Tea (1999)

"A Nice Cup of Tea", by George Orwell (1946) [ http://pastebin.com/g3FSzqPv ]

  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 ofthe 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.

We need better sieves. Tea-balls are awful, and the vast majority of tea sieves are these tiny little mesh buckets that affix to the top of the kettle, meaning they only even touch the water if the kettle is completely filled. Then, to boot, they are so woefully undersized (probably for the sake of making them easy to fit into the pot) that the tea leaves barely have any place to bloom. The result is a very weak tasting cup of tea despite the effort of having acquired good quality loose-leaf tea.

I eventually grew so annoyed with my teapot that I've let the leaves bloom directly in the pot, and then put the sieve/filter into my cup, so that it will catch any leaves before I lift it out.

If you want to try tea I wouldn't try earl grey first, it has a funny taste to me - and I drink a lot of tea. Try english breakfast (twinings if you can get it), or even better orange pekoe, but all the other instructions are spot on.

There are so many different flavours that black tea can be, no two brands taste the same, if you really want to enjoy it though avoid supermarket tea bags they are so very dull.

  In fact the truth of the matter is that most English people don't know how to
  make tea any more either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead,
  which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just
  generally clueless about hot stimulants.

When you're using water that's 212 degrees, and measuring by teaspoon rather than weight, and suggesting porcelain will hold the heat the longest, yes, I think you're clueless about making tea.

  Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as 
  quickly as you can into the pot. Let it stand for two or three minutes,
  and then pour it into a cup.

Higher than 208 degrees, with typical black teas, you're just accelerating the steep time. Here he steeps for up to 3 minutes because the water was hotter; at 208, you'd steep 5 minutes on average.

  Some people will tell you that you shouldn't have milk with Earl Grey, just 
  a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk.

THEN YOU'RE NOT DRINKING TEA! YOU'RE DRINKING A TEA LATTE!

..... Sorry. I just get upset when ignorant westerners think they're experts about foreign food. Next thing you know they'll claim they've mastered curry or something.

You're supposed to brew the leaves in the pot. That's why traditional teapots have built-in straining holes (or you can use an alternate vessel like a Gaiwan). Most people rarely get the temperature right anyway so proper extraction isn't usually a consideration.

That said, this thing is friggin magical: http://www.teavana.com/us/en/teaware/tea-makers/teavana-32-o...