h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

thankyou

Think I'll stick with my biscuits

I think I'll stick with your biscuits as well

I've told you before and I'll tell you again, you can keep your mitts off my bics

I hope they go soft!

Well you'll never know will you, cos I'm not joining the goodies and so you'll never be offered one of my biccies.
And the way everyone's munching them they have no chance to go soft anyway.
So there!
Go and suck the tea off your vest, that's the closest you're going to come to a decent cup of tea in your goody two shoes life time.

Tea bags are becoming more and more useless. This is a consequence of the practice of making tea in a cup rather than a pot. I used to use one tea bag in a small pot to make a good brew - this has recently become two bags (in the same pot. I am now thinking of resorting to three after trying several brands and still being unable to brew a strong cuppa. please dont tell me the water isn't hot enough - it is always boiling when it is poured into the warm pot.

Maybe your pot has gone saggy and therefore requires more water in it. Or you are buying child sized tea bags instead of the grown up ones. But you water is definitely hot enough.

I think there is some sort of tea cartel that is systematically reducing the size of tea bags. The cartel will be well aware of the increasing number of people ommiting the use of a pot and are probably hoping that no-one will notice the tea bag shrinkage. Furthermore - new shapes of tea bags (marketing gimmick or cunning plan?) hide further the reduction in tea quantity. If all the tea companies are doing the same comparisons will not be possible further masking the plot.

My pot is stainless steel - very efficient. It is quick to warm and retains its heat well especially when using a cosy. It hasn't gone soggy at all.

Alternatively, the tea could be genetically modified to be weaker so that we need more and therefore buy more tea bags. Just a thought.

Or the tea could be weaker in order to make us less alert. This is done so we will not notice the hideous ornaments that have recently appeared on the side of some tea bag boxes. Just another thought.

The problem with metal pots is that if you forget and pick them up you burn your hand (guess who forgot? ouch!)
And you shouldn`t dip biscuits or scones in tea. You instead shoud get a kitkat, bite of both ends, then suck the tea up the middle as you would with a straw. Ummmmm! Nice!

I think I agree with the Tea-cartel-Shape-of-bag-to-distract argument. Maybe the Superheroes on H2G2 could be called up to do something about it.

As for the KitKat idea it sounds revolting... I'll try it in the morning.

I love tea and I think I make a nice cup of tea, Everybody who visits me allways says "thats a loverly cup of tea" I always add the milk after, and I have never noticed any difference in the taste if I put the milk in first. The theory being metioned that if you add milk first when you make it in a mug that it cloggs up the poors of a tea bag are possibly true, cause have you ever noticed that you don't get the film on the top when you put the milk in first. The film incedentally is tea dust. The Tea never tastes as nice when you add the milk first when you make tea in a mug. Final thought...How come so many people make horrible Tea when it's so easy to make a nice cup or mug of tea.
excuse my spelling mistakes but h2g2 doesn't provide a spell checker.

As I said in an earlier posting - putting the milk in first stops things floating.

*noise of dropping ice cube in tea to see if it sinks*

Nope, ice cubes still float in boiling hot tea - but not for long

would anyone like a biscuit?

Yes please Jenny, I'll have a hob nob but I've got to make a fresh cuppa first, mines gone cold.

Were you trying the ice cube floating test too?

Can I have a Rich Tea please Jenny? But could you take the little holes out first?

Yum. Are those hobnobs plain chocolate? The milk chocolate ones just don't taste right.

Having born in England, bred in England, with ancestry that is dubious, to say the least, I must confess that I have never heard an English person say "high tea". Never. Yes, we have tea in the afternoon, but then, we have tea all the time. And why "*high* tea"? What's so high about it? Is it due to the tea leaves being placed on a shelf higher than tea for the morning?

My gast has never been so flabbered.

A high tea is a more formal tea - here tea is like lunch or supper, it refers to a meal, not the drink. Often tea meant a light snack at about 4.00pm which helped to tide people over between lunch and dinner. It might be a cup of tea and a cake or a bisuit but "high tea" - that's something different!
High tea is something to delight in. It means you are entertaining and so get out all of the best tea service (cups, saucers, plates, sugar bowl, milk jug, special cake stand, best tea pot and so on).
The preparation could take some time because if you were going to do it properly you would have sandwiches cut into little triangles with the crusts cut off. There would be some scrummy cakes with cream and jam on the table and scones which were plain or fruit and maybe some really fancy chocolate and creamy biscuits. There would be butter on the table and bread and people would chat about anything while stuffing themselves on all sorts of goodies but in a most civilised manner.

That's a high tea. You can't do it with coffee or mugs or thick cut bread or chips or burgers or anything like that.

If you haven't done it give it a go. You don't need to be posh but you do need to have manners. I.e. there is a lot of "After you," "No, no you have the last cream bun, I insist." with people popping out to the kitchen to get more cakes and scones and biscuits until everyone has to undo their belts or tight clothing.

Well, this forum caught my eye because it is a subject dear to my heart. Nothing like a good cuppa. Who said that serious tea drinkers don't have sugar??? hmpf. You've quite spoiled my understanding of High Tea. Always imagined it involved a really LARGE pot of hot tea and a tall, smoking jar with a tube attached. Still sounds lovely though. Don't know why, but I am suddenly thinking of Ann, George, Dick, Julian and Timmy