How (not) to make tea the British way

[benhall.1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59cgXHh_nc

[fatmac]

If you believe that, you'll believe anything!

[chas]

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.

I'm enjoying a pot of Singbulli second picking (a Darjeeling), made the old fashioned way.

[benhall.1]

If you believe that, you'll believe anything!

Is it supposed to be satire? I didn't get that ...

[benhall.1]

I'm enjoying a pot of Singbulli second picking (a Darjeeling), made the old fashioned way.

How's that, chas?

[chas]

I'm enjoying a pot of Singbulli second picking (a Darjeeling), made the old fashioned way.

How's that, chas?

If you're referring to the tea, it's a wonderful light Darjeeling. The liquor is pale and almost naturally sweet.

If you mean, how do I make the tea, loose in a pot, boiling water, covered, steeped 2-3 minutes for a Darjeeling.

[benhall.1]

If you mean, how do I make the tea, loose in a pot, boiling water, covered, steeped 2-3 minutes for a Darjeeling.

That's the one I meant.

Yes, I do appreciate a nice Darjeeling. My middle son is very keen on various teas, and has become quite expert at them. He would tell you never to use boiling water. In fact, he generally boils the kettle and then waits for a minute or two. He's fairly precise as to how long he leaves the tea to infuse before serving the first cup as well. I haven't quite figured out why yet. I'm seeing him this weekend for a socially distanced visit. I'll ask him then.

[chas]

If you mean, how do I make the tea, loose in a pot, boiling water, covered, steeped 2-3 minutes for a Darjeeling.

That's the one I meant.

Yes, I do appreciate a nice Darjeeling. My middle son is very keen on various teas, and has become quite expert at them. He would tell you never to use boiling water. In fact, he generally boils the kettle and then waits for a minute or two. He's fairly precise as to how long he leaves the tea to infuse before serving the first cup as well. I haven't quite figured out why yet. I'm seeing him this weekend for a socially distanced visit. I'll ask him then.

I let the water cool a bit for green tea. If it's a darker green, I rinse it with a bit of sub-boiling water, too. I got that trick from a Taiwanese friend whose uncle had a tea plantation. It makes a huge difference; I'd never liked green tea before I met him. It's not necessary for Japanese teas, but does wonders for green Chinese teas.

I prefer the extra edge of boiling water for black teas, though.

[bwat]

http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/tea/tea_arc ... BS6008.pdf

[benhall.1]

http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/tea/tea_arc ... BS6008.pdf

Interesting. Actually, very interesting. 1980. And produced in order to standardise the method of preparation so as to make sensory tests comparable. They're not saying that this is the proper way to make tea. But maybe to some extent it reflects the cultural norms of the times.

It's such a broad subject, in fact. I only really realised that after I had posted my OP. You've got what may be regarded as "traditional, British tea", the modern variant on that, which I suppose you could characterise as "traditional British tea made with a tea bag", various traditional oriental teas and tea-making methods ... there must be more that I haven't thought of, but the oriental methods themselves constitute a pretty broad subject.

[oleorezinator]

https://youtu.be/8aNkfOThccM

[benhall.1]

By the way, by this stage, British twitter has gone completely nuts over the video I posted at the top of the thread. One called it, "an outrage and a cultural assault on our British way of life". I actually think he wasn't joking ...

[chas]

http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/tea/tea_arc ... BS6008.pdf

285 mL is a LARGE pot of tea? That's what we 'Mercans call a mug. 240 mL is a small pot? I would have thought a pot was larger than a (tea) cup. Although they call this a standards document, I'll note that NPL (National Physical Laboratory, the UK's national metrology/standards institute) was not involved. I would think a large pot should be at least four (tea) cups, or 600 mL.

By the way, by this stage, British twitter has gone completely nuts over the video I posted at the top of the thread. One called it, "an outrage and a cultural assault on our British way of life". I actually think he wasn't joking ...

Even though I'm a Yank, I can see where that person is coming from. I've known how to make a proper pot since I was in grade school. But then, you may have picked up, I'm an absolute tea geek. Well, a complete geek as you can tell from the paragraph above.

I think tomorrow morning will be chai (I have a talk at a geek conference later in the morning [online this year of course], so I wanna be in a good frame of mind). My recipe is 4:2:1 cardamom:cinnamon:ginger, plus 5 grinds of black pepper slowly heated in the water; Assam steeped 4-5 minutes, and whole/full-fat milk. I know, I should heat the milk and water together, but I prefer it this way not the least because I can make more in a batch. I sometimes replace the ginger with cloves; that makes it spicier; the ginger makes it creamier.

[an seanduine]

I spent several months ruining my knees learning a slightly different way of making tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDTuNyup9Y

Bob

[Nanohedron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59cgXHh_nc

Good Lord. There comes a limit even for a barbarian such as myself, and my tea sins are many (I won't list them, for I fear the flames). Not that they're born of ignorance: I'm simply a savage who knows how to do the right thing, but can easily switch gears when nobody's looking - sort of like sitting at the computer in your undies. Now, I'll begin with a disclaimer and admit that I have little problem with nuking a mug of water and dropping a tea bag in it, but that's where any similarity ends: everything else about that vid is totally unacceptable in my world.

Every time I hear the term "influencer" I cringe, and that woman is a prime example of why. She also gets a special spot in Hell for dragging her poor daughter into the offense.

When it comes to freshly-brewed tea, I'm a purist: no sugar, no lemon, and definitely no milk. I've given the milk thing a number of tries, but I just can't go there. I don't get the appeal; for me, milk ruins a perfectly good cup of tea. I never even owned one of those little wee creamer pitchers until I started gigging with a couple of Scots; hospitality required one for the times when we'd meet at my place. After all, milk straight out of a gallon jug is hard to manage, never mind being just crass. And I'm pleased to report that this Yank got compliments, along with with some surprise, at his ability to make a pot of "proper Scottish tea". Whatever that is. I just brew it, and Devil take the hindmost. Maybe that's the secret.

I've had to give up coffee ( ) but I still keep two kinds of tea on hand, mainly in case guests drop in: Japanese green sencha (because brewing it doesn't require nearly as much coddling as gyokuro), and something black but respectable. Right now it's Scottish Breakfast, which I like as well as any other. The former is loose, the latter in bags of the same size as in the benighted video. Loose or bags, it doesn't matter too much to me. Well, I probably wouldn't buy bagged sencha unless there was no choice, but there you go.

By the way, by this stage, British twitter has gone completely nuts over the video I posted at the top of the thread. One called it, "an outrage and a cultural assault on our British way of life". I actually think he wasn't joking ...

Probably not, but that's being way too sensitive. It would be quite sufficient to call the tea woman an oaf and a boor, and she should stop cluttering the bandwidth with her pig-ignorance and pawning it off as "knowledge". Anyone not living under a rock would know that no Brit would make tea even remotely that way. There's a Chinese saying: selling dog meat and calling it mutton.