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As a Brit, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment | “Use tea from India or Ceylon (Sri Lanka), not China,” it starts. “Use a teapot, preferably ceramic. Wa

by _joel 2y ago

As a Brit, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment | “Use tea from India or Ceylon (Sri Lanka), not China,” it starts. “Use a teapot, preferably ceramic. Warm the pot over direct heat. Tea should be strong, six spoons of leaves per litre. Let the leaves move around the pot. No bags or strainers. Take the pot to the boiling kettle. Stir or shake the pot. Drink out of a tall, mug-shaped teacup. Don’t add creamy milk. Add milk to the tea, not vice versa. No sugar!”

n4r9 2y ago
That comes from a 1946 essay by Orwell named "A nice cup of tea". He published it directly after the second world war when rationing and limited imports were a recent memory. But as you say it broadly describes how we've drunk tea in the UK up to now. The main difference is probably that teabags are now much more common than tea leaves. Britain has a complex history with tea due to historical reasons. For a nation that claims to love tea, it's surprising that we generally don't care about drinking whole-leaf or single-origin. A British cup of tea is some sort of Baudrillardian simulacrum. Just compare it to wine or coffee, where blends are the cheap stuff which you avoid if you can. I believe the same was once true here, but WW2 - combined with our colonial history - changed everything. The book "Infused: Adventures In Tea" by Henrietta Lovell [0] has a nice section about this. For any "builders tea" drinkers interested in expanding their horizons, I'd recommend giving Yunnan gold leaves a go. You can buy a sample from online retailers like Adagio [1] (although have to pay delivery). Just boil and drink with milk in the normal fashion. The natural sweetness and earthiness of it blew my socks off the first time I tried it. Interestingly, Twinings' "Everyday" tea bags include some leaves sourced from Yunnan [2]. [0] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196229938560 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196229938560 [1] https://www.adagiotea.co.uk/black/yunnan_gold.html https://www.adagiotea.co.uk/black/yunnan_gold.html [2] https://twinings.co.uk/products/everyday-80-tea-bags https://twinings.co.uk/products/everyday-80-tea-bags
- _joel 2y ago
  Perfect, thanks, I'll try that out. Obviously in additon to my Yorkshire addiction.
n1b0m 2y ago
I know this is going to sound like heresy, but I’m a milk first person. Warmed up milk not cold.
- _joel 2y ago
  It's simply so you don't put too much milk in. Whether rationing or not, without eyeballing if the white liquid you put in the white cup is enough, or you need 1ml more. If you put the tea in first and milk last, you see the colour change as you carefully titrate the milk in and disaster can be averted :)
- n4r9 2y ago
  Orwell's detail on that point is as follows: > 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. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/a-nice-cup-of-tea/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... I wonder if wasting milk was a greater concern at the time, when the country had recently come out of rationing. Personally, I am also milk-first. There's less risk of the milk denaturing as it heats up more slowly. This is especially true for alternative milks such as oat or soy (which Orwell no doubt would have despised).
  - n1b0m 2y ago
    Very good point about the rationing during Orwell’s time and also non dairy milks
fifilura 2y ago
What does a typical British "Tall, mug-shaped teacup" look like? Genuinely curious, since I can only think about tea party with the Queen with some delicate china when I think of brits drinking tea. And I don't like small/wide teacups. I would love to get a genuine British cup/mug.
- n4r9 2y ago
  I don't think we have particularly different mugs to what you'd drink coffee or herbal teas out of in the US. This is probably the most common shape you'd expect to see in someone's house: https://i.etsystatic.com/7320577/r/il/c46fa1/1742208467/il_fullxfull.1742208467_pwww.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/7320577/r/il/c46fa1/1742208467/il_f... A more stylish approach would be like this: https://teaunboxed.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/tea-mugs.jpg https://teaunboxed.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/tea-... This is what you'd probably get in a standard cafe: https://1975.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Great-British-Mug-of-Tea.jpg https://1975.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Great-British-... This is what I think of when someone says "tall" mug: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/269441990179867455/ https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/269441990179867455/
  - nimonian 2y ago
    Thicker walked ceramic mugs are definitely common in the UK, and probably more common now than anything else, but me and my gran both agree that a proper cup of tea needs serving in a thin-walled, fine-china cup, like this: https://fegghayespottery.co.uk/product/plain-270ml-bone-china-tea-coffee-cup-saucer/ https://fegghayespottery.co.uk/product/plain-270ml-bone-chin...
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
    In the States indeed these mostly look like bog standard coffee mugs. The tall one exists as a design but it’s rarer. I can’t speak for the OP but my experience is that media about Great Britain in America often depicts tea mugs as different (I’ve seen many shorter, smaller and flatter variants) than those mugs. Perhaps it is to highlight that the beverage is tea and not something else like coffee to the viewer.
  - 2y ago

by _joel 2y ago

n4r9 2y ago

That comes from a 1946 essay by Orwell named "A nice cup of tea". He published it directly after the second world war when rationing and limited imports were a recent memory. But as you say it broadly describes how we've drunk tea in the UK up to now. The main difference is probably that teabags are now much more common than tea leaves. Britain has a complex history with tea due to historical reasons. For a nation that claims to love tea, it's surprising that we generally don't care about drinking whole-leaf or single-origin. A British cup of tea is some sort of Baudrillardian simulacrum. Just compare it to wine or coffee, where blends are the cheap stuff which you avoid if you can. I believe the same was once true here, but WW2 - combined with our colonial history - changed everything. The book "Infused: Adventures In Tea" by Henrietta Lovell [0] has a nice section about this. For any "builders tea" drinkers interested in expanding their horizons, I'd recommend giving Yunnan gold leaves a go. You can buy a sample from online retailers like Adagio [1] (although have to pay delivery). Just boil and drink with milk in the normal fashion. The natural sweetness and earthiness of it blew my socks off the first time I tried it. Interestingly, Twinings' "Everyday" tea bags include some leaves sourced from Yunnan [2]. [0] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196229938560 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196229938560 [1] https://www.adagiotea.co.uk/black/yunnan_gold.html https://www.adagiotea.co.uk/black/yunnan_gold.html [2] https://twinings.co.uk/products/everyday-80-tea-bags https://twinings.co.uk/products/everyday-80-tea-bags

_joel 2y ago
Perfect, thanks, I'll try that out. Obviously in additon to my Yorkshire addiction.

n1b0m 2y ago

I know this is going to sound like heresy, but I’m a milk first person. Warmed up milk not cold.

_joel 2y ago
It's simply so you don't put too much milk in. Whether rationing or not, without eyeballing if the white liquid you put in the white cup is enough, or you need 1ml more. If you put the tea in first and milk last, you see the colour change as you carefully titrate the milk in and disaster can be averted :)
n4r9 2y ago
Orwell's detail on that point is as follows: > 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. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/a-nice-cup-of-tea/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... I wonder if wasting milk was a greater concern at the time, when the country had recently come out of rationing. Personally, I am also milk-first. There's less risk of the milk denaturing as it heats up more slowly. This is especially true for alternative milks such as oat or soy (which Orwell no doubt would have despised).
- n1b0m 2y ago
  Very good point about the rationing during Orwell’s time and also non dairy milks

fifilura 2y ago

What does a typical British "Tall, mug-shaped teacup" look like? Genuinely curious, since I can only think about tea party with the Queen with some delicate china when I think of brits drinking tea. And I don't like small/wide teacups. I would love to get a genuine British cup/mug.

n4r9 2y ago
I don't think we have particularly different mugs to what you'd drink coffee or herbal teas out of in the US. This is probably the most common shape you'd expect to see in someone's house: https://i.etsystatic.com/7320577/r/il/c46fa1/1742208467/il_fullxfull.1742208467_pwww.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/7320577/r/il/c46fa1/1742208467/il_f... A more stylish approach would be like this: https://teaunboxed.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/tea-mugs.jpg https://teaunboxed.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/tea-... This is what you'd probably get in a standard cafe: https://1975.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Great-British-Mug-of-Tea.jpg https://1975.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Great-British-... This is what I think of when someone says "tall" mug: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/269441990179867455/ https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/269441990179867455/
- nimonian 2y ago
  Thicker walked ceramic mugs are definitely common in the UK, and probably more common now than anything else, but me and my gran both agree that a proper cup of tea needs serving in a thin-walled, fine-china cup, like this: https://fegghayespottery.co.uk/product/plain-270ml-bone-china-tea-coffee-cup-saucer/ https://fegghayespottery.co.uk/product/plain-270ml-bone-chin...
- SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
  In the States indeed these mostly look like bog standard coffee mugs. The tall one exists as a design but it’s rarer. I can’t speak for the OP but my experience is that media about Great Britain in America often depicts tea mugs as different (I’ve seen many shorter, smaller and flatter variants) than those mugs. Perhaps it is to highlight that the beverage is tea and not something else like coffee to the viewer.
- 2y ago