The perfect cup of tea

[mikeymike]

Anyone have a strategy for making the perfect cup of tea?

The way I do it generally makes a damn good cup of tea:

1) Put teabag and sugar in cup
2) Switch kettle on
3) After kettle has boiled, leave it for a minute
4) Pour water in, try to cover the whole teabag while pouring, so an air bubble forms in the top, making it float to the surface
5) Give it a gentle stir, when the water has turned as dark as it will go, discard teabag and give it a good stir.
6) Stick a bit of milk in and stir a bit more
7) Leave for about five minutes

Just wondered if anyone has a better way.  I like Earl Grey tea, though I had to switch to decaf due to dietary issues.  Decaf isn't bad, though it doesn't quite have the 'zing' taste of tea.

[mikeymike]

Very odd how 'chloroform' was the first word I read of your post :-)

You've been thinking too much about the various Monkey Island drink spiking references :-)

[mikeymike]

I disagree about adding the milk before the tea has brewed, as this tends to stop the tea brewing as much - when I drink black tea I tend to drink it strong, and so only add the milk after the tea has brewed.

Also you can't see how much it has brewed either.

[mikeymike]

I've been making some crap cups of tea recently.  I managed to sort out the one I just made now by pouring the water directly after boil and stirring it a lot more, but I'm afraid I might have lost my touch :-(

[mikeymike]

9/10ths tea in a cup to 1/10th tea isn't going to give you hot milk. It'll dissolve the flavoured oils in the fat of the milk and increase the flavour. Of course, without milk is good too. But anyone who puts sugar in their tea deserves slapped knees. Very harshly slapped knees!

Tea needs milk and sugar!  A tiny bit of milk and I tend to go with two sugars.  Yum.  (Normally)

@ tpg

I will try ancient meditation techniques before making my next cuppa.

don't try to brew the tea, that's impossible.  Instead, only try to realise the truth: there is no tea.  Then you'll see it is not the tea that brews, it is only yourself.

Ok, so it's early and I can't think of any other "relevant" quotes yet :-)

[mikeymike]

I find that generally the best cups of cappucino can be found in Italian restaurants.

[mikeymike]

Vincent wrote:
Another way to make the perfect cuppa:

Don't have one all day, then you'll appreciate it more when you do have it :-)

Nope, doesn't work for me :-)  I tend to have one cup of tea per day or less, but if I haven't had one in a while, chances are the first one will be bloody awful :-)

[mikeymike]

Oi!  :-)

I tried someone's suggestion to put the milk, teabag and sugar in first, then putting the boiling water on the top, which generally seems to work better.  Though I must have lost my touch making it the way I used to make it.  Odd.

But then, I thought I had lost my touch at playing Counter-Strike, but I turned out to be wrong there :-)  Like a CS ninja once again :-)

[mikeymike]

Never let the teabag touch the milk!!

Well, it works for me...