“The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. I like the crackling logs, the shaded lights, the scent of buttered toast, the general atmosphere of leisured coziness.”
–P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters
Don’t you love Wodehouse’s vision of arriving at a country home and being given a perfect cup of tea? Unfortunately, living in the United States, I have never had the pleasure he describes. I don’t think I have ever had a decent cup of tea in a private home, if we don’t count my home. In this country, only at Chinese and Thai restaurants — and at La Strada in Berkeley — have I been offered a properly made pot of tea. If you are a fellow tea drinker, this might be true for you as well.
Mr. Darcy enjoying a cup of Earl Grey, or perhaps a fine aged Pu-erh
What is it about tea that is so wonderful, so calming? It is a delightful elixir, sweetly fragrant, older than coffee and more subtle. It’s not especially difficult to make a good cup of tea. So why is it almost impossible to get one here?
In this life there are big problems, small problems, annoyances, and pet peeves. This particular problem could definitely be categorized as small. Yet I still struggle with it. If you are brave enough to accept a cup of tea in a coffee drinker’s home, the coffee drinker often hands you a mug full of microwaved water with a stale tea bag in it, the limp string hanging out of the cup. Gentle coffee drinker, imagine if I microwaved some water to just slightly hotter than body temperature, threw in some indifferently measured stale instant coffee I’ve had solidifying in my cupboard since the nineties, and handed this to you with some nasty fake creamer. That would be a cup of coffee that only a member of the Shackleton Expedition would consider drinking.
(Have you ever noticed when people on TV have tea, they also drink with the bag still in the cup? No real tea drinker would do this. The tea would get overbrewed and nasty.)
Making a good cup of tea is not that difficult. Step one is to boil water in a tea kettle. While the water gets hot, rinse out your teapot with hot water and place in it some tea. I always make an entire pot of tea, even if I am the only one drinking tea, because I deserve two cups or more if I want them.
George Orwell felt that to get the best flavor, the tea leaves had to be able to swirl freely in the pot: “If the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.” Tea purists will tell you to never use a tea bag, but you can make tea using a bag so long as it holds decent tea.
“Cup of tea?” Lupin said, looking around for his kettle. “I was just thinking of making one.”
“All right,” said Harry awkwardly.
Lupin tapped the kettle with his wand and a blast of steam issued suddenly from the spout.
“Sit down,” said Lupin, taking the lid off a dusty tin. “I’ve only got teabags, I’m afraid — but I daresay you’ve had enough of tea leaves?”
Harry looked at him. Lupin’s eyes were twinkling.
–J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
When your water comes to a boil, immediately pour it over the tea and stir it around. After a few minutes, depending on how strong you like your tea, it will be done. (George says that you should keep the water boiling and the kettle on the flame while you pour, but considering the nature of boiling water, flames, kettles, and gravity, I confess I’m not sure how to accomplish this wondrous feat.)
Do you remember the day when you fell in love with coffee, bitter and steaming and black as sin and then decided that would be your morning drink ever afterward? Of course you don’t. No one falls in love with coffee that way. Some people, coffee’s Chosen Few, might like it right away. But for others, coffee is one of those difficult personalities that you have to learn to love, accompanied with massive quantities of sugar and cream.
Elves, like many people, find black coffee an unpleasant surprise.
Unlike coffee drinkers, tea people knew from that first taste of tea (milky and sweet, perhaps stolen from your mother’s cup) that this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
My first real taste of tea occurred on a school camping trip to Santa Barbara, when our teacher made a pot of tea. Even though we were technically roughing it, inasmuch as anyone can rough it whilst camping on a beach in southern California in July, the teacher brought a kettle to a boil over the fire, put loose tea in a real teapot, and made a proper pot right there. (The tea was Constant Comment, a widely available brand containing orange peel, black tea, and spices.) As I drank this magical tea by the campfire with the waves crashing in the background and the Coast Starlight rumbling overhead, I knew I had been Chosen. When I got home I immediately bought my own supply, and have been a devoted tea drinker ever since.
Just as being the chosen one in a fairy tale leads to a life fraught with obstacles to overcome, being a tea drinker in America presents its share of problems. Drinking tea isn’t just about the tea. If you are a true tea lover, you know that declining coffee in favor of tea can be a political statement. You aren’t going along with the crowd, and the way is not made easy for you. Offices everywhere accommodate coffee drinkers, but few workplaces make it possible to have a decent cup of tea. There is a coffee maker in every office, but very few tea kettles, and often no way to boil fresh water. The workplace enables coffee drinkers in their indiscriminate drinking of coffee of dubious quality, having a coffee pot, sugar, and that weird fake creamer stuff in every break room, the better to keep the employees awake. I’ve worked in fancy law firms with coffee bars, some even with their own dedicated baristas, but only one law firm in all my years of office-hopping made a decent cup of tea possible, and that was because one of the partners was an English woman.
The one other exception to the coffee hegemony in the workplace was an Italian designer’s office I worked in several years ago. Italians are famous for their excellent coffee, but they enjoy tea as well. This office I worked in had official tea breaks: Everything would come to a stop at 11:00am and 3:00pm, and a nice woman in a long white apron would roll her tea cart around with cookies, pastries, small sandwiches, and pots of tea. She would pour a cup, hand me a plate of cookies or a pastry and a real cloth napkin, and return a second time to refresh the tea and cookies if desired. (I worked in this office very early in my career, and it came as a rude shock later when I learned that the majority of workplaces had neither tea time, nor pastries, nor dedicated tea sommeliers.)
Most American restaurants seem flummoxed by a request for tea, if you are so foolish as to ask for some, and it’s likely they will bring you a metal pot of barely hot water, a generic tea bag, and some sugar, and think that’s good enough. Coffee drinkers, on the other hand, get freshly brewed coffee, cream and sugar and unlimited refills. I’ve only had decent tea at five restaurants in North America (not counting various Asian restaurants), and two of them were in Canada, so maybe they shouldn’t count — because they know about tea in Canada; they don’t make a fuss about it, whereas in the U.S. ordering tea instead of coffee is sometimes seen as a bit pretentious. Chez Panisse once offered me a pot of water and a warmed teapot on a fancy tray alongside a basket of tea bags (tea bags! Really, Chez Panisse?); Restaurant Daniel in New York was much the same. Tea bags are fine in a pinch if the tea is good, but I remain shocked that Michelin-rated restaurants would offer a selection of bags instead of loose tea.
There are some faint glimmerings of hope that the disrespect for tea is gradually fading — I recently read that the restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York is developing a tea list, matching teas with food with the same care as they do with wine. If their experiment is successful, our long national nightmare of horrible tea in restaurants may be ending. (Please note that no one would think of pairing coffee with elegant cuisine, because that would be gross. Coffee only goes with breakfast and dessert.)
Tea drinkers are often maligned as fussy perfectionists. It’s rich that the coffee cabal imply that tea drinkers are the particular ones, because coffistas are a thousand kinds of annoying about their different roasts and varieties. “Serious” coffee drinkers take it black, the better to judge the aroma and taste of the burned dirt mentioned previously. John Thorne’s father-in-law teased him about his coffee habit, implying that he was less than masculine because he drank “hot coffee ice cream” instead of taking it black, like a real man would. Tea drinkers don’t judge you on your worthiness as a human based on whether you add milk or sugar.
George Orwell credited tea for contributing to the excellence in his writing, probably.
Writers, like the rest of us, were sorted into Team Tea or Team Coffee.George Orwell was a tea man all the way, even writing a treatise on proper tea brewing. Dorothy L. Sayers, Beatrix Potter, J.K. Rowling: all Team Tea. Laurie Colwin may have liked tea, but she made it clear that coffee was her true love. Like most coffee addicts, she confessed to drinking leftover cold coffee, and dragged in Bach as partial justification. Unlike coffee lovers, we tea people have no comparable Tea Cantata.
While coffee lovers pine for their beloved in a somewhat alarming way, and even have physical symptoms when kept from their bitter brew (they need their “hit,” they are “in withdrawal,” they “mainline” their coffee), tea’s gentle embrace does not inspire such unhealthy passion. Coffee drinkers have mugs that proudly state “Don’t even talk to me before I’ve had my coffee.” Tea has better manners than that. Also, the whistle of the tea kettle is a happier sound that the snorting and grunting of the coffee maker.
Charles Philips. Tea Party at Lord Harrington’s House, St. James’s. 1730.
When I was in labor with my daughter (for 29 hours!) I wanted nothing more than the comfort of a cup of tea, but the nurses refused to let me have anything other than ice chips, because they claimed I might choke. The first thing I did when I got home from the hospital was make a pot of black tea and have a mug of tea with milk and sugar. If anyone is in need of a pot of tea, it is a new mother. (Those nurses were probably coffee drinkers.) After I’d had my tea, having a new baby didn’t seem as scary, somehow. Tea is comforting like that.
Like all misunderstood people, I fantasize about living in a perfect world where superior tea is respected and readily available. I imagine that some rogue group of clever entrepreneur-revolutionaries might one day overthrow the coffee cabal and figure out how to make millions by opening tea places with high-quality, perfectly prepared tea. All kinds of tea, made properly, from all of the great tea-making cultures — tea hot and cold, light and dark, strong and fragrant. No one would ever again order a “chai tea latte.” Chosen by tea, we would spread the gospel far and wide, and the world would be a calmer and happier place. Until that glorious day, I must remain hopeful, if also realistic. It has been over 200 years since the unfortunate events in Boston. We may have forgiven the British, but as long as I still can’t get a decent cup of tea outside of my own home, it is clear that we haven’t forgiven the tea.
***
References
George Orwell, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” from The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3
M.F.K. Fisher, With Bold Knife and Fork
Laurie Colwin, More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen
John Thorne and Matt Lewis Thorne, The Outlaw Cook
Laura C. Martin, Tea: The Drink That Changed the World
If you guys ever find yourself in DC, you should go to Teaism. (And let me know you’re here, obviously.) If you’re in Portland, Lan Su Chinese Garden is BEAUTIFUL and has an amazing teahouse on the grounds.
Even though I work part time at the Pilates studio literally one block from Teaism in Dupont, I have NEVER been. Shame on me because the author of this essay is my mom!! As someone who is fearless when it comes to traveling and dining alone, I am intimidated by Teaism for some weird reason.
my FAVORITE tea in DC was the three-course afternoon tea at the Hay Adams, but I have no idea if they still do this; I haven’t been for ages.
I’ve heard that The Jefferson Hotel afternoon tea can be pretty swanky if the Hay Adams no longer does the tea thing.
Haven’t been to Teaism in quite a while, but there is nothing to fear! It’s lovely!
It’s very friendly! Also has good food, and oatmeal-chocolate-salt cookies.
Fuse y/n? Dolcezza’s my post-class treat on the rare occasions I get down there, but Teaism’s scones are a better option in the winter.
Yes to Fuse! Who knew there was another Fuse student/toast reader out there!?!?!
I suspect there’s more overlap than have outed themselves to date–and DC Toasties who don’t know already should consider this a plug for the studio. Fuse feels indulgent and fun as well as challenging, and the music and student requests keep the classes from ever getting routine.
Psst, it would be great to have Mariska submit something for the Toast. I know she’s got a lot on her plate, but she’s got so much to say about exercise and adaptation and business development that I’d love to see reach beyond the FB/blog readership, which seems to be more DC-based.
Teaism is not scary, I promise! The Dupont Circle location can get pretty crowded, so you might want to plan on getting something to go if you’re there at a busy time (their chai is great for this). The Penn Quarter location has a lot more seating room and can be better if you want to meet up with people. In fact, I’m pretty sure the DC Toast Book Club meets there sometimes. (Sadly, I have still never managed to actually make it to the Toast Book Club, but they seem like lovely people and pick excellent books, it’s would be a great way to try out Teaism!)
Penn Quarter Teaism semi-regularly houses DC Toast book club, also downstairs they have a pool of koi who have been known to splash passersby.
Also in the DC area – Bayou Bakery in Courthouse has some nice loose-leaf teas and appropriately hot water, and is an excellent coffeehouse withal. Just make sure you ask for a to-go cup, since their mugs kill all the heat of the water instantly and stops the tea from steeping right.
Portland also has Tao of Tea and Tea Chai Té, both of whom have multiple locations.
Beat me to it! I was also gonna specifically recommend Lan Su Chinese Garden’s Tea House! It is tea perfection.
Their menu of foods are meant to *go with* the tea, and they even do have recommendations for which foods go with which teas. I say that the foods are paired to the teas and not the other way around, because it truly is a tea house, meant for tea enjoyment, first and foremost. (Of course the commenter I’m replying to knows this; I am now switching audience to the author of the article.) They have several distinct tea services you can order for a party of 4 – 8 people in different traditional styles of tea service, or you can order a cup or pot for 1 – 2, with dozens of teas to choose from. Loose or packed teas served and prepared different ways, with the tea menu booklet describing the type, origins, history, method of growing, method of production, method of preparation, taste, and food pairings for each. It’s as much a museum of tea as anything. And the views, situated inside and overlooking the classical Chinese garden, are without compare. The whole tea house was made in the architecture and style of classical tea houses.
It’s a wholly beautiful experience, much like the experience Wodehouse refers to (kudos to quoting Wodehouse, btw; my mom brought me up on him, and he is one of my very favorite authors).
I’m linking their website, for those interested.
P.S. I and other commenters are recommending this place and others not because we were listening to what you (I am once again addressing the author, not the commenter I am actually replying to) really meant about caffeine culture as a whole, but because we have nothing to add to your excellent analysis, but we know we can help you at least with your problem of having a hard time finding good places to get good tea. We know your pain. We feel it too.
P.P.S. Don’t trust the hype; whatever you may hear, going to get a Royal Tea Service at the Queen Victoria Hotel in Victoria, B.C. is not worth the $60-$100. You choose from a set of like 4 options of service, all of which are based on the pastries and sandwiches, with like two choices of tea, which aren’t even that good. The Hotel itself is beautiful, but the tea service is overpriced, not that great, and doesn’t have enough options. Also, the service is for a large party of people, so going alone won’t work.
This essay has reminded me that I’m still not over the fact that George Orwell write the definitive text on tea. Of all people! 😛
No. I did. And it’s here: http://the-toast.net/2014/12/11/make-a-proper-cup…
I also really like Douglas Adams’ essay on tea making! He is fine with you using a tea bag too, which I approve of.
Why not Orwell? It seems to me that someone who liked to collect back issues of the Girl’s Own Paper and read them in the bathtub is the perfect person to write the definitive text on tea.
I leave the bag in the tea all the time. And drink the worst of the worst bagged teas! I don’t own a teapot, pour in milk and sugar with reckless abandon and no sense for order, live in Tim Hortons steeped tea (one milk one sugar please) when traveling, re steep bags two or three times until it’s weak and basically just water with dirt, and I do all of this in spite of working in a dedicated tea shop for almost a year.
I am a Tea Philistine. I am the tea equivalent to someone who drinks, I don’t know, Folgers. (That would be my husband.) I await my sentencing at the Court of Tea where I am confident it will be handed down accompanied by a fine, bright Darjeeling.
I also leave the bag in the cup a lot of the time. It’s not a big deal–loose tea left in the pot certainly oversteeps, but there’s a limit to how strong bagged tea can get. And I don’t have a hard time at all finding decent tea in commercial establishments, smack dab in the middle of America; I had breakfast at a bakery this morning and they served me a pot of loose tea without making a particularly big deal about it. Off the top of my head, I can think of more coffee shops in Minneapolis/Saint Paul that serve loose-leaf tea than ones that don’t. (Though it’s true that sometimes the baristas don’t know how to do it, and will take a bag for loose tea, fill it up to the brim with five cups’ worth of leaves, and leave it in the cup, serving you something that’s oversteeped by the time you’ve paid for it.)
And then you have to extract the giant wad of boiling hot dripping leaf goo! You can tell a tea-sympathizing barista by whether they give you a saucer to dump it on.
I make a daily pot of leaf tea but sometimes a dang Lipton bag with extra sugar hits the spot juuuust right. (like right now. Except it’s a grocery-store-brand not Lipton.)
The tea equivalent of to Folgers is Lipton.
MY FAVOURITE
I am right now enjoying a travel mug of Lipton green tea (bag still in mug) with stevia. And I am REALLY, unironically enjoying it.
well I am not trying to tell you you can’t enjoy it, but I am going to say that it isn’t good
I also enjoy totinos “party” “pizzas” and “reality” shows on HGTV. What I’m saying is I know what’s good and what isn’t.
Totinos pizza bites are the shiz. I tried to make myself like the Amy’s Kitchen variety, because I coukd taste how much healthier they were, but I eventually realized it wasn’t the same without the chemicals.
I also repeatedly leave the bag in the tea and drink terrible bagged tea throughout the morning. The reason I do this is because I need something hot to drink to wake me up, and why waste good tea when I’m half asleep and unable to appreciate it? When I drink a nice cup of my loose-leaf good tea, I make sure I’m awake enough to enjoy it.
I love you. We are tea cousins.
When you get your sentencing at Tea Court I’ll probably be right beside you. I am the unclassiest tea drinker of all time. The only big step up for me was no longer microwaving the water once I got to college or so and acquired someone’s old electric kettle.
Hick tea forever.
No really. My morning cup today was accompanied by a liberal amount of Garth Brooks music. What am I doing with my life?
I feel like the whole leaving-the-bag-in-the-tea thing really depends on what you’re drinking. I was brought up on overstewed Typhoo (black tea), and I still love that and purposely overstew it. On the other hand, there are a number of teas in my pantry that go bitter and awful if you don’t actually pay attention to the instructions as to how long you’re meant to leave the bag/leaves in. I suspect these are the classier teas in my possession. Somehow, they don’t get used very often.
It’s true. It’s also good to overstep herbal teas (7-10min) so that the full benefit of the tea steeps in. E.g. for nettle tea (iron when you’re menstruating!), or linden tea (for energized calm), or elderberry tea.
And even if you’re not drinking a medicinal tea like that, if you have a tea bag from some restaurant place, you often only have tea dust in the tea bag, not actual leaves, so you might as well steep longer to get an actual flavor from it!
On an unrelated note, I now want to invite the author of this article over to tea at my place!
Yes! Which makes them good teas to stick in your travel mug when you’re heading out the door. Teapots are delightful, but not portable.
I read once a description of tea brewed long enough you could trot a mouse across the top, and I was enchanted and attempted to do this repeatedly. Taste is taste, and old affections run deep.
That is a delightful image! Did you involve a mouse in your experiments?
I am generally a tea snob but Tim Horton’s Steeped Tea is surprisingly not too bad in my view. Their bagged tea is terrible, but the steeped tea is way better than the anemic sour tea you get at a lot of chain restaurants.
What if you like both tea and coffee? Also I only drink coffee at night. I am weird.
tea is a lovely pick-me-up, coffee is necessary for life
This is my position. But since I got pregnant, coffee has been Violently Disagreeing with me. It’s really sad, but tea is keeping me going.
Same thing happened to me whilst pregnant, which was horrible, but then, until I had child #2 I didn’t NEED coffee every day. I drank English Breakfast tea all through my pregnancies.
When I’m on Wellbutrin I can’t handle coffee, it makes me so queasy I’m in bed all day. And it’s definitely not the caffeine,
because I switched to Irish breakfast all damn day.
This is exactly how I look at it. You summed up my position better than I could have.
I really want some tea now.
Orale. A pot of earl grey and some cookies is a delightful thing to see in the afternoon, but if I don’t get coffee in the morning, you can expect me to do things like lose simple words and walk into walls all day.
For me they serve distinct purposes, coffee is for waking up and getting out and about, tea is for night time, relaxing, and leisure. I love them both and would never choose.
Agreed though I am the complete opposite! Coffee upsets my stomach in the morning but not at night for some reason. So I have it after dinner with dessert (the caffeine doesn’t bother me). Tea I can drink anytime, and always bring some in a thermos to work.
I am a coffee drinker who likes exactly one kind of tea, so excuse me for asking, but – is David’s a place that makes proper tea? Their tea tastes good to me, good enough that I can justify the $3 price tag per cup. But is it good?
If it tastes good, it is good.
I concur, drink whatever you like!
But I will also use this thread to complain about David’s Tea. Recently I went into one to complain that the tea travel mug I had bought was MELTING (there are some plastic parts in the little tea basket) and the saleperson said: “well, you know that your water doesn’t have to be BOILING…”
Technically, a lot of tea purists will tell you that the water should be just shy of boiling (usually like 200-208 degrees) for white tea, green tea, and black tea, especially very delicate ones, because boiling water can scorch out the flavor. But that is almost always useless advice because almost everyone uses boiling anyhow.
Oh, I know that many teas really do need water just shy of boiling. But it’s hard to get that (especially to be consistent enough about it to not melt your plastic mug…also who knows what temperature it would have to be to not melt?) unless you have one of those fancy kettles that you can set to the exact degree.
Yup. I’ve been taught different temperatures for green, white, oolong, and black, and the number of times you pass the boiling water from cup to cup to cool it off for each. And the number of seconds each is supposed to brew for the first, second, and third infusion. This was all from a friend who had taught in China and provided me with very good tea along with this lesson. Who wants to guess how often I follow any of these guidelines?
Find me a kettle that whistles at 200 and I’ll take that advice!
(Ok, my coffee-snob fiance puts his electric kettle on, then goes to shower & brush teeth, and he claims the water has reached its ideal temperature by boiling and cooling off during that time.)
We installed this:
Now we get 200* water at all times, and I am the happiest person alive.
also there are water boiler/warmers (https://www.zojirushi.com/app/category/water-boilers) that boil water/keep it at a perfect temperature all day (you can set them to turn on at a specific time in the morning, too). very important for my family’s constant tea-drinking life.
My aunt has one of those, and it absolutely terrified me as a kid. (For the same reason that people are afraid they’ll compulsively stick their hand in a garbage disposal).
Now I wish to invite my younger nieces over for tea.
I have seen kettles that have “green tea” settings where they do actually shut off at 200. They cost insane amounts of money, though.
green tea should be even cooler, 175! I have a fancy electric kettle with different temperature settings because I really like green tea but have a very narrow margin for “acceptably steeped.” 200-degree water will make your green tea bitter and disgusting! 175 degrees and only steep it for a minute, max.
Mea culpa. I’m several years removed from my job when I had to know and execute all of that on demand!
haha, no worries, it’s certainly not something a lot of people know. I just always thought I hated green tea, and it turns out I actually hate oversteeped green tea. Obviously it’s fine to dislike green tea, but I want to make sure people get a chance to try the stuff that actually has a chance of tasting good, you know?
WHOA. I used to work at DavidsTea, and that’s some BS.
In terms of chains, David’s is definitely on the higher end. I’d say that David’s will probably serve you a better version of “good tea” than Starbucks will serve you of “good coffee”— although, with both, drink what tastes good to you and you can afford.
Yeah, there are a few options at David’s I don’t enjoy and wouldn’t recommend to others (… the … sprinkles? in the birthday cake tea are a bridge too far for me), and I’d rather buy my bulk tea online or in one of a couple of different in-person stores….. but unless you live somewhere with a *really* fabulous independent tea shop, David’s may very likely be the best option in your area!
This is what I wanted to know! “A better version of good tea than Starbucks will serve you of good coffee” is exactly the right way to explain this to a coffee drinker.
I drink Mulberry Magic with a half-teaspoon of honey and That Is It but now this thread has me thinking that maybe I’ve been scorching my leaves all this time. Tea: it’s a mystery.
Mulberry Magic is an herbal tea, isn’t it? Herbal teas are normally heated to boiling. Disregard this if I’m remembering wrong and it’s green tea.
It’s really weird to me that Americans don’t have electric kettles. They have the kind of kettles you would take camping! In their houses! This is why the tea is bad. Boiling water doesn’t exist there.
Untrue, I have one as do my parents, and many of my coworkers use them at my work.
Everyone round to your house for tea!
us too! well, technically, we have an electric samovar which is the ultimate water kettle and tea-making device and I love it. best for making the perfect tea.
My mom is a devoted tea drinker and I did not know until university that electric kettles even existed. All our water was heated in a kettle on the stove. To this day my mom birches that electric boiled water doesn’t “taste right” when she visits me.
But we do! They may not be standard in Your Average American’s house, like coffee makers and microwaves, but if you’re an American tea drinker I’d bet you own an electric kettle (or non-electric, that works fine too of course).
It’s because our outlets only give 120V, so it takes a million years for an electric kettle to boil the water. If you have access to a kitchen, you might as well just use the stove top, or, if you’re lucky enough to have a gas range, fire turns out to be quicker.
-an expat who is still amazed at the magic of 230V electric kettles
That explains so much! I’m going to tell my coworkers, because I just told them about discovering how fast my kettle was, and their responses were along the lines of “yeah, duh, it’s really quick…. that is the whole point”. But I have used kettles before and they were never as fast. And now I have confirmation that I’m not imagining it.
I haven’t empirically tested whether my electric kettle on an American outlet is any faster than boiling water on the stove, but it still seems like it is because I can switch it on and then go get dressed, while if I use the (gas) stovetop I feel obliged to keep an eye on it.
My first teakettle was actually an electric percolator that I bought at Target when I started college. I just took the basket out. It served me well.
Oh is that what it is? A British person would prioritise an electric kettle over everything! I am basically wondering for the first time why that is, and all I can come up with is; but how would you make your tea?
To prove your point, when I got to my dorm/flat when I studied in the UK, the ONLY amenity it contained was an electric kettle. I do not even think we were provided rubbish bins. I had never even seen one before and was baffled, my European and British flatmates didn’t bat an eye. They were like, “Yep, priorities seem to be well in order here.”
At least you can multi-purpose it to make Ramen? I’ve also heard that you can sous vide an egg in a ziploc bag, but I haven’t tried that yet. If I were in college still, I’d have given that a whirl before even making my inaugural cup of tea. I was more adventurous back then.
I very quickly became a tea convert and have never again lived without an electric kettle (it’s been 13 years), and still use it to help with Ramen even though I am in my 30s.
This egg idea is intriguing but like you, I am less brave now. And prefer tea that does not taste like egg-experiment-gone-wrong.
Sous vide egg in a ziploc bag is totally a thing. squish it up to scramble and mix in bits of leftover whatevers for an easy-clean omelet!
Maybe I will try then! I like having an omelet on top of my fried rice, and that seems like an easy way to do it without getting another pan messy.
My son’s scout troop does it on the regular. The main recommendation is to use a quart freezer Ziploc not a sandwich baggie.
I take a pan of water and boil it on the stovetop. That way I can monitor the bubbles and take it off at exactly the right temperature for the type of tea I am brewing. I don’t like tea kettles. The whistling frightens me and I can’t see what I’m doing.
that’s funny. I believe you, but my electric kettle in the US heats up water fine. Maybe it’s faster elsewhere? But I’ve never had any issues.
we came from 230V to the US 120V. In 1990 we had quite a search for an electric kettle, but once found, it wasn’t noticeably slower than the high-voltage kettles back home..
At first we drank Liptons because we couldn’t afford anything else. To me it tastes like it was made of the floor sweepings from the tea factories of better brands. Luckily we succeeded in US life so far as to be able to afford Twinings now. We still smuggle in rooibos tea in our luggage after trips back, though..
I did and do find stove-top kettles very strange, and their whistling slightly
disturbing..
Also depends on the electric kettle! If you read through reviews on Amazon, people will comment on how quickly particular kettles boil, and every once in a while you will find a particularly dedicated reviewer doing standardized comparisons carefully taking account of beginning water temperature, amount of water in the kettle, etc. Reading through other people’s obsessive attention to detail has finally landed me with an electric kettle that boils water faster than the stove.
Yeah I feel like mine is not bad, and definitely faster than the stove top. Plus it has a ‘hold temp’ function to keep it at whatever temp you set indefinitely.
I’m envious of that. Mine shuts down once it hits a full rolling boil, which is nice for safety and all, but it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t let me know that it’s done in any way other than shutting the heat off.
I’m always afraid I’ll accidentally not leave enough water in the kettle and that by having it below the minimum fill line it will burn something out.
Ahhhh! That’s why! I loooove my electric kettle and am often mystified when I remember my American childhood and early adulthood. How did I survive without one?! I never knew about the voltage.
Ah, this explains a lot. I’ve had an electric kettle for the last five years and loved it, but it’s hecause of the influence of my immigrant mother-in-law.
This is so exactly right. Having moved back to the Colonies after ten years near Oxford, I am only slowly getting used to wimpy 120V electricity, tiny little electrical plugs that never stay in place (and are rarely, if ever, earthed), and, most annoyingly, electric kettles that take half an episode of University Challenge to boil water.
That, and having to /drive/ everywhere. No public transit to speak of. Sigh.
I do! I’ve gone through three or four in the last 20 years. My family is from England/Canada, so that might have something to do with it, though.
I don’t understand why electric kettles aren’t a bigger thing in the US. They’re so convenient. Some people have tried to tell me that the water that comes out of those insta-hot taps is good enough, but I believe this to be a filthy lie.
This was such a (bad) surprise to me when I spent 6 months in the US in 2005. My housemates didn’t even know what I was talking about! I resorted to boiling water in a normal pot, but due to the fairly hard water and the small tea selection at the local supermarket, that lead to disappointing tea.
We have one! Used to have a lovely glass one that got smashed. Boiled one cup on the stove, and then I was out the door for a replacement (stainless steel, which won’t meet the same end as our previous one).
i just got my first one this week, after drinking tea for like 30 some years already … life-changing magic, right there
When we got married (I imported my husband from Ireland, and I’d spent a couple of years in England, so tea was Important To Us), the electric kettle was the first thing we searched for for our registry. This was in the early 90s, and they weren’t easy to find, but it was way more important than stemware or whatever for us.
We sent the family electric kettle to college with the kid, because we had our instant hot water dispenser and didn’t need it anymore, and I hated to think of him wandering around microwaving mugs of water when he needed tea. Like a savage.
I love your importing description! 🙂 I, too, imported my husband (though not from ireland) and he brought tea magic with him and I have been delighted ever since.
You can pry my stovetop kettle out of my cold dead hands. I’ve done the electric kettle in college/the military. If there’s truly a difference in the tea quality I’m not sophisticated enough to notice it.
I dunno that it’s quality as much as convenience. I like that the electric is set and forget.
They’re not allowed at my desk at work! Something something fire hazard. There was one in the math department during my summer internship a lifetime ago and I thought it was basically magic. I would say it increased my tea consumption roughly a thousand percent (you can trust this calculation, I had a math internship once).
I don’t have the counter space.
Also I never hear electric kettles click, or I don’t notice the beeping. Meanwhile my stove kettle whistles until I grab it.
When I arrived in the US, I was astonished to discover that electric kettle existed that didn’t shut themselves off automatically. I can see what that wouldn’t be seen as a great improvement over a stove-top one.
My people!!
I’ve had two babies and with both, once everyone was cleaned up and sorted out, the NHS midwives immediately offered me tea and toast. Also, I’m afraid to say that everybody (well 99.9% of everybody) in the UK uses teabags. And yes the tea you get in an American restaurant or cafe is an abomination. That’s all I have to say about tea for the minute.
I am told that after I was born my mother ignored me and proceeded to eat 4 slices of toast in quick succession.
I remember the midwife saying ‘Now! Would you like some tea and toast?’ and I just stared at her for a minute as I realised that yes, yes that was the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world, some buttered toast and a cup of tea. And she brought it on a tray and it was glorious.
And that feels like it would be the ultimate sign that both you and the baby we’re Just Fine. No nurse would settle you in for tea if there were danger. You’d still get tea, but it would be the offering tea in a stressful situation procedure which is totally different.
I had to go to a freestanding birth center to get this kind of treatment in the U.S. (and they actually encouraged drinking and eating during labor, godbless ’em). I got to eat cheese and crackers in a bathtub and it was incredible.
I had both my kids at a freestanding birth center, too, and sent my doula out for sandwiches at one point, which I then ate in the tub. They were delicious.
I was going to say, nurses will immediately offer you Tea & Toast as soon as you’re allowed to eat in hospital and it is glorious!
Proper white bread and salty butter and milky tea with loads of sugar will fix anything.
(I’m also horrified at this ‘No eating during labour’ business, if I am having a baby you better feed me when I say I’m hungry. I’ve been known to punch people out of Hanger in much less stressful situations. )
My second daughter was induced and after they started everything off I was sent away and told to get some lunch. When we returned, the next three midwives/nurses I saw each asked me very seriously if I’d eaten, and were pleased that I had. You need energy to have a baby! An American friend of mine was in labour for something like 36 hours and they wouldn’t let her eat anything, that’s torture.
I begged my doctor to let me eat during early labor because I was so hungry. He obliged, but with disapproval.
Several hours later, when it was time for the epidural, I was given an anti-emetic to keep me from throwing up once it was administered.
I had one taste of the anti-emetic and promptly threw up. Over my hospital gown, the bed, the nearby nurses, and very almost nearly on the anesthesiologist.
I am exhibit A for why American hospitals don’t let women eat.
I don’t know how labour nausea works, but with everyday nausea, having an empty stomach often makes you more likely to throw up. If I start feeling queasy, I bolt to the kitchen and down some bread. With luck, this means I won’t have to take the anti-emetic tablets.
They give you tea and a biscuit after you give blood as well.
Here is a thing that I have noticed: when you look in a British person’s cupboard – I’ll use my ex-boyfriend’s parents as an example, since they’re a good stand-in for the whole of the island’s population – you find “tea”. Be it PG Tips, Tetley, or whatever, it’s just tea. Tea, tea, tea.
If you look in an American person’s cupboard, they have “English Breakfast” or “Earl Grey” or “Organic Sleepytime”. How come our tea has to be given some kind of name to let us know what it is? Or, perhaps more to the point, what kind of tea is Tetley? (Apart from “black”.)
In the uk and Ireland Tea means something very specific; black tea taken with milk and sugar (or lemon if you’re from the continent and weird), some fancy places will distinguish between breakfast tea and Earl grey but at home its all just Tea. The different brands are just different blends of black tea and your preferences are usually just what you grew up with (I strongly prefer red box to green box, I have no idea what the difference is).
Anything else is herbal tea, or fruity tea or an ‘infusion’.
Whereas in the US, from what I understand, Tea is an all encompassing word that covers any sort of dried thing in hot water. As usual the yanks get way to in to the particulars and details of things, stop fussing and just enjoy the tea 😉
Yes this is completely accurate. As an American I am known to protest loudly when someone asks me for a cup of tea. “But what KIND of tea??” “You know, normal tea.” “How am I supposed to know what normal is for you!!!”
I’d say that in the UK most people take milk, but I’m not sure sugar is a majority thing. It relates to class, amongst other things.
I do not think that Americans, even tea drinking ones, understand the pervasive and eternal undercurrent of life that is Tea in a tea-drinking country. Its not even a thing any more its just part of existing.
Does that make me more British than my partner? I’m English, he’s Ascot, though he has the same London accent as me. He drinks proper tea, English Breakfast and such, whereas I drink whatever type of decaf tes is available, fairtrade if that’s an option, and don’t really notice the difference. I drink it pitifully weak and with soy milk, to add insult to injury. Sometimes I have herbal tea, and have a shelf full of them, but he’s got me drinking (my version of) normal tea most of the time.
There is a tea shop in my town that makes lovely pots of tea, has a whole wall of bottles of loose tea that you can smell before you choose, has comfortable chairs and tables, and sells loose tea. It is a magical place that I never manage to visit as often as I would like.
What magical town is this? And what is the name of this place?
I dunno where Thujaplicata lives, but Houston of all places has one of these! And you got to pick your own adorable little teacup off the wall, too. I think the name was Path of Tea. One of the few things I miss about living in Houston.
This is the tea shop: Townshend’s Tea They have several locations and I have visited a couple of them over the years that they’ve been around.
They also get points for the snarkiness of naming their tea shop after the author of the tea tax…
Yay, incentive to go visit my brother!
We have those in Portland too!
That *is* lovely, but you shouldn’t have to go to a dedicated tea establishment just to get a decent cup of tea. It should be available at every place that serves breakfast!
I never order tea when I’m out. I don’t trust anyone and I hate paying $3 for a teabag.
The one exception is Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar in Charlottesville, VA who make better tea than I do and have an amazing selection.
I really wish I could find a replacement for Tea Bazaar. It would make graduate school much more bearable.
I’m so happy to hear that they’re still around. I used to get delightful cups of genmaicha from them. Do they still have the tree sculpture in the middle of their dining room?
They do indeed!
Oh I am so here to talk about tea! I was a non-believer until I moved somewhere cold, but it’s such a dang magic elixir. Favorite teas everyone? I’m drinking Clipper Snore & Peace (which looks like Snorf & Peace on the package, adding to the charm) in the evenings and generic brand Assam in the mornings. It’s amazing. I’m usually a faithful coffee drinker, but all these tea options makes me wanna… (start a new relationship, think about a ring and all the things that come along with).
Plus, my coffee making system is inefficient and requires a lot of cleaning, whereas I can make a cup of tea in like five minutes.
That said, good coffee is just so, so transcendent. And terrible coffee makes me feel young again and footloose. Hmmm, I can’t pick a side I guess.
I am here for you and your Usher reference.
Yay! I went ahead and listened to that song … and then Youtube suggested I might want to hear Soul For Real Candy Rain next. So now I am having a cup of tea and a 90s R&B afternoon.
Yassss. Favorite teas.
1. Irish Breakfast. Always and forever. My first true tea love even if it does require a crazy amount of sugar and cream. Plus, it’s the only tea I can drink with fresh cream (and I do mean fresh) that doesn’t feel overpowered by it.
2. Earl and Lady Grey.
3. This one Polish rose hip tea that I can only get my hands on every two years or so, but it’s so good and red.
4. Chamomile. Why not.
Rose hip tea!!! It fits more in the fuzzy ‘medicine’ category in my mind, because it’s my go-to for when I feel a sniffle coming on. I think there’s lots of Vitamin C? Or it’s just a placebo thing. But I love the sourness.
ETA: if you like chamomile, I suggest the camomile + jasmine combo. Plus a lot of milk and sugar, and it makes basically the best milk tea.
I can’t do anything jasmine flavored. I just can’t. When fifteen year old badhaircutnoheart went back to England she was given a choice of teas by her cousin. Sure, jasmine sounds fine, right? WRONG. I had a tiny Princess Jasmine doll as a child that came with a bottle of ‘jasmine perfume’ and every time I drank the tea I felt like I was drinking the perfume. But I never stopped or asked if I could switch to a different tea. Because I was fifteen and alone in a country I hadn’t seen since I was five and slightly terrified though I’d never admit it.
End result. Jasmine gives me the most awkward flashbacks ever.
I just saw somebody post a photo of Snore & Peace on instagram the other day and I really want to try it, it sounds delicious.
My boyfriend drinks jasmine tea almost exclusively, and I generally like it too, but not quite on the same level he does. We always have some around though, so I drink a lot of it.
Lately I have been enjoying oolong teas, but there are SO MANY kinds of oolong, and a huge variation among them – some are barely oxidized, practically green tea with bigger leaves, some are nearly as strong as black tea – that I’ve just been going to tea places, sniffing/sampling some, getting a cup of one that sounds interesting, and if I like it, buying a few ounces. So far I seem to like Taiwanese oolongs better than Chinese. Right now i’ve got a bag of Lishan Oolong that I really like.
I completely recommend it! And at the risk of incurring the wrath of (tea blend copywriters?) I’ll say that the mix is mostly camomile with a tough of lemon balm, rose hips, lavender, and fennel seed, plus a tiny bit of spearmint. The predominant flavors are camomile and lavender, so you could have something pretty close if you just mixed those two.
Thanks! I love lavender the most, so this sounds perfect. I actually have some culinary lavender hanging out, but no chamomile right now. If I can’t find any Snore & Peace locally maybe I will just pick up some chamomile tea and add lavender when I brew it.
I have a Tea That Got Away. It was by Choice Organics and was called “Celtic Breakfast”. It was fantastic, it was so strong it practically kicked you in the teeth, but not at all harsh or bitter. There was a tea and spices store (which it is now my life’s dream to open) in the town I lived in at the time that carried it, and then they stopped and I’ve never seen it again although I keep looking. I think it’s been almost 10 years since I had it last, and it might not have been any good at all but in my head it is now the perfect tea. It’d probably be disappointing to taste it at this point.
A quick google shows it as still existing; looks like you can order it from both Amazon and Choice. I want to try it now, Strong but Not Bitter is my tea ideal.
tea. TEA! i started drinking it at age 5 and never stopped. i like coffee, but just can’t face it first thing in the morning. way harsh. tea seems a nicer, less aggressive way to wake up. also i have never tweaked out drinking tea, even if i have like 10 mugs in a day, which i sometimes do.
when i worked one summer in england, we had a very sweet ritual. four or five times a day, someone in the office would say, “right then, i’m getting a cuppa, anyone else like one?” and then they would make everyone a cuppa. and we all knew how everyone else took it. then we’d go to the pub and drink 4 pints at lunch. england!
We have a tea round time table in my office and a customized tray with everyone’s name on it. Tea rounds are serious business and you are a pariah if you only make tea for yourself.
(Now if only I could get the boys to make *good* tea and not builders tea, my life would be easier.)
Loved that ritual – we did it in our office as well. I used so much milk that they called it ‘baby tea’!
“I fantasize about living in a perfect world where superior tea is respected and readily available.” – feeling sorry for you sitting here in the UK with my (admittedly everyday) cup of tea.
Everyday UK tea > even some of the fanciest-seeming US tea IME
A suggestion – would wider use of electric kettles help? The whistling sort were long since consigned to camping holidays over here. Anyway, you should give birth in the UK. Not only has the embargo on eating and drinking been lifted; not only do women in labour get brought tea, but they brought tea for my husband too. Which he nobly drank even though they’d put milk in it, which he abhors. Oh, and the childbirth and the tea are free.
One of the most British scenarios I’ve ever heard was my friend’s account of her labour, with her partner sitting by the bed ineffectually holding out a Boots cheese sandwich while they took turns on the gas and air. She had to have a caesarian in the end, and was so out of it by that point, she told the surgeon she was “a top bird right there.”
They probably had tea at some point, but it was the sandwich that stuck with me.
I had day surgery and they wanted me to demonstrate that I could eat and drink before they let me go home. So they brought me a corned-beef sandwich. I seriously considered giving up and staying the night rather than tackle the horrid thing.
I should recommend that they do this at the Cleveland Clinic. Cleveland has some amazing corned beef places.
Free childbirth AND tea?? Sign me up!
(I actually did have NHS coverage for a year when I lived in Scotland, and, I must say, it was really nice not to have to worry about total financial ruin if I got hit by a bus or something…)
The best, nay only, tea is from Yorkshire. Because, obviously the growing conditions are ideal here.*
Damian Lewis endorses this statement. Sean Bean probably does too.
*Whoops, BLENDING conditions, I meant blending conditions. As if anything can grow in the Dales but sheep and grass, imagine!
I always buy Yorkshire Gold!
Yorkshire Tea!
To be honest, I grew up drinking jasmine and chrysanthemum tea in Beijing, and only developed a taste for proper English tea when I moved here for university back in ’09. Now a proud addict, although I’m happy to say I love coffee as well. Basically, I’ve subscribed heavily to the British belief that anything can be solved by a hot beverage of your choice.
My (English country lad) boyfriend however, is an aberration, and won’t drink anything hot unless it’s hot chocolate. No tea. No coffee. And he hates the taste of Coke. Getting caffeine into him is impossible.
Serious question from a non-regular tea drinker – How is it not okay to leave the bag in the cup to over-brew, but okay to drink more than one cup from a pot with the tea (bags or loose) still brewing in it?
You have stumbled onto an enormous argument amongst tea-drinkers. I am on Team “Remove Your Sodding Teabags From the Teapot Because Stewed Tea is Horrible”, but Team “Keep That Tea in That Teapot, Because a Teaspoon Probably Cannot Stand Up in It Unaided Yet Goddammit” does have its adherents, including my own father. On the other hand, he sometimes drinks normal tea (teabag in mug, hot water, milk) with TWO teabags, so he can actually be dismissed as an outlier who loathes goodness (and his own tastebuds).
I don’t think it IS okay, from my perspective as an occasional tea-drinker who lived in China where people do this with their loose green tea all day. But it’s one of those things people do, like drinking gross office coffee, because, eh. whatever.
I could be wrong about this and welcome correction.
You can brew quality loose leaf green teas, such as Oolong, at least three time before they lose all flavour, not so with black teas…
For me anyway, the pot of tea’s gradual steeping qualities are dealt with by communal tea-drinking. Those of us who like it weaker get the earlier pours, and those who don’t mind bitterness get the later ones, and I can top up my weaker brew with a bit of the bitter, but add a touch more milk.
But I take the bags out if I’m making a pot for just myself, or I do weird things like add mint tea to my black tea, which takes away the bitterness for me.
I have a family member who drinks his tea cold and out of a bucket (I am not kidding.) and just adds more tea bags every time he makes a new cup. (And if you find his half drunk, cold, cup of tea somewhere in the house and helpfully empty it and wash the cup he won’t talk to you for a week.)
Its all personal preference
“Its all personal preference” does seem like the only right answer. A university friend used to make a cup of tea (boiling water over a bag in the cup), leave it until stone cold, then microwave to reheat. With the bag still in the cup…
As a regular tea drinker I agree with you. You either like over brewed tea and it doesn’t matter (in the cup or the pot), or you don’t and you put your tea in bags or a reusable filter so you can take it out when it’s to your taste. I’d like to see a blind test where tea experts make the difference between tea brewed loose in the pot or in a bag/filter, because I don’t believe it changes anything (the only nice thing about loose is that you get to use those cute silver strainers that fit your cup when you’re in a nice tea shop). Or you make just the quantity you need in the pot but then there’s not top ups and that’s just sad.
One option is to get a tea basket for your pot. Some “individual serving” pots are sold with it. Put your tea leaves into the basket, then pour the hot water in. When it steeps, you could remove the basket I guess but really just pour your cup and as the water level decreases, no more leaves in the water. And you can still add more hot water later for a re-steep! (I have some herbal teas from Adagio that are better on a second steep, so I like to do this.)
But I hate cleaning the tea pot itself, so I just use an IngenuiTEA which they sell at tea shops and is a one-cup pot thing that you set on top of your mug and it releases the tea. http://www.adagio.com/teaware/ingenuiTEA_teapot.h…
I have a Bodum teapot where you put the leaves into a filter inside the pot, and when you reach the perfect brewing state (whatever that is for you), you push down a plunger so the leaves aren’t brewing in the full pot anymore (and also don’t get poured into your teacup). I don’t use it nearly often enough, but it’s fantastic for all kinds of loose tea.
A French press?
Similar idea, but it’s made for tea, not coffee. Here’s what it looks like.
Ideally, you’ll brew the loose tea for the appropriate amount of time, then strain it into a second pot to keep warm while you drink it. I’m not sure this is the accepted British Way, I just worked in a tea shop that served very fiddly Japanese and Taiwanese teas that you really have to baby in order to enjoy to the fullest.
Important: overbrewing is really only a concern with “true teas” made from the camellia sinensis plant (white, green, oolong, black, pu’er) which release tannins if allowed to steep too long. Herbal teas don’t have this problem, so you can let those soak forever without getting bitter, but it’s super important not to let actual tea leaves oversteep if you don’t want a bitter horrible pot of tea.
Also important and possibly relevant to the British tradition: milk is a magical tannin-erasing wonder, so if you accidentally leave your teabag in too long then you can add some milk to cut the bitterness. For the same reason, you don’t want to add milk before the tea’s finished steeping– it’ll arrest the brewing process and your tea won’t reach full strength.
There is a gorgeous chocolate shop in Cambridge (MA, not UK. Obviously.), L.A. Burdick, that serves fabulous pastries as well as their famous hot chocolate. Their coffee is also, I’m told, delicious. And while they do have good loose tea, every time I order it, I have to specifically ask for the hot water to be poured over the tea. Otherwise they would bring me the pot of swiftly-cooling water with the tea on the side for me to dunk. And the manager (I think) is English! I don’t understand. It makes me feel ridiculously fussy to ask, but if I’m going to give myself the treat of tea and pastry, I want the tea to be right, dammit.
I would encourage just going a couple blocks over to Tealuxe.
Ah, I know this one. It’s because of ridiculous people like my inlaws liking their tea tragically weak. So many people ask for the teabag to be on the side, to dip it in the water for half a second, that most places give it to everyone like that. Pah. And these people call themselves English!
The best way to solve this dilemma is what the best places do: provide a teapot with leaves and water already in, plus an extra hot water pot. Then the tea wusses can pour a bit of brewed tea into their cups and fill up with water from the extra pot. And the rest of us can top up the teapot to brew more cups of delicious strong tea.
Do you remember the day when you fell in love with coffee, bitter and steaming and black as sin and then decided that would be your morning drink ever afterward? Of course you don’t. No one falls in love with coffee that way.
I am a lifelong tea drinker, but in fact i remember vividly the day that I fell in love with coffee, because it was the morning after I’d been stranded overnight without food or warmth on a Greek island that was virtually abandoned and then a nice Greek family gave it to me — Greek coffee, when it’s not Nescafe, is like Turkish coffee with a sludge of black coffee grounds at the bottom and usually with a lot of sugar — after they helped fish me out of the harbor I’d just crossed.
Now that i think about it, I’m not even sure I *like* coffee, so much as I like returning to civilization after being cold and starving, and somehow coffee has become the symbol for that in my mind.
I once had a Greek coffee with dessert in a nice Greek restaurant, this was in my teens maybe? So definitely resistant to caffeine (to this day I can drink a cup of coffee before bed no problem). It gave me a literal buzz, and made me all space-y and weird. That is strong stuff.
When I was in Greece, all the coffee had a clear but not unpleasant aftertaste of fish.
I was only on the island parts, though, so I don’t know if it’s just proximity to harbors or what.
I remember falling in love with coffee too! My mother used to give me basically milk with a tiny dash of coffee, when she’d have her morning coffee. And then I just sort of fell madly, deeply in love. She tried telling me, at thirteen or so, that it’d stunt my growth, because I think she realized she’d created a coffee-monster, but it was too late. And then I switched to black coffee in my teens and it made me feel so miraculously adult and sophisticated.
And then there are all the actually tasty coffees I’ve had. I could list them, but … we’d be here all night.
The return to civilization thing is so crucial though! On my list of favorite coffee places is a greasy spoon near where I used to like to go camping. They served a watery gas station style drip coffee, but alongside eggs and bacon after a night out in the woods, ugh, perfection.
There’s a way, I think, in which tea is good, but coffee is necessary.
yeah, mine was a particularly traumatic experience that involved getting separated from the tour and needing to steal a rowboat to cross the caldera; I’d actually hated coffee before then (my mother used to drink tea with me from basically the age that I could drink regular beverage).
I’m now picturing you imprinting on that cup of coffee like a baby duckling. I’m glad you joined the bitter side.
I think you should write the complete story for the Toast. I would love to read it!
In Rhode Island they actually sell coffee flavored syrup along with the chocolate and strawberry ones to put in milk. My youngest brother was a confirmed kawfee addict by the age of four. By six he was already trying to drink it straight.
I fell in love with coffee as a freezing cold, exhausted teaching assistant in a high school in France. No coffee will ever compare to the coffee served in the teachers room of that school, mostly because it was good and strong but also because of the sheer “I need this to make it through the next 3 hours yelling at annoying French teenagers” factor.
A+ coffee-as-life story.
I didn’t like coffee at all until I was 30, when a friend who’s from Ethiopia made it for me (served in tiny silver cups). It was amazing.
I have a question. If you are meant to keep the leaves loose in the pot, how do you avoid oversteeping? I like tea, I use proper leaves, but I use one of those little mesh strainer dealies so I can lift the leaves out of the pot after a few minutes.
Loose leaves good, oversteeping bad – EXPLAIN YOURSELF, BRITS.
This is why the french press is the ideal tea steeping device.
someone gave me tea made with a coffee-style french press so the leaves were pushed to the bottom instead of pulled to the top when it was done and i have never felt more betrayed in my life
(actually i think i used that phrase last week in a comment sooooo we should probably limit “never before” and “in my life” to tea-related betrayals)
You just add boiling water to make it the right strength again. Or only make a pot when there’s enough people who want a cup of tea and do what all british people do and make tea with a teabag in a mug
Yes, this. Or, you pour out one cup, then take out the tea-strainer and put it aside, and your tea is the perfect strength. Also, I use teabags almost all the time, too.
The vast majority of Brits use tea bags, with little to no concern about the correctness or otherwise of this practice. Loose-leaf tea is a thing, but is often read as pretentious, and in my opinion is too much bother precisely for this reason – a bag means you can control how strong your tea is and means no faffing about with strainers.
So I don’t know how to avoid over-steeping, but I do know that this is not something the British as a whole have to explain themselves on! Tea here is a practicality rather than a niche interest as it seems to be in the US.
I have this same question about British tea-making practices. Maybe that’s what all the milk is for, to disguise that after the first cup your tea is nothing but tannins?
In the UK, you’ll often be given an extra pot of boiling water to top up your pot with once you’ve poured your first cup. So that’s how.
And if you think the US is bad, try asking for a cup of tea in France. Once you’ve got over the withering disdain, they’ll bring you a cup of something that isn’t really tea at all (liptons anyone?), and, if pushed either some warm milk (bleurch) or longlife UHT milk (marginally worse).
Now, can we move on to the ideal biscuit for dunking (Cadbury’s chocolate fingers ftw)?
“longlife UHT milk”
“But there’s not much demand for that, because it’s shite”.
But the problem with oversteeping isn’t the strength of the brew, it’s the bitterness. Hot water doesn’t do anything to un-bitterize tea. I am calling shenanigans on this one. Tea strainers 4 lyfe.
I’ve been a tea drinker for years and the only way I’ve found to successfully steep more than one cup of loose leaf tea at a time is to brew it in a french press and then transfer to a warmed teapot for presentation.
If I don’t want to bother with the teapot, I just keep it in the french press and, like keristars said above, you have to make sure that the plunger is already pushed down before you add your tea leaves and boiling water, so when the tea is ready, you can pull the plunger up and remove all the tannin-y leaves from your delicious, delicious tea!
chocolate fingers? no way. Gingernuts, always and forever.
Ginger nuts! Did anyone else ever eat Nisa ones? They had the most ginger of the ones I sampled on trips to the UK in my youth.
When Carolyn Heilbrun (aka Amanda Cross) was older her daughter kept trying to find her the perfect ginger snap, and went to bakery after bakery in New York City. (ETA: Heilbrun did NOT reject them- I misremembered what I had read.) This caused a pang of recognition in our household when we read of it.
But I’m pusillanimous- Bourbon creams, Hob-Nobs and chocolate digestives have also hit the spot at different times.
I feel like this is a question where, if you have to ask it, you don’t deserve the answer. There’s a lot of gatekeeping involved in being a Tea Person in a Coffee Culture.
(full disclosure: I am US-born and raised, with Latin American cafecito-drinking roots; fond of teas and tisanes for occasional enjoyment, but devoted to COFFEE as a source of caffeinated happiness)
“If you don’t already know the answer then I’m not going to tell you,” is, I’m pretty sure, always a bullshit argument made by people who don’t know the answer themselves. True for “Why are you mad at me?” and equally true for “Hey how do you brew a pot of tea?”
The level of mystique Brits in particular put on tea making is a little absurd. Leaves, not bags; boiling water, not merely hot. This is the whole entire mystery. These Americans are too stupid to be educated on the ART of tea is a ridiculous argument. One ingredient, boiling water, end scene.
They pretty much are just bitching that the whole world doesn’t possess the same taste. How sad for them. I hate what passes for “bacon” in British restaurants but I don’t think it’s because they’re too dumb to know how to make the bacon I like. It’s because they favor something else.
I think the idea that all brits know how to make the perfect cup of tea is possibly the greatest lie ever spread about the English, because my grandfather (a french-hating, fish and chips eating, lunch in the same pub every sunday old man in Somerset) only drinks tea that has been steeped for half an hour using two teabags per person, sooo…….
In my experience, that’s what milk/sugar is for. Builders tea is a thing in England–leaving your teabag in for too long and then having to cut the bitterness with milk and sugar. When I went to afternoon teas in Bath and London, they did leave the leaves in the pot and bring an extra pot of hot water–but the assumption was you would definitely also add milk to your tea, at the very least, to cut the bitterness. This method works best for black tea because there’s really no saving a high quality green tea once it’s oversteeped. Green tea with milk is not a thing most people desire (Matcha aside). My friend had ordered a silver needle with jasmine when we were in Bath and it got soooo bitter. I was surprised she’d order that when we knew they were going to leave the tea leaves in the pot, and that silver needle generally doesn’t taste great with milk.
By the way anyone looking to order good loose leaf tea online should check out Upton Tea Imports or Adagio. I recommend the chestnut black tea from Adagio, as it is delicious.
I’m also a big fan of Adagio’s Earl Grey moonlight tea (and their fandom blends can be lots of fun).
Adagio’s Irish Breakfast is my go-to morning cuppa, and I’ve yet to find another brand’s IB that I like anywhere NEAR as much. It is frequently out of stock, so I buy two big bags now whenever I restock.
Gonna have to pick up some of that when I restock.
keep an eye out for Brigadoon Breakfast (Scottish Breakfast blend!) on Feb 29. It’s only sold on Leap Day, or at least that’s what they promised on Feb. 29, 2012, and it’s showing up under the Black Teas listing for me (with a “tasted” checkmark, so maybe not for everyone?), so we might get to see it soon 🙂
It’s similar in profile to the Irish and English breakfast teas, but different.
Here’s the description, which hasn’t changed in 4 years:
Like the fictional Scottish town of Brigadoon, this special Leap Year tea only appears once every few years. Luckily, it’s every four years instead of a hundred!
Celebrate Leap Day with this Scottish Breakfast Blend of Assam and Keemun teas. We’ve added a touch of Silver Needle and blue cornflowers to evoke the blue and white of the Scottish flag that Brigadoon would fly.
Leap Day is needed to correct the fact that the Gregorian calendar year is about 6 hours shorter than a solar calendar year. The extra day is an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary, something that doesn’t come along too often. So this February 29th, order a cup of Brigadoon Breakfast Tea, or wait until 2016.
Well, this sounds intriguing, and kind of adorable.
if nothing else, it really is a very pretty loose leaf tea blend (the cornflower and white tea slivers with the smaller bits of black tea) and makes a great kitchen decoration in a glass jar. 😀
not that i choose teas based on glass jar prettiness, but they DO sell vacuum-sealing glass jars at adagio, too, if you need to do that
<3 Upton!! (I primarily drink their yin hao jasmine and whichever chai I picked from the list).
Adagio is my faaaavorite not just because every time i tweet “I <3 @AdagioTeas” i get 2 tea points and I got an IngenuiTEA pot for free basically as a result? (well, also topped off with points for buying tea and reviewing tea)
It’s Leap Year soon, so keep an eye out for Brigadoon Breakfast! I got 3oz last Leap Year and it wasn’t really my thing back then, but I’ve learned to like stronger teas in the last 4 years or else my carefully sealed bag is getting stale (I mean, it’s nearly 4 years……) because I’ve been liking it better recently. They said they would only sell it ON Feb. 29, so hopefully it’ll be sold again in 2016!
My brother in law got me the IngenuiTEA thingy a few years ago and I adore it. It greatly increased my usage of loose leaf tea, plus it’s lasted me about 3 years already and it’s still going strong.
Yes, I love mine! except that it’s a hair too small for a full cup with some of my heartier-sized mugs? which is sad. I might have to invest in the Iced IngenuiTEA so I can use those mugs, since it’s a little bigger.
Also the other thing is that i am really extra lazy about cleaning my tea things, and the paper filters are so much more convenient if i’m only planning on one cup and it’s a tea that doesn’t take a second steep very well. The IngenuiTEA gets pulled out if I’m doing several cups in a fairly short period, like while watching a movie or something. (Also also it is so fun to watch the leaves float around!)
Having grown up in a house full of Lipton tea bags, I think I’ve just realized why I… don’t really like tea all that much. However, I also drink Taster’s Choice instant coffee every morning, so I’m inclined to not really trust my own taste in general.
I adore tea. Real tea. I didn’t know that until I was nearly 30 and had my first properly brewed cuppa. But now I buy tea leaf blends from Adagio and have a morning ritual (and usually an afternoon ritual). Nothing goes better with breakfast. Nothing goes better with a cookie. You get a lift from the caffeine without the frantic up and down of coffee. Also, coffee is so foul to me I can’t comprehend drinking it. But I also can’t comprehend drinking that lipton dust with creamer in it. What is that shit. No.
I have mugs that say “Where there is tea, there is hope” and “Don’t panic, put the kettle on”. They are both perfectly accurate.
I have always been a bit suspicious of fancy tea (though I am warming to Earl Grey). My feeling is that tea should not be pretentious.
I have never seen a more British essay written by a non-British person.
“That’s Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You’re a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You’ve just been told you’ve got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT!”
“Tea can do many things, Jane, but it can’t bring back the dead.”
(from ‘Death at a Funeral’)
lies
There is an entire Doctor Who Christmas special devoted to this philosophy.
A British friend pointed out to me years ago that Americans think everything can be solved with a hug while the British think everything can be solved with a cup of tea.
I’m American, but I’m firmly team tea.
I don’t know where this is from (because I just stumbled across it on a buzzfeed “how to know you’re a person who is cold all the time” list) but this is eerily relevant:
That’s perfect!
“Tea drinkers don’t judge you on your worthiness as a human based on whether you add milk or sugar”
I may not be judging you on your worth as a person, but I firmly believe that if you regularly add milk and sugar to tea then you probably don’t actually like tea all that much, you like sugary milk. There is nothing wrong with liking sugary milk, but it makes it massively irritating when British people bemoan American’s inability to make decent tea when they recoil at the idea of drinking tea that hasn’t been adulterated.
I think if you put so much milk and sugar in your tea that you can’t taste the tea, then you’re probably putting too much in. Certainly, I don’t think I’ve ever been unable to tell the difference.
Its not about adding so much that you can’t taste the tea at all, I just maintain that if you need to alter the original flavor of something in order to consume it, then you cannot be truly said to enjoy the original thing.
ETA
I should add that I do drink milk tea pretty frequently, but I think of it as more akin to a cup of cocoa than to actual tea. Also, most of my irritation comes from hearing Brits bitch about American tea when their idea of a “proper” cup of tea involves a bag of twinings, milk and sugar.
I don’t know, I feel like the word “tea” is actually broad enough to include both brewed tea specifically and an umbral set of tea-based beverages; in the same way if I say I like “steak”, I don’t necessarily mean I only like steak cooked without seasoning, or if I say I like “spaghetti” that means I only like cooked noodles without sauce. Tea especially is simultaneously a thing in itself, and also a cultural phenomena that makes use of it.
I would argue that unseasoned steak or spaghetti noodles are components of dishes rather than dishes in and of themselves, which is definitely not the case with tea, so the comparison doesn’t really hold up. Also, if “tea” can be understood to broadly mean “any beverage in which tea contributes to the flavor profile” then shouldn’t it be equally accurate to refer to a milkshake, milk tea, cocoa and a glass of milk as milk. Milk tea, sweet tea etc. are names for beverages in which tea is an ingredient, but they are distinct from “tea” with no modifier and the ur-tea should definitely not be considered to be tea with milk and sugar added.
Well, I disagree, steak is certainly an ingredient by itself. You don’t need to season steak to enjoy it, though seasoning a steak is a common enough preparation that we don’t have to say “I enjoy seasoned steak”. If a person said, “I love steak by itself, but I particularly love steak with this bleu cheese dressing,” I don’t think it’d be reasonable to to suggest that someone doesn’t actually like steak.
I think you could say, according to the terms of this comparison, that a milkshake might be reasonably called “milk” (in any case, if a person said they liked “milk”, but particularly likes it blended with ice cream, it doesn’t seem reasonable to me to tell that person that they don’t, in fact, like milk); but it’s not the convention to do so, and it is most certainly the convention to call tea with milk and sugar “tea”; it is, in fact, a standard preparation of tea, in the same way that steeping tea, as opposed to just munching on tea leaves, is a standard preparation that doesn’t require a modifier. I would dispute the notion that the consumption of tea particularly requires a singular “ur-tea” which should only refer to tea in its most basic or standard form; rather, I’d posit that there can be multiple exemplars of preparations of tea, defined by particular cultural contexts, and that it is valid to call all of them “tea”.
But all of this aside, your first comment was that a person who likes milk and sugar in their tea doesn’t really like tea, they like “sugary milk.” My assertion is that tea is an essential component of the flavor profile of tea with milk and sugar (in fact, I’d argue it’s the defining flavor, in the sense that I will sometimes take my tea without milk and sugar, but I would never take my milk and sugar without tea), and so it’s an entirely untrue characterization to say that I don’t like the taste of tea that much.
I love the toast. perfect comment.
I guess you never add salt, pepper, or sauce to your food.
I think there’s a substantial difference between adding milk to your tea and adding sugar, and Orwell is with me on this one. Sugar changes the flavor; milk just softens it. Milk means you can get your tea nice and strong and still not have your mouth dry out from all the tannin. I like milky tea, and in a pinch I will drink black tea and make a face at the dryness, but I have always, no exceptions, found both sugary tea and sugary coffee to be gross to the point of undrinkable. (Note: this does not mean I’m sitting in moral judgment on people who happen to not find it gross – I just offer this as evidence that there is a substantial difference between the kind of flavor changes we’re talking about.)
Ha, I was just about to say – I drink my black tea with milk and one of sugar, and I sometimes feel plenty judged by “serious” tea drinkers! 😉 (American, fwiw)
that’s not to say I refuse to drink it any other way, especially if I’m at a Fancier Tea Place that discourages milk, but if I’m drinking my standard breakfast tea at home it’s milk/sugar all the time.
Yes, this idea that tea drinkers are less snobby than coffee drinkers, in an article about what makes a proper cup of tea, may be slightly flawed. Which I say with love, because I am a snob about both.
I’m also not convinced that the people drinking four cups of tea a day are any less addicted to caffeine than coffee drinkers, but I may be projecting.
Growing up (in USA), my mom taught me to drink tea either unadulterated or with a teeny bit of honey stirred in. Now that streaming tv is such a thing and I can watch way more UK programming than before, I have been appalled to learn just how much milk and sugar a lot of Brits seem to add to their tea.
However, then I saw a program where Lucy Worsley talked about the history of china teacups and I guess the non-rich Brits originally started putting milk in their tea because pouring hot tea directly into their cheap china would break the cups. So, it was a necessity thing that became a cultural thing.
I’ve been a tea drinker as long as I can remember. I briefly flirted with coffee in college, but it was just a fling.
The thing I can’t stand in restaurants is that stupid upside down lightbulb filled with warm water. They give you that crappy thing, or a shaky thin metal pot that immediately leeches all the heat from the water. And then there is a Lipton tea bag and I’m supposed to make do with that and it’s crap. I’m not a tea snob (I happily use tea bags, and think most loose tea is too much trouble because I am at my heart quite lazy), but Lipton tea is so very bad.
Oh god, the upside down lightbulb thing is the worst. there’s so much ceremony involved when you ask for a cup of tea at most restaurants: lightbulb! tiny metal pot! ceramic square of Lipton tea bags! it almost takes up half the table. and then, of course, the end result is terrrrrrrible.
I HATE THE LIGHTBULB!!! It looks like a relic from 1994 and serves no easily discernible purpose other than making your tea sort of cold and difficult to pour.
When I was a kid, my mom used to order tea by the kilo from England. It was a rude awakening for me when I realized that most people a) don’t regularly order kilos of things in America (except some drugs) b) not everyone has multiple tea sets and amazing loose leaf teas in their homes.
Keeping up with the family tradition I now bring back enormous amounts of tea whenever I go abroad (usually from Russia, where tea is a way of life) and have a whole cupboard in my very small apartment devoted to teas.
I have a whole shelf of a corner cabinet filled with tea. It makes me happy now that snow is falling and I just want to drink tea all day. I only have 4 teapots, but lots of mugs!
I think every person I know living in the UK has a cupboard with tea and/or coffee things in it. Mostly multiple varieties of tea with a bloody massive box/pot/jar/tin of tea bags at the front.
When I eventually move back to China, I’ll be bringing a very large caddy of Yorkshire tea with me, and requesting that Christmas parcels have at least one box of it.
While I now live in Toronto, land of widely available fancy loose leaf tea, I still pine for the stewed tea of my Nova Scotia youth. At my parents office there was a tea urn: a metal contraption into which about ten Red Rose tea bag (can we talk about how under-rated Red Rose tea is) were place in the morning. These bags would stewed away in the urn all day, producing tea almost as thick and black as coffee. This tea-stew was to be drunk half and half with cream or if you were adventurous, condensed milk. HEAVEN!
Plus the red rose tea that my parents bought when I was little came with those little porcelain animals! I think there are still little herds of them on the shelf by the kitchen sink at my parents house.
My Irish grandmother swore by Red Rose tea, and I collected approximately eleventy billion of those little animal figurines. (Which I kept in a tin labeled “Noha’s Ark” because I couldn’t spell).
My mother’s childhood ritual was to walk home from school for lunch and eat a tuna sandwich with a cup of Red Rose tea with evaporated milk and sugar. I almost never recreate this but now I want to more than anything as I do miss her a lot during the holidays, and I love the old ad jingle: “It’s a potent cuppa tea, Red Rose!”.
I remember being told at one point that Red Rose tea in the Maritimes is actually different than the Red Rose tea available elsewhere in Canada. I don’t know if that’s true, but it would explain the Maritimes love for it which I otherwise don’t quite understand.
we had tea urns in the army.
“if this is tea, bring me coffee. if this is coffee, bring me tea.”
once in basic training I had to clean out the urns, which had small green strands of something growing at the bottom.. no-one got sick though, so it must have been benign.
As a British person I applaud this, but we wouldn’t class something with orange peel and spices in, or without milk, as ‘proper tea’. English Breakfast tea (usually an Assam/Ceylon blend I think) or GTFO.
Constant Comment is a”gateway” tea, invented by geniuses to lure young people into tea drinking. We then go on to drink Assam, and other more sophisticated blends.
Heartily agreed. I thought the essay was pitch perfect except for this – though I did chortle at the lines ‘we were technically roughing it, inasmuch as anyone can rough it whilst camping on a beach in southern California in July’.
Apart from Earl Grey, I am not sure there is any latitude for flavoured teas in this conversation.
My recent horror story is of a friend from Spain who put the kettle on the stove with the teabag in it. She could not understand why my eyes were rolling so hard.
I had to stop there. There are two kinds of tea (I am an enjoyer of both, but they are distinctly different) there is proper tea, black tea, taken usually with milk and sugar, and then there is herbal tea. Herbal tea can be nice, but frequently it is just a lie and smells far better than it tastes.
Whenever I have an herbal tea, I hear Hercule Poirot primly whispering tisane in my mind. I’ve got love for all things that make water taste more interesting.
Constant comment is not herbal tea. It’s about the same class as earl grey – lightly flavored black tea. It’s not for a purist, but it’s certainly closer to the real thing than David’s tea.
I was going to say, I don’t drink coffee OR tea, but I’m pretty sure a tea snob would recoil at the idea that Constant Comment could be considered “proper tea.”
At last! Another Brit! Yorkshire Builder’s tea all the way!See below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtK_vfp8po8
I can’t believe the first subject that’s involved me strongly enough to post is tea. Actually, i can.
I’m gonna be honest- I love tea, grew up drinking it, fond childhood memories with Grandma, etc. but tea people who are Really Into Tea to the point that it’s almost a hobby can kind of get on my nerves. I have more than one friend who suddenly became obsessed with tea and now loves to tsk about how everybody else “just doesn’t get it” and is “doing it wrong”. I drink 3-4 cups of tea a day! I know what I’m doing!!!
this essay has convinced me that, while I drink a pot a day, I am not a Real Tea Drinker. Tea Liker is fine by me tho!
my 16th birthday party was having fancy tea at a hotel with my friends ( I was a cool teen) and I probably will never achieve Real Tea Drinker levels, lol. (but I’m not sure if I want to!!)
MY PERSON. Look I Bloody Love Tea™ but tea zealots make me exasperated. You put the bag in the cup, pour hot water, remove bag and add milk and sugar as wished. There is no need to over complicate it.
EXACTLY.
(I also love your username)
Real tea comes in a mug with a spoon sticky out of it.
I admit to feeling kind of weird about it every time British people announce to the rest of the Internet how to drink tea. There is certainly a British way to do it, and its adherents are very attached to it, but…tea does not come from England. It did not originate there and it still is not grown there. It comes from places that England colonized, and it has a frankly very ugly colonial history. The only source of authority Britain has about tea is that they consume a lot of it, which really is no reason anybody needs to prefer British-style “black tea with milk” above Chinese-style “green leaves steeped over and over again,” or chai, or Southern sweet tea, or anything else.
Oh, you’re right of course – there are loads of amazing tea traditions from around the world, and Britain’s colonialism is massively connected to tea, so it’s important to be aware of that history. Sorry if it read like I was telling you guys what to drink in my comment above!
However, in Britain, ‘tea’ on a menu only means one thing (and we pretty much all *need* several cups of it a day), so we get a bit of a shock travelling to North America and finding ‘tea’ could mean anything from peppermint to chai to jasmine! I now take my own supplies of Taylor’s Yorkshire Tea.
this is really a great point. my husband is from iran, and his parents still live there but were educated in england and consequently when we are all together & make tea, mr inkwash drinks his persian-style (with cardamom and saffron and earl grey, sometimes a little sugar) while his mother drinks hers “english” style with milk, and his father would really just as soon have a cup of coffee.
growing up, we drank more tea in our house than most of my american friends, but my mother is a decaf lipton’s lady. to this day, I cannot drink lipton’s hot, but do love it iced.
historically, my grandparents – who have stopped doing this and now drink their tea “unsweet” – would make hot, very sweet, verrrryyyy sweet tea on the stove in basically a stockpot. part of it would be drunk hot and part chilled in a gallon jar for the next day.
in jordan, I drank black tea brewed with ungodly amounts of mint and sugar with local friends. in india, tea with sweetened condensed milk. all beautiful in their own right.
I thought Constant Comment tea was a politely named laxative (you know, the way Dieter’s Green is!) up until like two months ago.
I still maintain that this is a perfectly reasonable mistake to make. “Constant Comment” is certainly a plausible euphemism for “keeps you regular,” and one can extrapolate from there that “black tea with spices” means “they put like senna or something in there.”
I thought it was “Constant Comet” for the longest time as a kid. I guess I never bothered to actually read the package.
Constant Comet is an entirely different gastrointestinal problem.
Only comes round every 75 years but puts on quite a show.
OH THE HUMANITY
I really enjoy the idea that constant comment is meant to imply that people will take notice of how frequently you have to rush to the bathroom
That tea is called Smooth Move! You know, classy-like. I seem to recall my mom always keeping some around while I was growing up.
Tea Fact! Because everyone in the UK has an electric kettle, and everyone watches the same big sports events/royal ceremonies, and everyone wants a cup of tea whenever there’s a break, they built the fastest-responding power plant in the world in the middle of Snowdonia.
I am a Briton raised in the US, so I took some time to claim my birthright as a tea drinker, because most tea here is indeed just hot leaf juice. This was made more complicated when I cut caffeine out of my life. But tisanes are delicious, and decaf tea is actually not that bad. Harney and Sons are my go-to because they have a good range of decaf teas and tisanes, including the best rooibos I’ve ever encountered, but I was recently reminded while at home with our newborn of the soothing powers of decaf Trader Joe’s Irish Breakfast with plenty of milk in.
At the end of Eastenders, we have to BORROW POWER FROM FRANCE TO MAKE OUR TEA! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup
I’ve visited that power station! It’s actually pretty interesting.
Come to the West Coast for your fancy tea shop needs, I can make some excellent recommendations in Seattle and Portland. A fair number of coffee shops even stock high-quality loose leaf teas, though in my experience they don’t train their baristas on proper water temperatures or steeping times so you’re safer getting black tea than anything else.
Even the 253 has fancy tea! http://madhattea.com/
I worked in a fancy teahouse in Seattle! It actually wasn’t fancy, it was exceedingly poorly run and a terrible terrible place to work but the tea selection was excellent and I learned more about tea preparation than I ever dreamed it was possible to learn.
oh no, now I’m worried that one of the tea places I like is a terrible place to work 🙁
nonono, don’t worry about it! Even if you are a patron, the wonderful customers were the only thing that made my job bearable. Seriously the regulars were (mostly) really, really wonderful.
(It’s in Wallingford, the tea and snacks are excellent, the owner is terrible, the employees are absurdly overworked, there’s an old white man dressed in Buddhist monk robes who is NOT A MONK there every day and he is a diiiiiiiick)
1) If the tea is black (Earl Grey, Lady Grey, British Breakfast, Darjeeling), I leave the bag in until I’m done, because I love black tea stiff enough to chew. Jasmine, green, or white must come out after two or three minutes or it will be bitter and gross.
2) I have liked coffee exactly once in my life: when I was in Kauai and sampling coffee at Kauai Coffee. That’s it. It was fresh and delightful.
3) When I was in Florida visiting my brother-in-law with my husband, a waitress shamed me for wanting hot tea with my breakfast because it was “too hot out”. She notably did not shame anyone who wanted coffee with theirs. It did nothing to improve my opinion of Florida.
4) Constant Comment is the worst kind of black tea. Fight me.
I would not drink Constant Comment now,but it was my gateway into tea,and for that I am grateful
She was silly. There is a long tradition of drinking tea in the tropics because it makes you sweat and that cools you down! Similar principle to spicy foods. So there! 🙂
I went to Turkey in late July a few years ago and this is one of the first things I learned. You will be absolutely baking outside and then you will step inside to a little internet cafe and the staff will perceive your foreign tourist status and ask if you’d like a Coke and they will be delighted and surprised at your being able to say, “Tea, please!” in your very best Turkish. (“Çay, lutfen!”) It will come to you piping hot in a little glass and it will be surprisingly refreshing. You will probably want to order one more.
That sounds lovely!
Agreed on Constant Comment, blech.
i have to admit i am somewhat mystified by the mention of strada, which in my experience will just give you a glass cup with the water still boiling in it, and a bag of twinings on the side, which is far from an ideal tea experience. i actually have a scalding burn on my arm from when someone knocked their cup onto me.
I love this! My mother – an otherwise sophisticated woman – drank Lipton plunked in water that was microwaved for one minute and 30 seconds while I was growing up (I have since at least transitioned her to Twinings), so I didn’t have my first real cup of tea until college.
I threw myself into nearly all of the obnoxious things an American can do when she studies abroad – I drank heavily, traveled to other countries in Europe for 2 days and considered myself an expert, fell madly in love, and discussed my thoughts on George W. Bush in pubs, but the only real enduring takeaway from my time in Scotland is my love of blue collar tea with milk. My Danish flatmate made me my first cup with milk and sugar, and I was changed. Over time, the sugar was eliminated, and I am drinking my second morning cup of PG tips with 2% as we speak.
I travel a lot for work and actually TRAVEL WITH TEA, as even fancy hotels full of overpaid consultants from all corners of the world are not to be trusted to serve anything better than Lipton. It’s a bleak landscape here in the US – and when I do get to travel to the UK, the very first thing I do as soon as I escape Heathrow is find somebody to make me a proper cuppa. And it’s wonderful because anyone can do it there!
And I have been with my now-husband for nearly 6 years and his parents STILL ask me if I want coffee every morning I wake up at their home. I did at least finally buy some decent tea that I stashed where their 10-15 year old box of green tea lives, but they remain baffled. I think it is because they live in Seattle.
None of this is relevant to anything but I so rarely get to talk about tea and am just loving reading all of my fellow tea drinkers plights/love stories.
Also props to people with the patience for daily loose tea usage. I have a loose tea shop down the street that I frequent but tend to hoard it for special occasions that will never come – somewhere in my subconscious I must be worried the Queen might show up unannounced or something.
I travel with my own tea too! I also grew up on teabags, but my mom would keep a jar of first flush Darjeeling for “special occasions” that’d we’d break out from time to time. Once I got to college I became the full fledged loose leaf tea drinker I am today, and I can’t go a day without my first flush Darjeeling. I have even been known to pre bag it in make-your-own teabags and bring it to restaurants where I know their tea offerings suck. I have a problem.
You don’t have a problem, you have tenacity! And a lack of laziness (I have much laziness).
I for one feel that you can never be *entirely* sure the Queen won’t show up unannounced, said the resident of a Commonwealth nation.
I use loose tea because I suck down so much that tea bags are not economically feasible. My town has a Russian/Eastern European grocery store, so I can buy two-pound boxes of many teas (as long as they’re black). I do love lapsang souchong, but they don’t have it. I call it bbq tea and crave it in the cold months.
When i made lapsang souchong at one work place i was accused of going outside and sneaking a cigarette because of the smokiness of the tea. It was hard for them to wrap their heads around it. It was a weird workplace, unusual in being a tea fueled set of programmers.
If you love Lapsang and also cocktails, let me tell you two things: infusing vodka with Lapsang and adding it to Bloody Mary’s is great. ALSO: using it to make a tea-infused simple syrup and adding it to bourbon on the rocks. This is a recipe I’ve tried before and the smokiness is the perfect complement to the bourbon (and I don’t even usually like bourbon???): https://www.instagram.com/p/zLB1iISdlV/
Smoky campfire tea! My glamorous grandmother got her lapsang souchong in beautiful black and gold tins labeled Hu Kwa. She drank it, from a tray, in bed every morning. I inherited all her fabulous English teacups and teapots, and still love me some smoky tea.
I think every person I know living in the UK has a cupboard with tea and/or coffee things in it. Mostly multiple varieties of tea with a bloody massive box/pot/jar/tin of tea bags at the front.
Every summer, we visit my mother-in-law in Dublin. We arrive, jet lagged, after a 11+ hour journey to her door, and she puts the kettle on, and we make buttered toast, and there are no crackling logs but boy is there ever a general atmosphere of leisured coziness.
It’s the essence of homecoming.
(Also, my delightful Irish husband makes me a cup of tea every night. I don’t even have to ask anymore. Or if I do, I ‘ask’ by pausing the TV and glancing his way. He doesn’t need words, he understands, and acts.)
One of my work colleagues, whose name was Paddy McGrath, used to come into the office with two cups of tea. He would offer you one, and if you didn’t take it, would drink it himself very happily. Most civilised behaviour.
In the late evenings, my husband, who is very adaptable, I suppose, has gotten in the habit of asking “Oh are you putting on tea?” whenever I stand up, usually to head to the restroom or something. But I get him back sometimes by playing that game where you touch your nose (in the “not it” fashion) and then he has to get up and put on the water himself. I suspect it’s very ill-mannered of me, but I’m not as good settling in to the local ways.
Why don’t Marxists drink proper tea?
Because all proper tea is theft.
And some tea in the Australian town of Mercy is gritty and full of leaves — because the koala tea of Mercy is never strained.
Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None– the lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.
Tea! I can’t agree with this article hard enough. I actually work in a tea shop much like the one you imagine in your final paragraph! It’s a family run business and we carry around 100 loose leaf teas and tisanes. My lovely boss is a big stickler for tea education. She genuinely loves tea and she’s assembled a staff of tea nerds who want to preach the good word as well. I absolutely love it. We’ve actually got a wholesale component to our business as well and we’re slowly but surely helping restaurants and cafes across central Florida create loose leaf tea programs for their businesses.
I don’t quite understand the disconnect in cafes, where they’ll buy a $10,000 espresso maker but then serve, like, Lipton’s teabags for their tea option. I think we’re on the upswing, though, tea lovers. I’ve noticed more places offering loose leaf tea when I order tea out. It seems more places are finally realizing that tea drinkers are as likely to drop cash on a good cup of tea as coffee drinkers on their locally roasted, organic cortado or cold brew.
Irish people and Tea is a very serious thing. We drink more tea than the British by far.
Irish tea is such a thing that we have a well deserved reputation for bringing tea with us when we leave the country and there’s a black market in most major cities for Irish teabags. Most expat conversations will quickly turn to where’s the nearest shop that imports proper tea.
The brand of tea you drink is a very serious indicator of your affiliations (I am a committed Lyons Red Box drinker, Barry’s can suck it. Living in the UK forces me to drink Teatly, but I do it under duress.).
My first and only moment of home sickness when I moved to the UK was when I went food shopping; I remembered that I needed tea and turned down the tea aisle while thinking to myself ‘Hmm what tea will I buy. haha Lyons of course’ AND THEN DIDN’T RECOGNIZE ANY OF THE TEA BRANDS. I genuinely panicked and then my mum had to post me a box of Lyons.
I’m an American who tries to only drink Irish tea, and I can get Barry’s in my local supermarket! (in Boston) I’ve actually never had Lyons for some reason, now I feel like I have to try it for a taste test.
Boston is heavily Irish so I’m not surprised that you can get Barry’s (but never Lyons…)
Can I ask why you only drink Irish tea?
Irish tea is definitely no worse or better than other countries tea; Irish people are just horrifically tribal and will use any excuse to hate other people, and as an emigrant culture we tend to cling on to cultural indicators for dear life
Plus it tastes better.
I realized after I posted the comment that that was a kind of a weirdly vague statement…
basically, my grandparents are Irish and I grew up drinking it! And I think it’s stronger than any other brands, which I prefer.
Have you seen the cringely named “Ethnic” aisles in places like Tesco? They have a lot of Irish stuff going on in the big shops. to the point that asking relatives going to Ireland to bring back Tatos has become unneccessary :/
Yes! Theres one in my local massive sainsburys, they have marmalade, odlums flour and Barry’s.
They do not however have the things I actually want like soda bread, proper butter and milk and Lyons tea.
England is so culturally similar nto Ireland that sometimes I forget I live in a different country until I’m craving something that has been a constant all my life and suddenly no one knows it exists (like soda bread. I had no idea this is a specifically Irish thing.)
Oh, soda bread. I’m American myself, but I was still quite put out when I moved to England after a spell in Northern Ireland because I couldn’t find buttermilk any more. Apparently it was so easy to find in NI because of the soda bread.
They’re missing out in England.
I can still find buttermilk, however I cannot seem to make satisfactory soda bread.
I don’t understand because if theres no soda bread in the UK then what do you eat smoked salmon on? (Don’t ask me how, but smoked salmon on soda bread is a staple Christmas dinners starter in Ireland.)
Obligatory:
It’s not even an exaggeration tho.
Tea must be offered as soon as someone enters the house and refusal is an affront to all good taste (however acceptance of the first offer is terribly gauche.)
“Ah, you’ll have a cup of tea, yeah?” It’s not even an actual question, it’s an order, gently phrased.
I made the mistake of trying to turn one down once, and they just stared at me in polite confusion until I said yes.
And if you ever manage to actually turn down a cup of tea, no cup will ever be offered again.
‘Ah you will yeah’
This phrase. The cause of so much trouble. (Usually; will you have another pint? Ah you will yeah.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtK_vfp8po8
This should clear up any questions about how to make real tea. It is made with a tea bag in a mug with copious milk and sugar to your preference. Occasionally making a pot of tea is acceptable if you’re serving many people (or feel like acting posh) but mugs are a serious requirement. Don’t trust people who only have small cups.
And why is it such a battle to find a set of proper-sized mugs for one’s home? There’s a host of tiny mugs at Ikea right now, but hardly anything befitting a proper cup of any kind of beverage!
*flails arms*
I just got back from Rome where apparently mugs are not a thing. There was one non-teacup cup in the entire hostel (I wouldn’t call it a mug.)
Proper mugs for all! (However if its too big I don’t like it because the tea goes cold before I’ve finished it. So actually reasonable sized mugs for all!!)
This seems like the correct place to share that my very first word was ‘tea’. I was given a cup immediately, and by all accounts everyone then sat around looking proud at each other.
On recent trip home I introduced my 3 yo nephew to the joys of having his own mug of tea. Its now become an addiction and I don’t feel at all bad about it.
(In fairness I gave him his own mug because he kept dipping biscuits into my mug and loosing half the biscuits. Rich Tea is a highly skilled dunking biscuit, which was beyond his dunking skill level at the time. I then had to have stern words with his father about teach his son proper biscuit dunking techniques.
this post just…rubbed me the wrong way. Like the whole way through. Was it meant to be tongue and cheek? I couldn’t really tell?
In any case, this really seemed to be a case of that psychological phenomenon where people tend to assume that their opinion and way of doing things is more widespread than it actually is. I respect that the author just really loves tea. Good on her. But, like, this arbitrary line-drawing between tea and coffee or what have you seems so bizarre.
Also, I am really over white people fetishizing the comforts of tea like it doesn’t have a gross imperialist history (same goes for coffee).
But if we stopped drinking *everything* with an imperialist history we’d be down to….beer. We’d have to drink beer at breakfast, elevenses, lunch, dinner, in place of the pre-bed cocoa….actually hold on this idea sounds really good.
Nope, beer came a long with the Vikings, who iirc were pretty brutal colonialists.
We’d have water.
Oh no, wait, Nestle have fucked that too.
I was going to bring up the ancient Egyptians and beer but they don’t have entirely clean noses on the human rights front. And it would be cultural appropriation.
Maybe we must all become vampires and drink blood? Which is a bit of an on-the-nose metaphor for colonialism.
Is mead OK or is that Vikings too?
Obviously we should all just stop consuming everything until we die of starvation and dehydration, naked and alone in the ethically farmed woods that we don’t own because property is theft.
Nooonononononono the Brits were drinking beer long before the Vikings turned up. Romans complained about it, because they couldnt get decent wine
Vikings were just the first group that popped in to mind, the likelyhood of me being correct was very low!
However I cannot stop laughing at the idea of a bunch of Romans invading a country and then moaning about the lack of good wine.
They also sent a bunch of letters home begging for more socks because it was so fudging cold. Look up the Vindolanda tablets, they’re hilarious.
Mama send socks and wine, this country is shit, why did we even come here!
I remember that from my misspent youth trotting round the British Museum during the school holidays! I went to loads of free lectures (target audience: students) and gallery talks (target audience: pensioners), aged 14, and learnt phrases in ancient Egyptian (“hotep dinisu” “the king gives as a gift”, it starts lots of funerary formulae) and had a whale of a time.
You can drink stuff without fetishizing it, though!
But if I don’t fetishize my tea drinking how can I signify to people that I am more cultured and elegant than them.
we really would only have beer, huh?
I’m not saying to stop drinking tea or coffee. I drink both. I’m saying to maybe acknowledge that we stole them and ravaged entire locales to do it and continue to do so in articles like this that wax rhapsodic about how tea/coffee is the best thing evarrrrrrrrrrr and so elegannnnnnnntttttttt and refinnnneeeeedddd. You know what I mean? Just, this has a history.
That’s a totally good point! I skipped the article (after reading the first few sentences to confirm that it wasn’t another glorious trolling like the last Toast article on tea that I remember reading) because I’m a recent convert to the practice of drinking tea in addition to my coffee, but I strongly agree that it’s not a neutral thing at all, and there is a very violent history (and present considering what large scale coffee growing does to the environment and labor conditions, although I hope fair trade makes some difference). So totally I totally agree that these are not things that exist in a valueless void.
I know, I know. I feel like I play both sides on the tea thing because my father has all these rules and rituals for making tea (and coffee) and tea (or coffee) made the way he makes it does have that special frisson (and he makes a big deal of drinking plain Yorkshire Tea tea the way other people make a big deal about specially blended such-and-such), so I respect people’s need for tea made the way someone they loved taught them to, and their belief that The Way Dad or Mom or Grandma Made It Is The Only Way, but when it’s just me by myself I sometimes just do it all anyhow and it’s *fine*.
And yes, yes, yes to acknowledging the history (and impact) of what we consume.
I feel like there are a million “tongue in cheek” essays out there drawing arbitrary lines about groups of people passionate about lifestyles, certain foods, drinks or products so it’s not so bizarre: Beer vs Wine Drinkers, iPhone users vs Android users, cyclists versus car drivers/pedestrians, crunchy peanut butter vs creamy…I could go on and on.
I do agree with you that everyone should do a little digging to understand the sick, bloody and exploitative history that has come with our favorite drinks, foodstuffs, clothes, etc. On the other hand, I believe that life is short and exhausting enough so it’s OK to like tea/chocolate/fois gras/coffee/sugar/rum what have you.
(Full disclosure – the author is my mom so I have to defend her honor). I can also assure you this essay was most definitely written with full knowledge of the imperialist history of tea considering my mom was an Ancient History major and an American History and English teacher. I’ve endured countless lectures throughout my childhood on the exploitative origins of nearly everything.
Reading this has soothed me immensely. Now I will make a pot of tea, and be further soothed.
I’m a huge fan of Russian teas, particularly Kusmi’s “Prince Vladimir”:
<img src=”http://search.chow.com/thumbnail/300/0/www.chowhound.com/assets/2009/02/kusmi.jpg?q=90
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I also love their “Samovar” tea, which is very smoky and goes perfectly with a bagel and whitefish. (#Jews)
Is there somewhere to get this online? I don’t think I’ve had Russian tea before.
I just get mine on Amazon, usually. I think you can also order it from the Kusmi website.
Thanks! I just found it there too, didn’t know if there was a better source.
Also, my mom’s favorite tea is smokey lapsang, which tastes like drinking a campfire.
Yesss! I used to drink a tea that was smoked pine needles, until my hippy grocery store stopped carrying it. Perhaps because I was the only one who purchased what smelled like a burning rubber, but tasted, yes, exactly like drinking a campfire.
Lapsang Souchong is one of my favorite teas, and it goes very nicely with bagels, lox, and cream cheese
Mr. Delperro loves the Kusmi Samovar blend, and also Peet’s Russian Caravan. I’m an Earl Grey or oolong drinker. This is why we have two teapots.
Hail thee, Lady who knows her shit. I live in England and sometimes even here you can’t find a good cup of tea. But at least e.g. when a new café opened up in my town I heard three different reports of how they’d served tea with the tea bag ON THE SIDE – it was alarming and presumably they’ve cleaned up their act a bit since.
Also, everybody accepts tea bags here – insisting on loose-leaf tea for every cup is slightly on the wrong side of faffiness and care. But the bags are good 🙂 I’m studying at Cambridge Uni and in one of the colleges I saw this guy with a jumper draped over his shoulders walking across the courtyard with a full cup – like a round teacup that goes with a saucer – held out in front of him. My first reaction was yuck what kind of twat even looks like that but now when I look back I just really admire his dedication to tea. I’ve been late to lectures because of making a good cup of tea (it’s so hard to get the balance of milk, sugar and brewing time right that not every cup is excellent, even when you make several a day every day for ten years) and having to finish it before leaving.
Basically I lived in Italy last year and understand this struggle on many levels (the Italians I knew weren’t into tea, and the bags in supermarkets contained gram for gram about half as much tea, so I could never make a good strong brew).
TEA.
Sometimes I think people from outside the UK care way, way more than we do about a platonic ideal of British tea-ness. Most everyone I know (in the English midlands, if that matters) drinks rubbish, cheap tea with the bag left in and sugar to hide the taste, because it’s not a treat or something you even expect to taste great. It’s like water! It’s there and you drink it and you don’t even really register what it tastes like most of the time.
I dunno. Maybe it’s a class thing too? I’m working class, so most people I know couldn’t afford nice stuff regularly.
No, this is true. I havd heard far stronger opinions about tea from outside of the UK.
My mum literally does not drink water unless shes drunk. All of her hydration comes from shitty tea-bag tea with milk in it. She knows no other way.
Agreed. I think the caring-less (tea wise) does transcend class in the UK, but American tea-fetishisation seems to reflect the way a lot of Americans imagine the UK as quaint & original & proper (without attention to most class-distinctions anyway). Perhaps not unlike the way someone with a British accent is automatically heard as more intelligent or something like that in the US. I don’t know – I can’t place whether the author of this piece is an anglophile as well as a tea-person, or both, or one because of the other or what.
“Tea drinkers don’t judge you on your worthiness as a human based on whether you add milk or sugar.”
Incorrect. In the UK, adding sugar to your tea is seen as a sign of moral weakness, or at the very least, weakness of character.
unless you are an NHS nurse. in which case 4 sugars is the norm and you damn well deserve it.
I’m going to use that as my excuse (though I am neither a nurse nor an employee of the NHS) and stick to it.
But folks are totally fine with adding sugar to a latte. Which, I didn’t even know was an option before.
Preach it. I buy Taylor’s of Harrogate tea (Yorkshire Gold and Scottish Breakfast) by the kilo from brandsofbritain.com. I, too had my first tea epiphany as a child- I felt very grownup at age 10 when my mother’s friend offered me Red Rose with milk and sugar. In all my strivings for a healthy diet and lifestyle, “builder’s tea” is the one thing I categorically refuse to give up. How about a nice cup of tea?
I made the mistake of ordering tea from Starbucks the other day. To go. They serve decent tea, but by the time I was able to get the teabags out of the cup, the delicious smell of bergamot had been overwhelmed by the stink of tannins, and my afternoon was all disjointed.
the worst: when English people want to corner you and go on about why can’t Americans make a cup of tea the way they like it, when all you even do is press the button and say “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.”
and you explain that we mostly only have stovetop replicators in this country because we are not so helpless or detached from our origins as to be unable to manipulate fundamental kitchen appliances like stoves and fundamental elements like fire. and when a stovetop replicator fails to replicate the precise taste of stale dried leaves with hot water on them and accidentally splices in another beverage because the circuits glitches, some would call that a virtue and not a flaw. at the very least it is what we call warm artisanal charm. you want the same pot of tea every time, you can book a passage on a starship. because you know what, you can brag on your country’s kitchen technology all you want but matter replicators for home use are never going to have the same capacity for recycling subatomic particles that the big industrial ones do and tea drinkers are going to have to learn to face the fact someday
Have you seen this? I suspect it may be relevant to your interests…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU338bxB5Lo
Tea question: Nearest supermarket to me here in Northern California has an international bent with pan-Asian emphasis as it’s Chinese-owned family biz. So there are a few places in the store where you can find tea (English/Irish here, American Stash/Bigelow there), and among the Asian teas are both cans and powdered bags of “milk tea.” The packaging is so beautiful it makes me crash my cart into things, but I don’t understand–is it a can of tea with milk in it? And a bag of POWDERED tea with powdered milk? I suspect I’d enjoy it, but I’d love to know more from anyone who drinks, eats, or snorts it.
It’s goodness in a package. I think, although I’ve never read the label closely enough to figure it out, it’s dehydrated milk, sugar and tea. It comes out tasting like a milk tea which is just, it’s own flavor profile that I couldn’t really compare to anything else. There’s also often lavender flavored ones which is heavenly. I also drink a lot of coffee three-in-ones, which is the same basic idea, but instant coffee instead of tea. Really tasty!
I’m going to have to try it. The bags have that nice astronaut-food kookiness to them, but the cans look like beautiful porcelain teapots. I actually think they have bags of coffee three-in-ones, too, which makes me feel very rich all of a sudden.
I saw a jar of “tea granules” in a supermarket once. It looked like instant coffee.
I was a dedicated tea drinker for twenty years, and in the past couple of years I have Converted to coffee, and I’m still shocked and confused by how this happened. i just – stopped really liking tea, my morning drink that I had every day of my life from age ten through age thirty. Did my sense of smell change? Have too many of my taste buds died off? I don’t know, but it’s all very sad. I sit here reading this with a cup of coffee by my side, and as hard as I try to want a cup of tea instead, I just don’t.
Thank you for your educational mission. Most people don’t even realize that they are not serving proper tea!
If you are ever in the Hartford, CT area, Tisane is a delightful restaurant, cocktail bar and tea lounge with proper offerings of teas and tisanes, whichever is tt your liking!
Okay, so. My husband and I are both tea snobs (I of the Indian-origin tea variety and he of the Japanese greens) and we have the kettles and the fancy strainers for loose tea and all the snob-bobs. That said, I must also speak of the scandalous origin of my tea love, which was being raised in the Southern Tea tradition.
IN WHICH one puts nine bags of Lipton into a pot and brings it to a boil that way, then removes the bags. This is to make the tea potent enough to endure adding a great lot of sugar and then watering it down and serving it iced.
This is the way of my people. I still do it sometimes, and I am not sorry.
!!! You’re supposed to add the sugar FIRST so that it’s simple syrup and then steep the tea bags (but yes 9 Liptons is minimum). And then you pour it into a gallon container or more of ice water to cool and deconcentrate the sweetness. (ps: i’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter which order you do the sugar or steeping, but family traditions are family traditions. the important part is the simple syrup/tea mixed with ice water.)
When I was in freshman chemistry class in high school, we honest-to-god learned about a ton of chemistry concepts by making iced tea. I’m forgetting the words, but the thing that makes simple syrup possible (boiling water -> add more and more sugar -> because it’s hot, the sugar stays mixed in instead of settling to the bottom) and also about dilution and titration and whatnot, and it was the most Southern thing ever.
Also the best thing.
And god, just you try ordering *iced* tea outside the South. If you’re of the (inexplicable) Northern tradition of taking it straight, you merely face it being very weak and possibly skunky, but if you want sweet tea, they’ll bring you unsweetened – very weak, possibly skunky, and already iced – *and a bit of sugar.* For you to stir in to the COLD tea, because that will completely work.
oh gosh, i was so confused and disappointed when my family went traveling up north somewhere when i was a kid and the restaurant had that skunky weak confused tea you mention. i think it was in Illinois or maybe even DC? (I must have been in elementary school, and we didn’t really travel beyond Georgia back then)
the cafe in the museum where i work now doesn’t make sweet tea – only unsweet – and it kills me. but i guess they serve more wine and cocktails than tea. it smells so good when it’s brewing in the morning, though. either way i was completely shocked when i asked them for sweet tea with my lunch one of my first weeks, because we’re in Florida?!
I like to drink fancy teas too, but I make arnold palmers sometimes in the summer, and IMO the only true arnold palmer is made with extremely strongly-brewed Lipton tea.
I also enjoy Morrocan mint tea, which I didn’t realize until I tried to make it at home, is essentially green/mint sweet tea. You brew that stuff strong and then add ALL the sugar.
Scoured the comments to find my people and was not disappointed. Ours is made with three bags of Lipton and one cup of sugar per half gallon. Boil the bags straight in the water just until it begins to really roll, add a pinch of baking soda to take out the bitterness, pour over the sugar and fill the gallon with water.
I am similarly not sorry.
I can only imagine how glorious that first taste of tea must have been! I have no such recollection, as my first ‘cup’ of tea was delivered to me as a baby by means of a bottle. By all reports, I enjoyed it.
Also I know some people who not only have tea in teabags, but also add milk to it before removing the teabag!!! Horrifying, no?
Tea tea tea tea tea
Miro Tea in Seattle would be your own slice of heaven, Kathleen. In addition to being a quiet, pleasant place to spend the morning, they have an impressive and well organized tea list, all loose leaf and brewed piping hot. My weekly writing group meets there every Saturday.
Though as a fellow traveler among both the coffee and tea camps, I must disabuse you of this notion that self-respecting coffee-drinkers use electric coffee makers. The stuff that comes out of those machines is indeed foul. Simple drip pots and French press pots make delightful stuff for the same reason that loose leaf tea is excellent: there’s control over how much and what kind, and there’s no over- or under-extraction. I think that there’s a great potential for peaceful understanding in the knowledge that good coffee and good tea have much in common.
TEA! I’m from Newfoundland, where tea is Very Important. That being said, I first learned to like tea while living away from home for the first time, with my then-boyfriend’s family, and their version of tea involves a bag of Tetley, in a mug, topped off with MANY spoonsful of powdered milk so that it is delightfully thick and sweet. A gateway tea indeed.
I have never been to my in-laws’ house without immediately being offered tea by my mother-in-law. From a teapot. It is literally the most welcome I have ever felt in a house. They live in the country too, though I’m not sure their house would qualify as a “country house” in the Wodehousian sense.
ETA: I live in the Colonies, though, so we do understand about tea here.
I love tea AND coffee, and as someone addicted to her French press as well as loose leaf, we really do need more widespread use of electric kettles in the US.
That said, I am happy to report that most of the ridiculous east side LA hipster coffee shops I am fond of also serve excellent loose-leaf teas in aesthetically pleasing little pots. Another great option in the LA area is Chado, a tea shop/restaurant with a massive selection; it isn’t crazy expensive either.
And when all is said and done, coffee and tea prepared like that are luxuries, and when it’s early in the morning or cold or the middle of a long day I am completely willing to just pop a mug in the microwave and use an old teabag from the back of the cupboard or guzzle dinner coffee like it’s going out of style.
“After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur’s mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with. He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”
Douglas Adams, I love you forever.
I think my favorite sub plot in Hitch-Hikers is how Arthur tries to explain Tea to the ships computer and it uses all of its processing power to create the perfect cup of tea. And when they need saving the computer is too busy thinking about tea to save them.
That is a truely british problem.
You should come to Seattle! We have many delicious teahouses! One of my favorites is a lovely store in the Fremont neighborhood called BF Fuller’s. They’ll brew a pot of anything you fancy trying and then sip it with you, chatting about whatever you like, but especially tea! https://secure.bfullers.com/ (I don’t work for them, I just love them.)
Couple of comments from a British person:
What other kinds of ‘kettle’ exist that you have to specify ‘tea kettle’? We just have kettles. They boil water. And they generally don’t whistle because they’re not fancy ones you put on the hob (stove top), they’re plastic electrical ones.
I have absolutely nothing against tea bags, and frankly they are less fuss than tea leaves, which I always forget I’ve used and then don’t strain properly.
I don’t consider tea a gentle and calming alternative to coffee – my need to tea is as visceral and all-consuming after a long day or a cold walk as any coffee addict’s for their chosen beverage. Nor is it dainty or prissy – it should come strong, with plenty of milk, in a big builder’s mug. And you definitely shouldn’t talk to me until I’ve had my first cup in the morning.
Tea drinkers over here *definitely* have opinions about, and are judgmental of, people who have sugar, or don’t brew long enough, or put the milk in first (or second). There’s plenty of judging in tea-land too.
I am English and I hate tea. I have tried, but it just tastes vile and leaves me headachey. However, when I started university I still immediately bought an electric kettle for my room, because it felt essential.
I am British and have lived in the States for 27 years, about half my life. My rule is; in Britain drink the tea, in the US drink the coffee. In our increasingly globalized world this is beginning to change, but if in doubt, it still generally holds.
Mayyybe a stupid question, but: Zen Cha and Teavanna–good tea or fake / bad tea? Those seem to be the only Tea stores we have around here. I’m a coffee drinker myself but I sometimes get the generic iced green tea at Starbucks because it has more caffeine than a tall black but less than an espresso, and I like the taste. But if I’m just beginning to explore teas, are Zen Cha and Teavanna good places to start or should I look online?
I’m not familiar with Zen Cha, but Teavana is big on fancy fruity complicated blends of herbal or rooibos tea that are often very sweet, and a bit short on products of the tea plant itself. Those things can be fun–and the salespeople will let you smell their bin of high-quality jasmine tea, which I consider a thrill–but if you’re looking for caffeine you probably want to focus your search elsewhere. (Plus I always found it intimidating to shop there because the employees sold their wares so aggressively.) If you want to look online, I’ve had good luck buying from Simpson & Vail.
I am nowhere near as particular about my tea as this writer (and glad to see in the comments that I am not alone), but the fact that this column has going on 400 comments on it confirms that The Toast is my true home on the internet. Hi friends.
“Old Buffy came to me one day and asked where he could buy tea. “What d’you want tea for?” I asked. “To drink” he said. “You don’t drink tea” I reminded him, “you drink whisky-and-soda.” “No more alcohol for me,” said Buffy. “Look what it does to the common earthworm.” “But you’re not a common earthworm” I said, putting my finger on the flaw in his argument. “I will be if I go on drinking whisky-and-soda,” he said. I begged him not to do anything rash, but he would insist. He ordered in ten pounds of the muck and was dead within the year. Dead as a doornail. Drinking tea had dulled his reactions and he was run over by a hansom cab while crossing Piccadilly.”
What’s really necessary for making tea is clean boiling water, tea leaves, a clean container in which to mix them, and a way of measuring time. Everything beyond that (pretty cups, especially convenient ways to boil water or measure time, loose tea leaves, scented tea, tea leaves of especially high quality…are non-essential luxuries.)
As you say, most restaurants can’t boil water. Many households of coffee drinkers don’t believe it’s necessary to heat water any hotter than is used to make coffee (and some will heat it in a coffee maker, so the water tastes of coffee.) Some people think higher quality tea leaves can compensate for bad water, but it really really doesn’t. You can make fine tea with Swee Touch Nee (the tea bags of my ancestors), if you boil the water. Which my ancestors didn’t.
Oddly enough, Starbucks makes a reliable tea. (It’s not subtle, but it’s fine if you like Irish breakfast tea.) Ask for a “tall” with an “awake” tea bag, and wait 3 minutes after they give it to you before removing the tea bag and adding milk.
I leave my teabag (Earl Grey) in the cup as I drink. Is that a Russian thing? It can get, as one of my (also Russian) friends called it, “bitey” after a while. But then it’s probably also already cold and I just make my next cup.
(That is a lie, I finish the cold and “bitey” tea first and then make my next cup.)
It took me a long time to accept the fact that many (most?) American households do not have a kettle. “How do you live without a kettle? But how do you make tea?!” I drink tea like I breathe air. If I’m in the kitchen, I refill and turn on the kettle. If there’s tea in front of me, I drink it, with no limit.
some of us people who genuinely enjoy tea leave the bag in! cute post, but it sounds like you just like it a certain way. guess what! who cares?
just like coffee, people like tea all different ways. and i’m not sure brits are any sort of authority just because they wish they were! so hmmm i wonder why this is definitely true… “Tea drinkers are often maligned as fussy perfectionists.”
Oh, this is an article after my own heart! I love tea. I’ve been a committed tea-drinker for decades, now. And I’ve shared tea with so many lovely people… there is a gentleness to tea, and I can think back with such fond memories of the hours of tea-drinking I’ve had with my parents, room mates, friends, host parents. Ah, tea.
Also, that Italian design office… what a brilliant place to work.
I’m with you that you deserve a pot (one cup is Not Enough) and your birth story made me think of my first birth… when, after the baby was swaddled and I’d cleaned myself up in the shower and was sitting between crisp sheets on a wonderfully comfortable birth centre bed, the midwife looked at the Handsome Sidekick and me, and said, ‘Now. Would you like a cup of tea?’ What a gem.
Reading this just brought back a really lovely memory of my father (a weird word to use about my father). His father was British and he is a strange mix of raging Trotskyist and small town Ontario anglophile, and when I was a child he was quite particular about the proper way to prepare tea. I remember him on many evenings serving himself and me Constant Comment in china cups on a tray with a little milk pot. Now I miss my dad.
I just don’t get why Lipton’s “tea” bags are so popular. You get them in other coffee nations as well. They are not tea, they are rubbish. I’ve become one of THOSE people – you know, the ones who bring their own travel kettle and teabags (English Breakfast) with me when I leave the country. And I’m perfectly fine with that.
strangely my tea-drinking went up whilst living in israel, where the electric kettle is also commonplace. in hebrew it is called a “koom-koom.”
This whole discussion has made me think of this Professor Elemental video and if you haven’t seen it you should go and watch it right away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA
Strong milky tea and toast after having a baby in a lovely (free) NHS hospital – best drink of my life. Yet another reason to be British.
I’m Indian and only this past weekend did I learn to make chai properly. I feel like I’ve been given the ability to magic happiness out of a pot, let me tell you
Thankfully our office has a Breville variable kettle. Not only are the tea drinkers strong in this office, but we’re rather snobby too-our loose leaf tea varieties must be prepared at the proper temperatures!
“Coffee drinkers have mugs that proudly state “Don’t even talk to me before I’ve had my coffee.” Tea has better manners than that.”
Tea imbues one with a healthy steadfastness and cheerfulness in the face of adversity. I have made and hung a cross stitch sampler on my office wall that reads “With enough Tea, I can survive anything.”
I live in Ireland and it is seen as odd if you drink tea black. Milk in tea is the norm and sugar is a personal preference but no class connotations that I know of. There is the thing from the past about when you pour in your milk in your tea indicated class. Rich people had better china that withstood heat better so they poured the tea then milk while the china of the lower classes was would crack if the tea first so they poured milk first than tea. This isn't really a thing anymore though.
I’m sorry but India has the best tea, we don’t know about tea bags and just brew/boil everything forever and add lots of ginger and sugar and cardamom until it is the most perfect thing you could ever have. Sorry UK, but we beat you.
Well now I need to get up and make a pot of tea 🙂 Also, tea drinkers can absolutely be snobs about milk and sugar. My great-grandmother wouldn't let any of her grandchildren (mom, aunt, uncles) have milk and sugar, because then it wasn't really tea.
I'm miffed that I didn't read or comment on this article before now. My dad's side of the family has some serious tea drinkers, who take it from black and boiling (my dad) to with milk and sugar (my aunts and me). This is a beautiful ode to the joys of tea and needs to be posted in coffee shops everywhere.