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

Put the milk in after the tea, you can't be serious, next you will tell us you should crack the pointy end of a soft boild egg rather than the round end.

Traditionaly you put the milk in the cup first before pouring the tea, this was done to prevent the china cup from breaking with the heat of the tea.

Important tip. If you have to use powdered milk, put it in the cup first. If you add it lated it does not disolve and you end up with lovely fluffy lumps of milk floating around you cup. Not nice.

milk in tea, you heathens! By adding milk you destry the flavour of the tea leaves and cannot appreciate the blend properly (admittedly a bonus if you're drinking economy tea!!!

Tradition is Ok up to a point (and preferable when it's absurd) - but when it comes down to tea, or the creation of anything drinkable or edible, surely the sensual and visual pleasure of making it cannot be dismissed. Milk should go in after the tea. There is a technical and an aesthetic reason for this, the technical is that tea leaves, to release teir full potential, must have boiling water poured directly on them (impossible with the milk in first!); the aesthetic reason is due to that vile milky, watery substance that is formed by tea being added to milk - Yuck!

Surely the tea is infused by the boiling water in the pot, so the cup becomes irrelevant in this regard?
Definitely milk first for me, but pointy end on the egg every time, I'm afraid.

Could I invite you all to join my tea based cult

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A620597

You've got to make tea in a pot, definitely not a tea bag in a cup, the water has to be boiling (Mrs Hobbes thinks the kettle needs to be brought to the boil twice for optimum heat)and then onto the leaves or bags. Then milk in first followed by tea which has brewed for three minutes.

I'd definately join your tea based cult. Tea should be worshiped. Life is tea and tea's the life for me! (Although by the sound of the potential members it might just split into factions over technicalities...!).

Strangefish.

So we're all up for a tea cultivation, then.

Yes, do, come and join the cult of the Dentonites, it's such fun!

fords_prefect, first acolyte and keeper of

Oh yeah, hit post too soon there....you don't add the milk first because if you use a teabag, the chemicals or whatever in the milk 'seals' the bag, therefore hardly any tea gets out. It was indeed originally because people drank tea in china cups, but now we have big heavy duty Friends-style mugs, muahahaha.....

Whatever you do, under no circumstance, even on pain of no tea, put in skimmed milk. Semi-skimmed if you really really have to. Whole milk is the only one that matters.

I'm afraid I have to come down on the side of putting the tea in first. A well brewed pot of earl grey, assam or ceylon (made of course with just boiling water) is ruined if the cup aready has mil in, it's to gloopy, thick and milk in the extreme. Tea shouldn't be white, it should be a nice dark golden tan colour, just a drop of milk to take away the bitter edge you get with some blends (even if you follow the destructuctions to the letter you can't avoid it, you just have to go with the flow)

Another tip for a better cuppa... Try to use water that has been filtered, or use bottled water. You get less limescale and you avoid that horrible scum you get in some water areas, makes for a nice clear cup of

If adding milk at all (and I won't discuss the aesthetic and otherwise very valid reasons for doing or not doing so), my gran'ma Leonne (bless her soul) would tell you that milk MUST go first, for a very practical reason : this will somehow prevent the tea from staining your china cup.



Thank you for your attention.

When I was younger, my mother used to refer to me as Sam Allon (a demolition expert in this here neck of the woods). Suffice to say that I don't have a china cup, and prefer my tea by the mug-full

I used to have a big, huge French style mug I'd fill to the brim with tea, and settle back to read or watch telly. I had a cup of tea that lasted about an hour, but I did tend to go peepee more often though...

The would be all cold after an hour though... Not nice

Milk in my tea??!!!

*thud*

If you put the milk in after pouring tea into the cup, you should say 10 Hail Marys and hope a blind eye is turned when you reach the pearly gates.
And if you haven’t got real not-warmed milk, drink it without milk, maybe with lemon, everything else is heresy.
The only exception I accept is when tea is made with only hot milk, no water, like in some Arab countries and the Indian subcontinent.

I don’t feel happy either with milk being poured into the teapot after the tea has brewed a few minutes, then poured into cups ready-milked, as I know is done in parts of east Lancashire and in some roadside lorry-cafes in the UK (in such places it often comes ready-sugared too, about 4 spoons a cup! ).

I have to admit I always serve boiled eggs with the pointy side up; not only does it seem eggcups are more designed to accommodate ‘big bottoms’, but also that way up seems more aesthetical to me.

Hmm, it's "different strokes for different folks". Tea leaves, condensed milk and water mixed together in a can and heated over a camp-fire makes a good drink. But it's not really tea.

I actually quite like builders'/lorry drivers'tea, once in a while, but it must be served in a mug and be accompanied by a sausage or bacon buttie. I'm not bothered which way up the buttie goes.

Not sure which type of strokes you're referring to, but all tea should surely be in a mug, in all 3 senses

I'd be careful about the buttie though, which way up. For some people a buttie is always open. Upside down with a jam buttie might work for a few seconds, but you're on a loser with an upside-down sausage buttie, Unless, of course, you put your directly beneath it; dunking sausages is, afterall, apparently tipped to become the next "in" thing .

A proper buttie shouldn't be open - that's a giant canapé, surely?

Could sausages be the new biscuits? See our ondon Fashion Week Special, pages 94...