Proper Cup of Tea

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Didn't say you had to sweeten it...

Okay, you got me there. But I do like a scant spoonful to break through the tannin taste.

BTW, I had a used teabag sitting on the side of my cup one day. Burnt my hand with boiling water. Ran it under cold water and on the way to the Relief Station, put the tea bag on it. Doctor was very surprised that I knew that. Kept the burn from blistering. :angel:
 
I use Stash tea. I drink tea from sun up until sun down. I like black tea the best (English Breakfast is my favorite), but I have also started brewing their Pomegranate Raspberry green tea for my iced tea throughout the day. Stash makes lovely tea, and it is never bitter. I don't care much for herbal teas, but I do like the smell of some of them. :)
 
I use Stash tea. I drink tea from sun up until sun down. I like black tea the best (English Breakfast is my favorite), but I have also started brewing their Pomegranate Raspberry green tea for my iced tea throughout the day. Stash makes lovely tea, and it is never bitter. I don't care much for herbal teas, but I do like the smell of some of them. :)

Chops, I too love English breakfast...those brits really know how to make a good tea :)
 
Okay, you got me there. But I do like a scant spoonful to break through the tannin taste.

BTW, I had a used teabag sitting on the side of my cup one day. Burnt my hand with boiling water. Ran it under cold water and on the way to the Relief Station, put the tea bag on it. Doctor was very surprised that I knew that. Kept the burn from blistering. :angel:
Cold tea is a very old treatment for burns but I doubt many people know that these days. Cold (wet) tea bags make soothing eye compresses too. if you are feeling really frazzled and the bags under your eyes could hold a week's shopping, put the tea bags in the 'fridge for a few minutes first then lie down with your tea compresses on your closed eyes and some soothing music playing for half an hour.
 
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Chops, I too love English breakfast...those brits really know how to make a good tea :)
But of course, Dere Hart.

I would have thought Australians did too, given their predominently British origins.;) My New Zealander colleague at work used to make a really ferocious cup of tea. Like me, she liked it strong enough to stand up on its own without a cup - brave men were known to faint when presented with a cup of her tea. :LOL:
 
In spite of having lived in the southern part of Texas, I was never able to develop the taste for sweet iced tea. And that seemed to be the only way they knew to serve it. And when I would order only plain black tea, I got some really strange looks and questions. So I quit asking for it. I prefer my tea hot with just one scant spoon of sugar. I still get strange looks and comments. In these here parts most folks use milk and sugar. I used to drink it that way all the time with my mother. And I loved to dunk buttered stale Italian bread in it. Then when I was twelve, my aunt introduce me to drinking it black. Never went back. :angel:
I drink my indian tea with a little milk but china tea without and no sugar in either. I quite like lemon instead of milk if the tea isn't very strong.

The dunking is interesting. I dunk McVities and Price's ginger nuts (a hard cookie) in my tea. There is an art to this as you have to judge between long enough immersion to soften the ginger nut but not long enough to make it soggy enough to fall into the tea.

I had a couple of elderly aunts who had run a seaside guest house and they always warmed the milk for the tea. Have never come across this anywhere else before or since. The only reason I could think of for it was that the tea would cool during the transit from kitchen to drawing room and cold milk would chill it further.

Glad to see our American cousins are coming round to the "cup that cheers but not inebriates". Very good for you too - full of anti-oxidents, apparently. Nothing like it in a crisis and I'm useless in the morning until I've had my second cup.
 
Also the number of different times you can use the same leaves in a pot of tea differs.......black teas you can get 2 maybe 3 pots out of them.
A-RR-GGG-HHH!!!!! NO! NO! NO!

NEVER re-use tea leaves. The resulting liquid tastes foul.

That idea comes from the days when tea attracted a huge tax and was only available to the rich. The moderately rich re-used their tea as an economy and the servants of the very rich were allowed the used tea leaves for their own use.

When the tax was reduced in the 19th century and the lower levels of society could afford it the re-use of tea was common only among the poor.

There was a bit of a resurgence of tea leaf re-use across all levels of society during WWII as tea was rationed in 1940 to 2 ounces per person per week. Even when the tea leaves were completely exhausted they were used for damping down dust when sweeping floors and still were at my primary school in the 1950s. Nothing wasted unlike now.
 
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As said above, Ishbel got it right. Loose leaf tea in the warmed teapot, 1 per cup & 1 for the pot, let stand for 4 minutes, stir, pour through a strainer.

If I'm just making 1 cup for myself then I'll use a single cup steeper which allows the tea leaves to expand. Again, 4 minutes, ** and add to the cup which ALREADY has the milk in. **

**My sister is visiting from the UK next week and already has my order of Lancashire Tea packed in her bags! **Can't wait.

**Now that opens a can of worms. There is nothing guaranteed to start a world war among tea drinkers more than the issue of milk in first or last.:LOL:**

**My Tea blending acquaintance told me that tea is specially blended to suit the water in the area in which it's sold (at least in the UK - I didn't ask about elsewhere) so your PG Tips or your Yorkshire Tea or whatever your special poison is will be a different blend when sold in London than it is when sold in Lancaster and will be a different blend again for shops in Lanark.**
 
I have a Brown Betty teapot. It even has the little lip inside to catch those pesky leaves. But I also have a small nylon tea strainer for the pouring. I don't like the metal ones. It is not the prettiest teapot, but it sure make a great pot of tea. :angel:

I don't like fruit teas or herb teas - so I'm not too sure of the 'correct' way to prepare them..... 8)

Here's the traditional British way to make tea - which should be with leaf tea, not teabags. I use Twining's Teas and have Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Lapsang Souchong, Ceylon and Assam as a stronger, breakfast tea.

First boil your kettle. Put a little of the boiled water into the china or earthenware teapot (metal seems to give it an odd taste, IMO). Swirl the boiling water around to warm the pot and then empty. You should then add one teaspoon for each person plus 'one for the pot'. Pour on the boiling water. Give it a quick stir and allow tea to brew for 3-4 minutes. Put milk in cup (there is a lot of hooey talked about whether milk should be added first or after the tea is poured - I've never been able to detect the difference!), pour on tea. Drink! :LOL:
Exactly, with once variation. If making tea in a small pot which makes enough for a cup for 1 person leave out the "one-for-the-pot" otherwise the tea may be too strong (if you are using strong tea leaves)
 
Congrats on "filling up the set" Mudbug!

I am NOT a tea drinker, on the other hand, my forbears were...sohere are a few thoughts for you...

"Water" cannot get hotter than 212F/100C without it becomes steam, right? (With pressure, you can get steam hotter, but thats not the issue here)

Anyways, if/when you pour your "boiling water" into a "cold teapot", the temp of the water is "significantly reduced" as the heat comes out of the water and goes into the teapot itself, right?

Therefore, the Urban Legend is "validated", that you should swish a couple cups of boiling water thru the teapot just to heat it up, before you put in your teawater and/or tea....

Being, of course, a "barbarian", and never having been to Kansas, most of us up here in the Great White North will use "teabags" to make tea...in order not to have to strain the tea of its leaves or suffer "fortune-telling" leaf patterns in the bottom of the teacup (about the size of this issue!), I have always tossed the teabag(s) into the boiled water and judged when to remove them by the colour of the infusion resulting...stirring them if/when necessary, (and, sigh, alas, "no" I don't have the taste sense to taste the "paper" of the teabag, or the coffee filter, come to that!)...on the other hand, I can produce the "colour" of the tea I am making, and "shut it off" at a predicted point...


Its interesting how the pro chefs have their advice on the matter, but again, doubt that that many of us have the "palate's" to say which is better or worse, or the cash to buy what's all that fresh or aged...if it tastes good to you, go for it, in my own opinion...

Lifter
Colour isn't always a good guide to the strength of the tea. Some blends which make quite a strong tasting tea make quite a light coloured liquid and some blends (particularly cheap ones) make a dark liquid very quickly but need to brew a bit longer to get the proper flavour.

There is an urban myth that the tea that goes into tea bags is the sweepings from the floor of the blending room! This isn't true but the tea that goes into tea bags is not as good a quality as leaf tea. For instance , it's much smaller particles than loose leaf tea which affects the flavour of the resulting liquid.
 
I have this teapot from Ikea:

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It works great for loose tea or tea bags.
I was given a similar one but the tea never tasted right so it went to the charity shop. Tea doesn't tase right in glass cups either.

And no, I can't see any reason for this either!
 
Has anyone ever heard of tea getting buggy? I bought some loose leaf tea from a local tea shop and the basket I kept it in got buggy. I couldn't figure out if it was from the tea or not. I got rid of it just in case.

I restocked with Taylor and Harrogate brand that I found in Wholefoods. My favorite is Assam.
 
Has anyone ever heard of tea getting buggy? I bought some loose leaf tea from a local tea shop and the basket I kept it in got buggy. I couldn't figure out if it was from the tea or not. I got rid of it just in case.

I restocked with Taylor and Harrogate brand that I found in Wholefoods. My favorite is Assam.
Buggy?
 
Yes, the basket I kept the packet of tea's in got little black bugs. There was nothing else in there that would account for the critters. I think the tea shop bought their tea in bulk and then packaged them in smaller paper packets. Perhaps something happened to their stock?
 
Yes, the basket I kept the packet of tea's in got little black bugs. There was nothing else in there that would account for the critters. I think the tea shop bought their tea in bulk and then packaged them in smaller paper packets. Perhaps something happened to their stock?
Eeuw! Possibly. Can you take it back to the shop? They ought to know if they don't already and if they do know then environmental health department at your local authority need to know. (Or whoever deals with public health and food hygiene issues in your town)
 
Eeuw! Possibly. Can you take it back to the shop?

No, I pretty much did the heebie-jeebie dance to the trash bin and dumped it. This place is a tenant of the office building management company that I work for. Not sure how to say "Oh, by the way , your tea had BUGS!" I'm still honestly not sure, I've never heard of tea getting buggy before. Don't want to cast aspertions.
 
No, I pretty much did the heebie-jeebie dance to the trash bin and dumped it. This place is a tenant of the office building management company that I work for. Not sure how to say "Oh, by the way , your tea had BUGS!" I'm still honestly not sure, I've never heard of tea getting buggy before. Don't want to cast aspertions.
Hmm. Never a good idea to complain when you've got rid of the evidence. Better to shop elsewhere in future
 
Cold tea is a very old treatment for burns but I doubt many people know that these days. Cold (wet) tea bags make soothing eye compresses too. if you are feeling really frazzled and the bags under your eyes could hold a week's shopping, put the tea bags in the 'fridge for a few minutes first then lie down with your tea compresses on your closed eyes and some soothing music playing for half an hour.
Salt water is even better for burns. Until WWII, tea was what they used. But, tea can cause scarring. They noticed that service men who went down in the ocean with bad burns healed faster and with less scarring, so they started using salt water immersion.

Camomile tea is even better for sore eyes. They use (or at least did in the '70s) it in Danish hospitals along with antibiotics, if there is infection.
 
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