A nice cup of tea - so is it milk in first or tea in first?
Tea. A subject so dear that when war broke out, we bought up all the tea.How Britain Bought All The Tea In The World During WW2
“In huge amounts. One estimate is that the largest government purchases in 1942 were, in order of weight, bullets, tea, artillery shells, bombs and explosives.”
That said, tea was powerful symbolically and practically. Churchill is reputed to have called tea more important than ammunition. He ordered that all sailors on ships have unlimited tea.
So important our tanks come with a built in kettle (called a BV).
https://warisboring.com/the-british-perfected-the-art-of-brewing-tea-inside-an-armored-vehicle/
In 1946, the British Medical Research Council published “A Survey of Casualties Amongst Armored Units in Northwest Europe.” It found that 37 percent of all armored regiment casualties from March 1945 until the end of the war some months later were crew members outside their vehicles.
Being confined to the inside of a tank was a smelly and claustrophobic experience. But the comforts of hot food and drink required open flames that weren’t compatible with the interiors of armored vehicles.
The boiler vessel, first fitted to the postwar Centurion tank, changed that.
The tank came fitted with a boiler vessel, or bivvie—a cuboid kettle powered by the tank’s electrics. The unit became an essential subsystem for all British Army armor. Today the Electrothermal-made “Cooking/Boiling Vessel FV706656” is fitted to all the Army’s main fighting vehicles.
George Orwell and his guide to tea drinking:
A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2114670555528731
https://www.avforums.com/attachments/upload_2018-10-24_15-42-30-png.1077064/
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!
— LiveJournal user jslayeruk
Spike Milligan wrote that his mate Harry Edgington, showed bravery under fire in North Africa — by protecting his still-brewing tea from German aircraft with his own helmet.
Neil Gaiman's Journal: the last tea post
This is the biggest, most important thing to know: For a black tea, you pour boiling water on tea leaves.
That's ninety percent of the art of making a decent cup of tea. Hottish, not boiling, water tends to make a weird tea that's bitter and weak at the same time, and is no fun to drink. (Boiling water. It's why God invented the kettle.)
It's the final ten percent of the cup of tea that you'll get people calling each other heretics for adding the milk (not cream) first, or whether to use teabags or loose tea and whether burning in effigy or a nice box of chocolates was the correct reward for whoever decided adding bergamot oil to tea was a good thing*, or all the other tea things that people like to argue about.
How to brew tea-instructions and tips for brewing all types of tea
Its got to be tea then milk. Yeah 100% Tea in firstdata:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 It is a five minute brew (Assam) and then and only then is the milk added and that is only a splash. I think, if you're using tea-bags, it's a no-brainer. Brew the tea first (3-minutes MINIMUM), take out the bag and then add milk.
If you're using leaf-tea made in a pot, it's less of an issue, but I would always add the tea first - if only because, in my head, you're keeping the tea at a hotter temperature for longer, rather than poring tea directly int cold milk. or you could have 100% milk tea as some of us prefer to - known as 'dood pathi' in the Indian Subcontinent. A teabag or two in a saucepan of full-fat milk, with a few green cardamom pods thrown it, add sugar to taste and bring to boil & simmer for 5-10 mins......aaahh pure heaven data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 A customer (Indian) had this or similar on all day when I used to visit and it smelt well nice and the taste was data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 No heretics so far then. Irrelevant, tea is poop data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 That isn't how they get the colour data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7