How to make the perfect cup of tea

[Quartz]

Read the scientific study here.

Instructions for perfect cup of tea for one

1. Add 200ml of freshly boiled water to your tea bag (in a mug).
2. Allow the tea bag to brew for 2 minutes.
3. Remove the tea bag.
4. Add 10ml of milk.
5. Wait 6 minutes before consumption for the cuppa to reach its optimum temperature of 60 degrees centigrade

 

[Firky]

WTF is this ml and degree shit?

It's tea. Hoy a bag in a cup or pot and add water and leave until it reaches desired strength, add milk / sugar to taste.

Load of cock.

 

[bi0boy]

tea bag

I stopped reading there

 

[Geri]

Two minutes is not long enough.

 

[bi0boy]

Two minutes is not long enough.

Perhaps it depends on the type of teabag? Since the "research" (sponsored by Cravendale Milk) appears to be unpublished, we can't know what type(s) of teabag they used in the study.

 

[Firky]

Two minutes is not long enough.

I like my tea so strong it bends the spoon.

 

[bi0boy]

Load of cock.

Staff at the University of Northumbria School of Life Sciences obviously don't have anything better to do than engage in crass marketing exercises for multinationals.

 

[Firky]

Staff at the University of Northumbria School of Life Sciences obviously don't have anything better to do than engage in crass marketing exercises for multinationals.

My SiL works there. She tweets all day in between looking after frozen spunk and eggs.

It is one of the world leaders in stem cell research and spunkicles.

 

[sheothebudworths]

ymu ruined my life a couple of years ago by saying (on a similar thread) that the water should be poured directly onto(/through) the teabag.
I literally cannot EVER make a cup of tea without doing it this way now...even though I drive myself mad every time I do it ....'just pour the fucking water in any old way, FFS ....gggrrrrzzzzzzzz......omg.....' *pours water carefully over tea bag*

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.

If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

• First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.
  
• Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
  
• Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
  
• Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
  
• Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
  
• Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
  
• Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
  
• Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
  
• Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
  
• Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
  
• Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
  
  Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

 

[xenon]

Milk in first IMO.

 

[weepiper]

Milk in first IMO.

*shakes head, walks away muttering*

 

[Addy]

Always warm the pot for 5 minutes before making the tea

 

[Orang Utan]

Leave it to cool down? WHAT? It needs to be as hot as possible

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Milk in first IMO.

Me too. I have no trouble regulating the amount of milk. The milk in last lot tend to be the teabag in cup brigade. I can't deny I make people tea like this but usually because only one person wants a quick cuppa. I make a pot with loose leaf if it's for me or a group of people.

 

[xenon]

George is right. I used to have sugar in tea, then after a couple of weeks, you really do get used to it and the mereist hint of sugar in tea now angers me beyond reason.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Leave it to cool down? WHAT? It needs to be as hot as possible

There's a study of people who do this and they are more prone to throat cancer.

 

[Orang Utan]

Leave it to cool down? WHAT? It needs to be as hot as possible

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Link
http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b929

 

[gentlegreen]

tea bag

I stopped reading there

- in a MUG !!

 

[xenon]

Me too. I have no trouble regulating the amount of milk. The milk in last lot tend to be the teabag in cup brigade. I can't deny I make people tea like this but usually because only one person wants a quick cuppa. I make a pot with loose leaf if it's for me or a group of people.

I put a clean finger in Though I am one of your tea bag in cup merchants though. When my aunt and uncle stayed over a couple of days last year he kept saying I should get a tea pot. My excuse is I don't really have the shelf space but also I'm not sure I can be bothered with the inevitable week / stewed tea as I got used to it.

 

[Orang Utan]

There's a study of people who do this and they are more prone to throat cancer.

I'm sure I indulge myself in much more risky behaviours than drinking hot tea.
Tepid tea is virtually undrinkable

 

[xenon]

There's a study of people who do this and they are more prone to throat cancer.

*shrug* Another thing to worry about. I drink tea whilst it's piping Tepid is disgusting. I'm always amazed if having made a cupper for someone their still drinking it some half hour later.

 

[bi0boy]

I'm sure I indulge myself in much more risky behaviours than drinking hot tea.
Tepid tea is virtually undrinkable

There's hot, and there's hot so that your tongue feels uncomfortable for days afterwards.

 

[Orang Utan]

George is right. I used to have sugar in tea, then after a couple of weeks, you really do get used to it and the mereist hint of sugar in tea now angers me beyond reason.

I like both. Tend to have it sweet at home on days off, non-sweet at all other times

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I don't think it's an either or, tepid vs scalding. I like hot tea, but not scalding.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Fuck that shit. Has to be green tea & bag dunked for not much longer than a few seconds.

 

[Orang Utan]

A cup of tea should last no more than a couple of minutes

 

[gentlegreen]

Mine is rarely drunk hot - it hangs around all day.
I'll always warm yesterday's up for the first cup of the day though.

 

[bi0boy]

Tea shouldn't be allowed to cool to "warm", unless you're on your way to making ice tea of course. Coffee, on the other hand, always tastes better having been reheated in the microwave.