And I bet he didn't even use Yorkshire Tea...
Milk IN the teapot: Innovation or abomination?
El Reg towers was plunged into internal strife today, with the production desk struggling to keep the news production line humming as senior editors were forced to launch an investigation into the question that has split the editorial team down the middle: is it acceptable to add the milk to the tea pot? The rift opened up at …
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Sunday 31st July 2016 19:06 GMT raving angry loony
Is there a tea bush growing within 3,000 miles of Yorkshire?
Why would there need to be? Although they claim it was introduced in 1886, wasn't "Yorkshire Tea"'s current blend actually created during the rationing years by sweeping up crud and bagging it? Certainly tastes like it every time I've been forced to ingest some. Politeness can be challenging.
It seems that "Yorkshire Tea" (and several other British "blends") is to tea what tofurkey is to roasted fowl.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:19 GMT Camilla Smythe
What he said.
Absolute sacrilege - tea doesn't brew properly once the milk is added.
The fat in the milk clogs the pores in the Teabag if you are using them and/or otherwise coats the leaves so the water cannot act properly upon them. Either you wait for ages or end up with piss weak Tea. Putting milk in brewing Tea is....
"Well. I did almost think that it was time to pay them a visit but they seem to have being doing some terribly stupid stuff recently what with the...."
"My Lord!! We have reports of someone placing milk in brewing tea!"
"ARGGGGGH. Drop the Quarantine Buoy and get us out of here. Maximum Speed."
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:25 GMT Dr Spork
...and how the hell does one pour the milk first, which everyone understands is of paramount importance, after some raging psychopath has poured it into the pot?
Oh the humanity!
That said, “it’s [still probably] better than the piss brew you get when people don’t dunk the tea bag properly.”
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:08 GMT ohmzar
Tea with milk in it is a abomination anyway, a complete act of sacrilege. If you are going to debase the almighty leaf suspension then who the hell cares when you defile it with bovine lactate.
You are going to ruin the tea, destroy it's subtle flavours and forever render it to be a shadow of it's former glory, the order and receptacle in which you desecrate it, be it mug, pot or even in the kettle matters not, you are still a monster.
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Monday 1st August 2016 11:46 GMT Phil W
Re: Earl Grey?
"Horrible, soapy muck."
If you've had Earl Grey that looked/tasted "soapy" I can't even begin to imagine what kind of shite it was. I presume by soapiness you mean that it was excessively oily?
If it came in a paper tea bag then it was utter shite for certain. Paper tea bags are only acceptable when you're making bog standard tea brewed to within moments of stewing which is so strong you can't taste the paper anyway.
Also some of the supposedly "good" tea brands are still crap when it comes to things like Earl Grey. Twinnings for example make bloody awful Earl Grey.
I can highly recommended Tea Pigs or Whittards.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:06 GMT PatientOne
Considering the milk (full fat) binds the tannin (toxin) so you don't slowly poison yourself (tannin prevents the absorption of iron which can lead to or aggravate anaemia), I'd rather have the milk, thanks!
Unless it's Earl Grey, or Lady Grey, or Green tea, or Ruibos (naturally lacks tannin) or...
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:41 GMT tony72
Considering the milk (full fat) binds the tannin (toxin) so you don't slowly poison yourself (tannin prevents the absorption of iron which can lead to or aggravate anaemia), I'd rather have the milk, thanks!
But milk blocks antioxidant absorption, so you miss out on the most important nutrients in the tea if you take it with milk. I would suggest that that far outweighs the tannin effect, unless you are drinking the stuff 24/7 and don't have much iron in your diet. I take it with milk myself anyway, but better to go in with your eyes open.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 17:47 GMT Sceptic Tank
Ruibos
That would be "Rooibos", i.e. Red Bush. Rooibos is actually not tea.
When I was in preschool we had to have tea with lunch every day and the teachers would not hear of you not drinking your tea. (How can you have pudding if you won't drink your tea?!!, Etc.) The tea came with milk already added, which I dispised. Even today I cannot stand milk in my tea. Yucc!
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:51 GMT Frenchie Lad
Ruin the Tea?
Most of the stuff that passes for tea in tea-bags warrants ruining with milk or boiling water. Talking about leaves, look at any teabag you care and you'll see more dust than leaves and the leaves are so finely chopped (cut would not do justice to the process) thereby ensuring that you get a strong brew whatever you throw at it.
Personally I believe that the Reg person must have been a junior office lackey to have committed such a heinous act: pure sacrilege.
For the record the water should be 90C for tea, other temperatures between 80-95 apply for the greens & whites or reds.
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Tea with milk just tastes greasy
Been having tea (brown, green, white, Darjeeling, et.) without milk for ages and yes, it makes one hell of a better cup of tea without it. Going back to milk in just makes the tea taste greasy.
On the other hand, I also fell in love with proper Indian tea on a trip to India, made with an appropriate assortment of spices etc., brewed the Indian way with milk and sugar in the pan and reduced to within an inch of its life to a thick syrupy concoction - wonderful stuff.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 19:00 GMT James 47
Re: Tea with milk just tastes greasy
I make this sort of tea quite often. You need:
Strong tea leaves (i normally use assam)
Cloves
Cardamom pods
Sugar
Peppercorns
Ginger powder
Cinnamon (powder)
Milk
Water
A really fine mesh strainer. You can vary the amounts of each ingredient according to your own taste. Boil them in not too much water and add the milk at the end. Don't drink after 10pm
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Monday 1st August 2016 08:01 GMT Charlie Clark
Tea with milk in it is a abomination anyway, a complete act of sacrilege.
The black tea drunk in Britain is not particularly aromatic and requires something to temper the tannin. Try drinking a mug of neat strong black tea – it's almost bound to make you sick because tannin is powerful stuff, which you'd know if you ever saw leather being made.
I'm not sure of the chemistry (what oxidises what) but the citric acid in lemon juice can help here. Early Grey isn't anything like as strong as the normal stuff.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:55 GMT Dan Wilkie
Re: Anyone who puts the milk in tea whilst the bag is still in the cup
Our only tea making facilities in the office are Klix machines :(
Yesterday I requested a "Starburst Juice" to mix things up and got two teabags in a plastic cup of freezing water. I tried again and this time got a different result, in as much as there was only one teabag. It's the start of the uprising, I'm sure of it.
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:45 GMT cosymart
Re: Anyone who puts the milk in tea whilst the bag is still in the cup
@ Dan Wilkie - Our only tea making facilities in the office are Klix machines :(
Doesn't that amount to constructive dismissal? Does Jeremy Corbyn know about this callus attack on the working man/woman, almost enough to make me vote Labour.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:31 GMT Alan Edwards
Re: Anyone who puts the milk in tea whilst the bag is still in the cup
> might as well just get their tea from a Klix machine
or 'a cup of a liquid that is almost, but not entirely, unlike tea', as Douglas Adams put it.
No-one's that sadistic are they? That counts as 'cruel and unusual punishment' as far as I'm concerned :)
You can count me as one of the weirdos that puts milk in Earl Grey though. I heard of Earl Grey from ST:TNG, and it was tea so put milk in it - never knew any different.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Two teabags are essential if your workplace decides to buy crap tea that won't reach the desired strength in a normal amount of time (under 5 minutes).
Milk should only be added after the tea has reached the desired strength, with two exceptions. 1) You've beaten the afternoon rush to get a cuppa, but only just, and notice there's only enough milk in the fridge for one cup, and if you don't claim it now by putting it in the mug the person you narrowly beat will take it (and not out of vindictiveness as a result of you shoving them into a photocopier so you could get there first) 2) Masala chai, where you heat the tea, sugar and spices in the milk.
Anon for probably obvious reasons ;-)
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Monday 1st August 2016 16:45 GMT Swarthy
Re: An upvote for...
Another upvote for Masala Chai. Although...
I did have "tea" that was even more of an abomination than anything on these hallowed pages. A tea that was so wrongfully prepared that it has scarred me for life - Spiced "Dirty" Chai using a jasmine tea as the base. Imagine the flavors of ginger, clove and cinnamon blended beautifully with a well-pulled espresso, and clashing brutally with a cloying, over-perfumed, sickly floral jasmine tea.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:16 GMT AndyS
Does the anonymous staff member also add ketchup (or, shudder, mayonnaise) to chips before serving them? What about cream - (s)he doesn't add it to the crumble before it gets to the table, I presume? Jam on scones likewise - what sort of cafe would sell scones with the condiments pre spread?
No, all these things are up to the diner to decide.
I presume the member of staff's plan was never to be allowed to make tea again, and in that respect, presumably, they were successful.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:56 GMT Phil W
"Does the anonymous staff member also add ketchup (or, shudder, mayonnaise) to chips before serving them? What about cream - (s)he doesn't add it to the crumble before it gets to the table, I presume? Jam on scones likewise - what sort of cafe would sell scones with the condiments pre spread?"
I was with you until the crumble. Crumble, especially of the apple variety, should be served with custard surely?
Also as for serving scones with condiments pre-spread, while it does seem odd I have been to at least one or two establishments where they do exactly that. My theory on the reason for this is that it prevents them becoming offended by your choice of order for the jam and clotted cream. I'm a butter/jam/cream sort of chap, but I understand there is a bizarre fashion for butter/cream/jam or in acts of clear insanity just cream/jam or jam/cream and no butter at all.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:44 GMT Nick Ryan
In order to offend both the Devonish and the Cornish I take care to put cream on one half of the scone, jam on the other and then ram them together and eat them like an atypical upcountryer.
Quite why you'd pollute such a delight with butter is beyond both myself and the straw poll of emigrant locals I've found to quiz on the matter.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 19:35 GMT John Brown (no body)
"In order to offend both the Devonish and the Cornish I take care to put cream on one half of the scone, jam on the other and then ram them together"
I find you get a much better effect if you put the jam on first, then the cream on the bottom half only then put the cream on first then the jam on the top half then bring them together and munch down on it.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:18 GMT Hollerithevo
Never.
Never. Never.
That is to presume that everybody likes the same amount of milk, so rude. It cools everyone's tea, so not welcome. It scums up the teapot with milk residue, so a shape hard to wash now needs to be scrubbed.
In every say, so so wrong it falls off the scale of wrongness.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
According to the science:
Tea bag in a cup, you add milk last after leaving it at least several minutes to brew as the complex flavonoids need the heat of boiling water.
Tea leaves in a (pre-warmed) tea pot, add milk to the cup first before pouring .
Anyone who adds milk to the cup, then a tea bag and water should be taken outside and shot.
Either way, making a cup of tea isn't difficult but very few folks can make a GOOD cup of tea.
I make crap coffee but fantastic tea, or so I'm told.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:36 GMT Scunner
Re: According to the science:
The way I heard it was this; Tea was originally drunk without milk - if you've got really good tea it's still the "best" way to drink it (personal preference aside - it is the best way to be able to really taste the quality of the tea). The fashion for tea drinking brought with it a fashion for using very delicate porcelain cups to drink it from (fine china - named as such as that's where both tea and cups came from). These had an unfortunate tendency to crack when very hot tea was poured into them. Someone came up with the bright idea of putting milk in the bottom of the cup, which behaved as a heat sink for the hot tea, and reduced cracking in the very expensive cups. It also changed the flavour of the tea, which many preferred - and hence the British custom of milky tea was born.
In a historical sense Orwell was wrong on this one. In practical terms I'm with you both though - modern ceramics are cheap and robust, so thermal damage isn't a problem any more.
In my experience black tea brews better with freshly boiled (not reboiled) water that's still bubbling, and milk should only be added after the teabag or infuser has been removed. Adding the milk when the bag is in situ brings out all sorts of awful flavours, probably due to the milk interacting with the tannins in the leaves. I'll make an exception to this rule for masala chai though.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:25 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: According to the science:
"add milk to the cup first before pouring"
Wasn't that practice introduced to avoid cracking your inferior china? With good quality china you pour the tea in first. Then, if you really must add milk, pour it into a separate cup. Both are excellent liquids but you really shouldn't mix your drinks.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:23 GMT Doctor_Wibble
Abomination! Why is this even a question?
Everything that could have been done wrong was done wrong. If two wrongs don't make a right then why would three or four?
I've only ever seen milk pre-added to tea in a klix machine (instant tea mentioned above) and a clearly labelled industrial Ern* back in the days when there was no such weirdness as black tea. If you wanted a hot drink without milk you had coffee.
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* ref. E.Morecambe passim.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:25 GMT Peter Prof Fox
Warm the pot!
+ Do not use round or, heaven forfend, tetrahedral bags
+ Wash the pot after use
+ Wash cup or mug after use
The making of tea and the ancillary actions is an essential alls-right-with-the-world chilling out time. Bag-in-a-mug merchants are too busy for their own good. I despise them.
Remember many 'acquired taste' teas don't have milk at all.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:06 GMT Teiwaz
Re: Warm the pot!
"Remember many 'acquired taste' teas don't have milk at all."
Three points.
- I quite like Earl Grey or Lady Grey with milk...
- I draw the line at 'those fruit teas', never ever add milk to those...
- I'm a black coffee fanatic mostly, so, my taste buds are pretty well desensitized.
My coat, 'cause, might as well be prepared...
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:28 GMT psychonaut
dear god what are we teaching the kids?
the only proper way to make tea is in a pint glass.
2 tea bags.
two sugars.
leave to steep until you remember that you started making a cup of tea. could be 5 minutes or sometimes 4 hours. shit ! i was making tea!
take out tea bags. scrape off tannins and other crap. put in microwave to heat to desired temperature.
THEN, and only then, do you add the milk.
the advantage of the pint glass is that
a) you can see exactly how much milk to put in as you can see the lovely colour change allt he way through the liquid column
b) it freaks people out because they assume the glass will explode when you put boling hot water in it.
c) it means you dont have to make tea as often as in a cup
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:35 GMT Karl Vegar
Re: dear god what are we teaching the kids?
Nononono
If you've had milk in a glass, it needs to be thouroughly cleaned before you add beer. If there is any milk fat left on the glass it messes up the formation of a good head (in turn leading to your beer going flat before it's time.)
Basically, never serve dairy products in anything you want to serve beer in later.
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: dear god what are we teaching the kids?
Flatmates kept throwing away milk because it had curdled in the coffee. Then one day it was noticed that it didn't happen to everyone's coffee serving.
The reason was that people often washed their cup in Fairy Liquid - and just left it to drain dry. They didn't rinse it. When adding milk to their next coffee the detergent residue de-emulsified it - the resulting coagulation making it appear curdled.
Once tried to make a flavoured cold milk drink with Rose's Lime Cordial. Unfortunately that also de-emulsifies milk.
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Monday 1st August 2016 11:00 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: dear god what are we teaching the kids?
> the only proper way to make tea is in a pint glass.
At which point the bottom of your prized dimple pint mug separates from the rest of the mug and your nephew[1] is left looking slightly sheepish..
[1] OK - so it was lemsip in this case - but the same applies. Dimple mugs are fine if the boiling water covers them but can't stand having boiling water just poured in the bottom. Or at least, mine couldn't.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:29 GMT Pen-y-gors
No brainer shirley?
Transport caffs back in the fifties and sixties mixed a large pot of strong tea with milk and sugar added, just how builders like it, and poured all the teas from that.
Apart from that one specific, nay unique, situation, other posters have it right. Tea must be made with boiling water. Tea + milk is not boiling.
Milk should be added to taste, once the desired strength has been achieved.
One nasty thought - it wasn't UHT milk as well was it, to really compund the offence?
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: No brainer shirley?
IIRC any large catering situation in the 1950/60s used to have a large urn of tea with the milk added. In those days tea was always strong with milk and lots of sugar. Usually Typhoo, P.G. Tips, or Brooke-Bond. As a bonus there were often collectable sets of picture cards on educational subjects like wild flowers or stars.
Memories of after-school hobby clubs - and our school canteen serving a cup of tea for 1d - and a slice of custard jam tart for another 1d.
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Friday 29th July 2016 21:00 GMT Chris G
Re: No brainer shirley?
I think most of those transport cafes in those days learned their tea making skills in the military. When I was in the army ( much later), when out on exercise, sometimes the catering corps would come out with 'lunch' ( stuff in large aluminium trays), the tea that came with lunch was in a bowser that was was heated to boiling then a large bag of army strength tea bags was thrown in with a bag of sugar and a bag of army powdered milk.
After having been run aroung the British countryside carrying a rifle, lots of blanks and smoke grenades, spare ammo for the machine gunners and anything else a training sergeant could think of to load you up, for 24 or more hours without proper sleep, army tea tasted good and in those days I was a coffee drinker.
For normal times and places though, anyone who mixes the ingredients all together in that way should be lightly killed and told not to do it again.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 05:51 GMT Tony S
Re: No brainer shirley?
During the 30s, 40s & 50s, the army used to have tea made in huge dixies; no tea bags in those days, loose tea leaves. The water and tea would be boiled, then they would add evaporated milk and a couple pounds of sugar. When ready, men would be allowed to dip their mugs into the brew and this meant that relatively few leaves would be taken up as those would settle to the bottom.
Many ex-service and a lot of national service men actually developed a taste for evaporated milk in tea; and in some of the former service base areas, they do still make tea with either evaporated or condensed milk from a tin.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 07:15 GMT PhilipN
Re: No brainer shirley?
And don't forget to line up all the cups on the counter and fill them in a single pour from side to side moving down at the end of each row. Quickest way to serve 20 cups of tea and you only had to wipe down the counter once.*
If you don't remember then you're making it up.
*Obviously the cups were not square. Only heathens drink from anything apart from round cups with sides on a shallow gradient - so the tea cools faster. Taking time over a cuppa is for matrons and old maids entertaining the vicar.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:31 GMT MarkB
University Hall of Residence late 1970s
Two huge pots of tea on each table in the dining room.
Both contained a catering tea bag, hot water and milk.
Pot at one end had sugar, pot the other didn't...
My group of friends used to aim to be in for meals fairly promptly, so that we could drag the tea bag out of our pot before it stewed to undrinkability.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:40 GMT m0rt
Innovation or Abomination?
Milk in the pot is the equivalent of:
spraying Febreze on your undercrackers because you haven't a clean pair.
eating the bread, then eating a spoonful of butter, then eating a block of cheese because you can't be arsed to make a sandwich.
using Windows Me.
drinking instant coffee.
pressing down hard on a biro because it has run out of ink, and you will just run a pencil over it later.
thinking Boris should be PM.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:52 GMT TRT
WTF?
That's disgusting. Only acceptable tea that can be poured with milk added already is flask tea.
The best tea is leaf tea, using water drawn from the tender and boiled in a pot on the boilerplate next to the firebox, the leaves having been spun down and out through centrifugal force by swinging the pot on a rope out of the side of the cab on the long stretch between Crewe and Derby where there isn't any lineside to foul the can.
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: WTF?
"Only acceptable tea that can be poured with milk added already is flask tea."
That had its own peculiar taste if it was made at home in the early morning before catching a train to the seaside. It was then drunk to wash down soggy tomato & cheese sandwiches on the beach in the afternoon.
IIRC later flasks had a separate container for the milk.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:55 GMT Andy Taylor
What if you don't drink milk?
I'd say milk *in* the teapot is just plain rude.
In my experience, any particular blend of tea tastes pretty much the same regardless of how it is made.
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's tea method is genius though.
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Monday 1st August 2016 11:55 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: What if you don't drink milk?
> Whittingstall is an abject bag-botherer who should be physically restrained
Indeed. I wasn't aware until I read the article just how deviant Mr Firmly-Whippingstool[1] was!
[1] I defy you to get that out of your head now.. I have problems remembering his real name now..
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:12 GMT WaveyDavey
Ahh, memories
I was about 9-10 and was in Tracy Bywater's house on Seymour Street, and her dad made tea - large aluminium teapot, boiling water, leaf tea, a digger-scoop of sugar and half a bottle of sterilised milk. Left to fester for 10 minutes, then drink.
I am now 50_ and I don't think my tastebuds have recovered yet.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:15 GMT FuzzyTheBear
Slow ?
Must be a hell of a slow day at the office to stir a storm about milk in a teapot.
Solve this by having several teapots
a) carries straight tea
b) tea and milk
c) tea milk and sugar etc etc ..
The End . J.C. i need a drink .. sunglasses on .. let's get the hell out of here
Have a good weekend
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:08 GMT Blank-Reg
Re: I'm from the US, but...
To be fair, the US just don't take tea seriously and everytime I've had US tea, I've had to use 2-3 teabags. I recommend that, should you visit, you should try builders tea.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:24 GMT chivo243
Easy solution
don't use the pot... We have big "coffee" mugs* and use them for tea. I prefer only some sugar, the missus likes her milk and sugar.
I would think it a bit presumptuous to add milk to the whole pot as I find milk with tea like adding a mixer to my scotch, one small ice cube is the absolute limit there.
*Cuts down on refills ;-}
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:32 GMT beerfuelled
Tea in the kettle?
I was recently attending an occasion at a village hall and went to pour some water from the kettle into my cup to make a coffee, only to discover that someone had brewed tea in the kettle (just a normal plastic kettle). Someone obviously thought it was a very efficient idea (presumably there was no teapot around or something). I wasn't so impressed.
I don't really understand tea. However you make it it tastes horrible (weak brown leaf water) so I don't know why people get so uppity about it. Making tea is a strange game. The only winning move is not to play (and make some nice coffee instead).
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Sunday 31st July 2016 22:05 GMT Faceless Man
Re: Tea in the kettle?
I've had the opposite problem in airline lounges, hotels, and catered gatherings where they provide pre-brewed filter coffee and hot water for tea drinkers in urns. The labels sometimes get swapped around, so you put your piddly little tea bag in your cup, and add hot water that turns out to be coffee.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:41 GMT Alan Edwards
Might work...
but only if everyone likes the same amount of milk. In my experience, that never happens. I like tea you can basically stand the spoon up in, I have to double the amount of milk for some people.
There were some people in the last office that I could re-use my tea bag for and they'd still want more milk than normal.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:41 GMT Karl Vegar
Milk in a teapot, massiv NO.
A: Not everyone will want milk, or the same amount of milk.
B: Getting the pot clean again is going to be .... a suitable punishment for the miscreant.
That being said, I must confess: I have, on occation, brewed tea directly in milk (heated in the microwawe no less...) To my defence, this was some spicy variant, I'm usually a coffee drinker, not much of one for tea, and I'm not a Brit.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:50 GMT AndrueC
A chap I used to work with did that, or almost. Damned infuriating. He'd put the tea bags and milk into the cups then switch the kettle on. Now being somewhat temporally challenged he'd often forget what he was doing ("concentrating on my work" was often his feeble excuse). So fifteen minutes later he'd go back to the kitchen and pour the hot water in. Then he'd bring my cup over to me containing a pale grey, but hot, drink of something that was almost but not entirely unlike a cup of tea.
What I could never fathom was that occasionally we'd have coffee and he'd never put the milk in first whether it was filtered or instant.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:55 GMT Custard Fridge
And what of using a coffee pot to make tea? SPECIAL DISCRETION REQUIRED
Since when did tea ever taste like tea when brewed in a works coffee pot?
Or does El Reg have a working dishwasher? Really? That gets loaded? Ever?
A deeply disturbing article this. Needs one of those Channel 4 'Special Discretion Required' badges on... now those where the days...
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:06 GMT Richard Gray 1
Back in my day
For years we have devalued the induction of the "new boy"!
Back in my day they were someone who did the errands and made the tea \ coffee (up to 12 people mix of coffees teas, strengths,sugars etc and God help you if you got it wrong!!).
These days ask the tattooed, pierced youth to go fetch a pencil from the stationary cupboard they look at you like you have beaten them to an inch of their life then asked them to shovel a wagon load of AOL CDs (or excrement whichever you think worse).
Where are the tea making trainees?
Why are the schools not teaching these valuable life skills?
It's a conspiracy by St@rducks and Costalotta and co !!
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Back in my day
"Where are the tea making trainees?"
In the 1980s our IT company took on students for a year as the work part of their Poly/Uni course. In our department they were given real work and responsibilities. One had to be offered a job later because he was running the marketing section so well.
When they met up with their peers again - they were surprised that many of them with other companies had only been allowed to do tea making and photocopying all year.
When we had kids for a school's work experience week they were usually given to me after the first day. They had quickly become bored with shadowing a production line role. So I had to find them things that were interesting to do. One lad reported that he had started and finished his Year 10 IT project in the week he spent with me. In return he erased the pile of floppy disks that were due for scrapping.
Another lad was not so lucky. Being assigned to an IT company raised his expectations. A week working in the canteen was a great disappointment.
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Something not quite unlike tea...
Tea is simple... yet so many get it so wrong.
Please forward these simple instructions to your hapless (now ex-) employee
Breakfast / Black Tea in a Mug:
1)Tea bag in2) Sugar / sweetener in (if you take it) 3) Freshly boiled water in *BREW* 4)Tea bag out 5)Milk in to taste (whilst still hot). Variant: Sugar may be added at other points in the process, but I prefer to have it dissolve entirely.
Breakfast / Black Tea in a Pot:
1) Warm TEA pot with hot water then empty (ideally) 2)Tea leaves / bag(s) into POT 3) Freshly boiled water into POT *BREW* 4) Tea leaves/bags out (or leave in for bitter 2nd cup) 5) Sugar into CUP 6) Milk in CUP 7) Pour tea from POT into CUP. Variant: Leave tea/milk and/or sugar out of cup for others to make their ideal cup at will.
Chai (Massala Chai):
1) Tea, Sugar, Spices, Water & Milk (~1/2 each, vary to taste) into saucepan/ chai pot. Brew carefully on low heat (to avoid milk spilling over the top) until strong. 2) Serve. Variant: Brew tea for a while before adding the milk for extra strong tea flavour.
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
“It’s better than the piss brew you get when people don’t dunk the tea bag properly."
It took a while to learn the correct timing for a colleague's cup of tea. You literally dunked the teabag in - then out again almost immediately. A second too long and it was declared to be unacceptably strong.
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Abomination, without question
To put milk in the pot (debates on how much that affects the brewing process aside) is to assume everyone wants the same tea:milk ratio which is unbelievable arrogance. My view is a splash of milk to give it a colour resembling a manilla envelope, my mother on the other hand prefers what is basically a glass of milk that's been in the same room as a teabag for no more than 4 seconds.
Interestingly, I recall this debated on radio once - Chris Evans once argued (on the R1 breakfast show I think??) that if you put milk/sugar in coffee or tea, then you don't like tea.
Equally, Frank Skinner recalled a tale of someone's response to an adult requesting sugar in their tea - "what are you, 12??"
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Abomination, without question
The point of adding fat to tea is to counteract the bitterness.
We are hard-wired to avoid bitter tastes - which in the wild could indicate poisons.
People have genetically determined different taste buds - and different teas vary in their taste and strength. Adding sugar can become self-defeating - people can become inured to the sweet taste. Some people are genetically unable to taste certain artificial sweeteners.
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:26 GMT A K Stiles
No no no no no no no no no no no no no!!!
You never allow milk and tea (bag) to contact and you certainly never use something that has held coffee to make tea!
I sincerely hope the individual concerned has been roundly chastised, trained in the correct procedure, taken outside, flogged and returned to the kitchen until such time as they can present you with a proper cuppa.
I'd say nuke them from orbit, but they'll never learn if you do that for a first offence - even one as severe as this!
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Friday 29th July 2016 13:30 GMT Kev99
We were working in Tanzania for several months and every day precisely at 10:00 AM we broke for "chai" (that's "tea" in Swahili, mates). And the chai was always prepared with the cream already mixed in. Whether it was brewed that way I don't know. You didn't go into the cook's kitchen if you planned on seeing another sunrise.
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:06 GMT maribert
Milk in the thermos? Yuck!
First off: Don't use teabags, use a tea filter and loose leaves. Second: Milk in the thermos you brew your tea in? YUCK! How would you ever clean that completely? Tea has no fat or other stuff that could grime up your thermos (the patina tea leaves is innocuous), but milk?
And -- do you know everybody wants milk in their tea? I, for one, do not.
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:54 GMT Scott 53
Unhappy memories
In my student days I lived in one of the less salubrious areas of Birmingham. Our Asian neighbours kindly invited us round for a cup of tea, but I was more than a little surprised when it came out of the pot not only already sweetened but with sterilised milk added. Not a happy experience, but definitely memorable.
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Monday 1st August 2016 15:03 GMT A K Stiles
Re: Unhappy memories
"Hmmm... they must have been Thai, because Chinese, Japanese, Singaporean, and Korean all drink their tea "black." "
Or, as I suspect the OP was talking about Birmingham, United Kingdom, it was probably 'Asian' meaning of Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi origins, or thereabouts.
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Monday 1st August 2016 12:08 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Unhappy memories
> In my student days I lived in one of the less salubrious areas of Birmingham
Otherwise known as "Birmingham". In the spirit of full disclosure I must reveal that I was born in Birmingham. But my parents had the good sense to leave before I had time to aquire the special accent..
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Friday 29th July 2016 15:22 GMT Dwarf
More practice needed
Clearly the graduate needs a little more education in how the world brews tea outside of student digs. I believe they term it work experience.
I propose regular practice to build up the required skill level. Perhaps a brew performed correctly at the same time every day for say the next 6-12 months would do the trick.
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Friday 29th July 2016 15:49 GMT Sequin
An absolute travesty! No tea needs milk, and teabags should only be used in emergency when the tea leaves have run out! But then, anyone who lets the leaves run out should be hung by their knackers until they learn their lesson.
Making anything in a coffee pot is an abomination, as they retain the taste of the noxious liquid that is nowt but the devil's diarrhoea!
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Friday 29th July 2016 16:36 GMT G R Goslin
Personally
Personally, I loathe the teabag. It's leaf tea only for me. Unfortunately, unless I pay a fortune for real leaf tea, all I get is the dust that they put in teabags. The teabag was a real boon to the tea suppliers, no longer would they have to throw away the dust from the leaf tea manufacture. However, I eschew the traditional teapot, and use the standard filter coffee maker, using the normally supplied permanent filter. That way I get perfect tea, without the leaves being overlong in contact with the hot water. Too, the keep hot heater maintains the tea at drinkable temperature for a long period with no deterioration in taste. The milk, however still goes in the cup. Try it, it really does work. Disposal of the tea leaves, too, is a doddle, simply upend and tap the filter over the bin. There's no need to wash out the dregs, such as there are.
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Friday 29th July 2016 19:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Hot, strong, and black
Since I can no longer use the title as the opening to a joke, let me just say that you Brits are beginning to sound like American coffee hipsters. Next someone is going to start talking about "hotting the pot", something that only makes sense with an East Asian [please bring back the term 'Orient' as a geography term] cast iron pot.
For the office tea, you should have a French Presses. Use loose leaves and dump the resulting brew into an insulated pot if it's not going to be drunk immediately. Let people add milk or sugar to their cuppa to taste.
If there's anyone in the office who worries about temperature or brewing time, you're overstaffed.
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Friday 29th July 2016 20:17 GMT Richard Scratcher
M.I.F
Tea contains polyphenols, which give it a bitter flavour that some people prefer. Milk binds to some of the polyphenols making the tea taste less bitter.
Pouring a small quantity of cold milk to a large volume of hot tea will "scald" the milk and denature it before it has time to bind with the polyphenols.
Pouring tea into a cup with milk in will slowly warm the milk and result in a less bitter drink.
So, putting milk in the teapot will give you all the disadvantages of milk with none of the benefits, which is why it's just not done old boy.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 13:06 GMT JulieM
Re: M.I.F
Um, no. The temperature change seen by the milk is the same, whether you add the tea to the milk or the milk to the tea.
The temperature change seen by the cup, however, is less severe when adding hot tea to cold milk in the cup than when adding hot tea to an empty cup. Which can, in some cases, be enough to make the difference between the cup remaining intact versus undergoing what mobile phone manufacturers term "spontaneous rapid disassembly".
But people like to make up all sorts of stories to kid themselves it's nothing to do with their cheap china .....
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Monday 1st August 2016 15:14 GMT A K Stiles
Re: M.I.F
Um, no, it isn't. Half litre of tea at 95°C, add small dash of milk at 4°C temperature of the mixture is now 94.5°C. Repeat until all the milk is added and the mixture is now at about 75°C. (all depending on initial starting temps and relative volumes)
Or quantity of milk at 4°C, add a splash of tea at 95°C, temperature of mixture is now 5°C. repeat until all tea added, mixture is now at 80°C. In the second instance the hottest the milk ever gets is the 75°C. In the first instance some of it gets up to 95°C and denatures more and tastes 'funny' - like using UHT milk in your tea tastes 'funny' vs. the pasteurised stuff.
(Icon with a dash of irony, added at any stage of the reading you like!)
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Friday 29th July 2016 21:01 GMT C. P. Cosgrove
No way !
If you are a Squaddie coming off stag at 0 dark hundred cold, wet, miserable and, in a combat area, terrified then so long as it is hot, wet and sweet you will drink it with gratitude and without asking any unnecessary questions.
Otherwise - tea should not have milk in it at all !.
Chris Cosgrove
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Friday 29th July 2016 22:46 GMT dshan
R U Surprised?
Another thing Boris amd Nigel forgot to mention about the glorius post-Brexit future -- the tea will be shite and made by lunatics armed with fscking coffee pots!.
Now you know, are you going to sit there like stunned mullets or take to the streets and demand a return to simple human decency? I think we all know the answer to that question...
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Friday 29th July 2016 23:44 GMT Greg Fawcett
The French Connection
Every good Briton knows that adding milk to the pot (or even worse, to a tea-bagged mug) lowers the water temperature which prevents release of all the mystical goodness locked in the tea leaves.
The French, on the other hand, believe tea should be made with lukewarm water. After too many putrid experiences with "le cuppa", I now take my own travel kettle with me when venturing onto the continent.
I would launch an urgent HR investigation into said staff member - s/he may be harbouring secret Francophile sympathies, in which case they should immediately be stripped of tea-making duties - and put in charge of lunch.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 08:31 GMT iRadiate
tea first.
You get the best cup of tea when you pour on boiling water or water with a temperature of at least 96 degrees C. Adding milk first will not allow the tea to come in contact with boiling water so you'll get a crappy cuppa.
On the other hand coffee should be made with water at less than 96 degrees which is why you get a good cup off coffee if you add the milk first.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 12:51 GMT JulieM
Different kind of tea
I've had a few very nice cup of tea in a seedy dive of an Indian restaurant in Birmingham; made by boiling up teabags, sugar and spices in a pan of milk.
This alarmed my inner tea purist, who obsessively insists that the teabag be removed from the cup before milk be added, at first; but in the end it was found to have none of the unpleasant taste that usually results when cold milk is added to hot water and tea leaves. It was very nice, really.
Nothing like tea made with hot water and tea leaves in a teapot, though, mind. More like a hot, sweet, spicy tea-flavoured milk shake.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 15:08 GMT ThePhantom
ROFL - On my first trip to India, I asked for and got a cup of tea - but it had milk in it. I asked again for a cup of tea without milk, and the tea boy (yes, they have tea boys in India and tea girls in Japan -- go figure) was totally confused.
It turns out that at least where I was in India, they tea is brewed with milk and not with water. ewwwwww.....
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Saturday 30th July 2016 18:29 GMT JassMan
Better hope that no teabagging was involved
On the grounds that the culprit was obviously a deviant one should be worried if any teabagging was involved in the adulteration of this classic drink. That white stuff may not have been just bovine lactate.
As for using a coffee pot for making tea, this should be grounds for instant dismissal. It may or may not change the quality of the tea but it sure as hell changes the flavour of the next coffee brew.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 18:43 GMT J.G.Harston
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooo....................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Putting the milk in *with* the tea reduces the temperature of the water below the level neccessary for steeping the leaves and releasing the 'tea'-ness into the water. This is also why you don't do that satanic abomination of pouring milk over a teabag in a mug. You're killing the delicate temperature-based chemistry.
For those wot want tannin-flavoured milk, then let them go ahead. But for a proper cuppa, the tea needs to be in near-boiling water *before* flavoured with addative-of-choice.
Obwhich, for the last few months I've been doing IT upgrades in in-house catering outlets. It's amazing how many of them offer me a cup of something almost but not entirely unlike tea. They pass it off as "that's how I like it". But that's utterly irrelevant. You're running a canteen, *YOUR* tastes are irrelevant. You make tea to suit the tastes of your *CUSTOMERS*, ***NOT*** yourself.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 20:20 GMT Brian Miller
Milk is used when the product is wretched!
The use of milk means that the main beverage of choice is wretched to begin with. Both coffee and tea should be had without milk. The milk is for killing the "flavor" of a wretched tea or coffee.
I roast my own coffee at home, and I grind it, then brew it and drink it black. Good coffee has an inherent sweetness to it. It isn't grossly bitter, and it gently rests on the palate. It's a nice, gentle pick-me-up,
The person who brewed tea in milk in that beast of a pot you have has never had good tea or coffee.
Tea bags, indeed!
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Saturday 30th July 2016 20:22 GMT Jeffrey Nonken
Disclaimer: I'm actually a colonist, so my opinions may not count.
I grew up on Lipton tea. Pour boiling water over the bag, steep, add milk and sugar just prior to serving.
Since then I have reduced my sugar intake (multiple times), learned to take tea without; to me it tastes wrong with only milk, so now I take it black.
Meantime I also discovered better teas. I now buy my tea online from Harney and Sons. Their English Breakfast blend is my go-to, but I mix it up a bit sometimes. Bridgette's Blend is one of my favorites. But I digress.
Now that I've re-trained my palate, Lipton tastes abominable to me.
I still make tea the same way, except it's usually loose now, but boiling water brings out the flavors. I only make a cup at a time because it's just me. I use a Chef's Choice electric kettle to boil the water. (I keep one at home and one at work.) Microwaved water is an abomination. I use bottled or filtered water; tap water here in Sacramento is an abomination all on its own.
I use one of these for my loose tea: https://www.harney.com/finum-permanent-tea-filter-large.html
Does the coffee pot brew the coffee or merely warm it? If the latter, it seems like it would be too cool for proper tea. But I don't know much about brewing tea in a pot, so maybe it's not that bad. Brewing tea like coffee sounds completely wrong.
Adding milk while it's steeping would cool the water prematurely, that sounds wrong too. But I'm still of the "pour boiling water over dried leaves and steep" camp.
How long to steep is a matter of taste. You Brits seem to like your leaves ground, which goes bitter after a few minutes. I prefer whole leaves, but I'm careless about the timing. Consequently I've gotten accustomed to a touch of bitterness.
My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that making it in a coffee pot with milk already added is an abomination. I would also be annoyed that somebody would decide for me that my tea should have milk, and not give me a choice, quite aside from the issue of proper steeping.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 09:21 GMT Old Tom
Beaker, tea leaves, boiling water is all you need
Pinch of tea leaves* into the beaker, pour on boiling water, drink when it's cooled enough.
You do not need:
- Teapot
- Tea bag - they're full of crappy dust, and seem to be formulated to need milk/sugar to mask their awful taste
- Straining mechanism - virtually all the leaves will sink
- Milk
- Sugar
- Stirring device
*If it's the first brew of the day, then use Oolong if you can, then your second brew just requires a top-up of hot water.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 12:32 GMT Omgwtfbbqtime
Sounds Like Tea - NATO.
Take a green norgie container, add a large handfull of NAAFI teabags, a bucket of sugar and half fill with boiling water. top off with milk (So about 50:50).
Leave to stew for 7 or 8 hours (while still maintaining the near boiling temp).
Serve on a cold, wet gun position.
Absolutely vile but its hot and wet.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 14:01 GMT raving angry loony
British "tea" isn't.
Seems to me that many British love what they call "tea". Unfortunately, it bears little to no relation to what anyone else would call "tea". The "tea" they drink must have been developed during the rationing, and seems to consist of some sort of waste swept up from the streets then bagged. This fact is probably the reason so many prefer to hide the horrible taste of their bagged waste with sugar and milk.
Real, good quality tea does not require milk or sugar. However, as elReg is probably a fairly typical British office, they'll be using the cheapest available bag of sweepings. In which case yes, it's proper to put the milk and even the sugar in the pot, since it's not really tea in the first place, and something needs to be done to hide the awful taste.
Anyone who enjoys real tea should probably just bring their own.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 18:39 GMT Fink-Nottle
Re: British "tea" isn't.
>Anyone who enjoys real tea should probably just bring their own.
Agreed. There are a couple of tea merchants that sell 'posh' loose leaf tea in 50g packets online at reasonable prices. For a couple years I've been using the inevitable Xmas Amazon gift vouchers to educate my pallete and brighten up my tea time at work.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 16:07 GMT GrapeBunch
I apologize in advance. I wanted to upvote an existing post, but couldn't find just the right one. As I understand it, tea requires really hot water (86 ?) on the leaves themselves to bring out the proper flavour. But if you heat milk to that temp, you will ruin / curdle it. And if you gain any time, some poor sod will lose it by having to scrape the crud (the correct scientific term) out of the pot. Or the sod will omit to clean, and you will be left with an even worse return engagement. Conclusion: "list it".
Following Edgar Cayce in this matter, I take coffee black, and by extension, tea without milk. I also prefer the stuff made in glass or ceramic, because metal may impart an off-taste.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 18:57 GMT raving angry loony
re: Water temperature
The temperature of the water depends on the type of tea being brewed. All tea is not brewed the same way. A very basic introduction can be found here: http://www.teavivre.com/info/three-brewing-keys-water-temperature/
You're quite correct about having to scrape even more crud out of the pot though. I'll bet that work is probably not being done by the person adding the milk in the first place.
However, I'm pretty sure that what many British call "tea" doesn't care much about the water temperature, since it's not really what anyone else would call "tea" in the first place.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 17:46 GMT bombastic bob
I use a Mr. Coffee, but no milk/cream
Whenever I brew tea, I use a Mr. Coffee, with 3 bags in a coffee filter [it holds the water longer], dripping through the bags. It works pretty well, though milk NEVER goes into the pot! Tea comes out STRONG. If I want cream (not milk), I add it to the cup. It helps prevent tongue-scalding that way.
(though I admit, it's slightly better, but more time-consuming, to pour hot water into a cup and dunk an individual bag for each cup - it also uses more bags that way)
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Sunday 31st July 2016 22:49 GMT Paul J Turner
That takes me back about 50 years!
Ha, this reminds me of when I was a kid and sometimes went out with dad on a Saturday doing line testing as the 'navvies' (Irish labourers mostly from the term 'navigator' for ditch digger etc) laid new telephone cables.
I got to help make tea in a teapot about 400mm (16") across with stout handles at the front and back so that you could pick it up and pour it.
Full of water bought to a seething boil, a packet of tea (Typhoo iirc) half a bag of sugar and a lot of milk.
Everybody had strong, sweet tea with milk and liked it! :-)
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Monday 1st August 2016 04:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
For all the commentators who made rather grand assertions about tea not properly brewing if in milk: consider that in Central Asia brewing tea in milk is considered to be the usual way of preparing it. Mind you, it often is not cow's milk, but horse's milk, yak milk &c.
After trying it several times, it is my preferred style of tea.
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Monday 1st August 2016 08:49 GMT HAL-9000
Heathens
Tea should be drank black or with lemon. Choice reduction is unacceptable.
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Monday 1st August 2016 08:59 GMT I am Weasel
Tea in a coffee pot actually works
I have an insulated stainless steel "coffee" pot that I use solely for tea (it has never been used for coffee). No need for a tea-cosy, and simply push the plunger to effectively stop the brewing process when it is strong enough. If I am feeling posh and want loose-leaf tea, I use my thetiere which works on a similar principle
But milk in the pot - NEVER!!!!
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Tuesday 18th April 2017 11:25 GMT Pal
Do not add milk to your tea pot, because it is hard to wash. If you love to add milk to your favorite tea, you can use Glass Cup to instead of tea pot, i think this would be a good choice for you. Or you can try the tea which is already scented with milk essence, like https://www.jkteashop.com/imperial-jinxuan-milk-oolong-tea-p-984.html
As for me, i like the natural taste of tea, without any other things like sugar or milk or....whatever...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
