The perfect cup of tea

[Cyberus]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
ADDING MILK TO TEA??
Yeurck, that is sick!

Well it depends on the type of tea.

I usually don't have milk in my tea, because I drink green tea

1. Pour warm water into and over the outside of my lovely purple clay chinese teapot
2. Put a teaspoon of Lo Chu Cha (gunpowder tea) into the pot
3. Put on kettle, with fresh water
4. Stop kettle just when it starts to bubble, a good few seconds before it would click (for green tea one should use 'fish eye water', rather than 'old man water' - this is when the kettle clicks)
5. Pour water into pot, leave for no more than about four minutes
6. Pour tea into one (or two if I have company)of my lovely chinese tea bowls, making sure that no water is left in the pot to stew.
7. Enjoy!

[that_punk_guy]

At home I usually have fruit teas, because there isn't really a milk substitute that tastes right in tea, and I'm not all that keen on normal black tea. Fruit tea always tastes better if it's left for four or five minutes. If I don't leave it long enough, the taste makes me feel green about the gills for some reason.

My grandma makes the best cups of tea any mortal has had the privilege of beholding. And next month I'm going to see her for the first time in two years, I'm going to have to reject her tea and she's going to give me so much crap about my diet.

[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 :-(

[Speelgoedmannetje]

I HATE those restaurant cups o' tea, where you get a glass  and have a choice of zillions of artificial tea. The glass is hot and the tea cold. And if you choose coffee as an alternative, the coffee is almost water, and it's far too less. No, I always choose beer when I'm at a restaurant, or water, or wine (only if it's good wine)

[that_punk_guy]

mikeymike wrote:
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 :-(

You just need to let the force guide you. Don't concentrate too hard on getting it right - that's the wrong approach. The force is in you. Use it, Luke. Er, Mikeymike.

:-)

[KennyR]

The best way to make tea:

* Use an aluminium teapot. Never steel, never brass. The longer it has been making tea, the better the tea will taste.

* The water must be hot when it touches the tea. Boil it beforehand in a kettle. Never put the tea in first with cold water and boil it - that makes horrible watery aftertasty tea fit for nothing.

* Brew on medium gas/power for at least three minutes. Over five is good.

* Use plenty of tea. The liquid should be a deep brown and have a strong smell. If you can see an oily layer on the top, then you've made good tea. Europeans make awful tea - hot water with brown colouring, it must be one teabag to 20 litres of water or something. If there ever was a justification for the British Empire taking over the world, that's it!

* Don't use sweetener or sugar. I may be forced to find you and murder you for ruining this fine beverage.

* Use Scottish water. It has no lime, limescale, or hardness. And it tastes great in tea. English water always makes tea taste horrible, no matter how expensive it is.

* Put the milk in the cup first, if you use milk. Otherwise you curdle the milk and give the tea a bitter aftertaste.

@bloodline

:roflmao:

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Aluminium? No! It loses too much heat! Ceramic is the word! For a good cup of tea, always use a ceramic teapot.

For the rest, tea mustn't be watery, but in between strong and watery <- and that's the tric! And of course, you do not use teabags. Tea in a special tea thingy (a metal celestial sieve, how is it called?)

And a REAL tea connaisseur NEVER uses milk in his tea, only freaky English do such. What do you want to drink: tea or hot watery milk?

[KennyR]

Speel wrote:
Aluminium? No! It loses too much heat! Ceramic is the word! For a good cup of tea, always use a ceramic teapot.

Of course it loses heat - but you're applying more from the bottom, so it doesn't really matter, does it? How do you brew tea in a ceramic pot? It would be like drinking out of a toilet. Yuk! ;-)

For the rest, tea mustn't be watery, but in between strong and watery <- and that's the tric!

No, it should be viscous. Only when tea doesn't actually look like water any more when its poured, is it ready. That's real tea. How can you get any taste out of it otherwise?

And a REAL tea connaisseur NEVER uses milk in his tea, only freaky English do such. What do you want to drink: tea or hot watery milk?

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!

[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 :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

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

:furious:  :whack:

(that's for my today's convincing arguments)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A61345

Only Douglas Adams knows best.

BTW, you're doing everything wrong: making it in a cup (TEAPOT!), and putting the milk in last (don't curdle the milk by pouring it into scolding hot water), and letting it go lukewarm (DISHWATER TEA!!).

UGH. You are a dishwater teamaker, my man. You also overlabour it.. waiting for bubbles? floating?

[that_punk_guy]

In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It's worth bearing this in mind when visiting.

:lol:

[Speelgoedmannetje]

You all know where tea comes from? No?
Well, it comes from China, where it is drinked by zillions of people over thousands of years. They know how to make tea.


Not the crappy putrid Englisssh! ()



The Chinese NEVER use milk in their tea.

[sir_inferno]

KennyR wrote:
The best way to make tea:

* Use an aluminium teapot. Never steel, never brass. The longer it has been making tea, the better the tea will taste.

yeah, and get alzeichmers (sp)

[/quote]

* The water must be hot when it touches the tea. Boil it beforehand in a kettle. Never put the tea in first with cold water and boil it - that makes horrible watery aftertasty tea fit for nothing.

* Brew on medium gas/power for at least three minutes. Over five is good.

* Use plenty of tea. The liquid should be a deep brown and have a strong smell. If you can see an oily layer on the top, then you've made good tea. Europeans make awful tea - hot water with brown colouring, it must be one teabag to 20 litres of water or something. If there ever was a justification for the British Empire taking over the world, that's it!

* Don't use sweetener or sugar. I may be forced to find you and murder you for ruining this fine beverage.


[/quote]

SUGAR MUST BE ADDED! :-)

* Use Scottish water. It has no lime, limescale, or hardness. And it tastes great in tea. English water always makes tea taste horrible, no matter how expensive it is.

Evian please

* Put the milk in the cup first, if you use milk. Otherwise you curdle the milk and give the tea a bitter aftertaste.

@bloodline

:roflmao:

true  :-)

[smithy]

It's all about equipment.  For example, at work - there is no tea-pot and the teaspoons are usually left lying in the sink and look a bit mouldy.

This requires some thought - if you have only water boiler, cup and tea bag then the best way to do it is:
1.  Pour water in cup.
2.  Swill water about just in case the resident office insects were playing in your cup (this also warms the cup up which is important too).
3.  Dip tea bag in water and dunk it around for 30 seconds.  If you just drop it in you'll burn your fingers trying to fish it out.  The dunking action is particularly important because the water turns brown about 20 times quicker, than if you just left it there.
4.  Add milk and appreciate the nice swirling effect it makes - you don't get this swirling effect otherwise.

[Cyberus]

Really!

As I said before, I don't usually drink milk in my tea because I usually drink Chinese green teas.

Tea pots should not be made from metal, as the 'metallic chi' affects the flavour of the tea.
The best teapots are made from China (that makes a 'ching!' sound when you flick it or sand pottery, particularly Jixing (purple sand pots) from the Jixing region of China. These pots are actually porous and so good care must be taken with cleaning and storing them - they improve markedly with age as they absorb the tea, but can also absorb strong odours and chemical cleaners if care is not taken!

Forgive me forgetting that the Dutch invented everything, ruled the world and removed needlessly rude comment, but English people drink milk in their tea, because it is so-called 'English tea', black tea usually from Sri Lanka and India.

If an English person drinks green, white, or red Chinese tea, they don't add milk, because that would be terrible! I don't have milk in my tea, unless I drink English tea. The reason I add milk to English tea is that it is very strong and would make me go 'yeurgh!' on its own. I'd like to see *anyone* drink a five-minute-brewed Assam without milk or a big dose of sugar (sugar, yeurgh!).
I would never suggest that you drink milk with Oolong, Lo Chu Cha, Jasmine tea, etc., however

The nations with greatest tea-making traditions are England, Morocco, Russia, China, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tibet, Mongolia, India and Japan :-D England being the most recent addition to the club. The Portuguese were believed to be the ones who introduced tea to Europe, although the Dutch also began importing it soon after.
And by the way, tea is an interest of mine and I've done much reading on the subject.

Did you know that monkey tea is called monkey tea because its a certain variety that grows in such remote places that it has to be picked by trained monkeys?