoonfeeding its owner. So if you completely wear yourself out making tea, it could still help you sustain life.
Seriously, though, here’s a site that suggests that toast, at least, may not be out of the question:
I don’t see why you couldn’t. Having worked around trained animals such as chimps a bit, and I think a Chimp would be a better choice than a typical monkey, I would say that yes, a young, healthy chimp by itself could probably be trained to make you a cup of tea. Given enough time and patience and assuming you knew something about how to train a chimp. It would take a good bit of work, but chimps have been trained to ride bicycles.
Most Chimps are bright and fairly easy to work with, that is until they reach sexual maturity. Then look out. You might get something unexpected in that cup.
Getting chimps to work together I would suspect would be much more difficult. Unless someone has actually done what you have suggested I don’t think you will get a more definitive answer.
One of those suspect factoids you see various places is that the ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait on tables. You might also hear that they trained them to gather fruit or be torchbearers. Whether they actually did or not, it’s within the realms of possibility. Accounts seem to be silent on whether you had to tip them.