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

I am currently about a third of the way through "The Salmon of Doubt", and read Douglas's item on "Tea". At the end of that piece there is a footnote, presumably by the Editor which takes issue with Douglas's notion that you should put the milk into the cup before the tea. This may indeed, as the Editor suggests, be "socially incorrect", but it is, in fact, the CORRECT way to pour tea.

The reason for this goes back to the first days of tea drinking, when to say that this beverage was "expensive" would have been a vast understatement. As a consequence, they did not drink tea out of pot mugs, but used the most expensive china available. In those days, tea-drinking containers were, to say the least, fragile, and the milk was put into the cup first in order to cool the hot tea, thereby preventing the cup from disintegrating.

Thus, Douglas is quite correct in his instructions, regardless of what is considered "socially correct". Who are these god-people anyway?

The footnote you describe appears here just as it does in The Salmon of Doubt. In fact, these articles are exactly the same, except they may be slightly different versions...but the footnote exists in both.

Firstly, I agree that tea ought to be made by adding the milk first (provided a teapot is being used), but it is a myth (one that was told to me as an impressionable child by my grandmother), that this had anything to do with protecting delicate china. As my brother later pointed out to me the whole reason that china provides such a good material for teacups is its high heat resistance. Demonstrated by the fact that ceramics are used in the lining of kilns and to make heat resistant tiles on spacecraft. The average teacup may not have stood up well to being dropped on the floor but no tea cup has ever been broken because of having boiling water poured on it.

I also understood that the 'milk first' approach was to protect [early Georgian?] china from cracking. I agree that ceramics are heat resistant, but we are not talking exotic materials here and china cups do conduct some heat (try holding one). I understood that the cracking and crazing of china from this period was due to imperfections in and between materials and processes. Uneven rates of expansion increase the stresses set up during manufacture and cracks are the result when heated too quickly. If the tea is added first this would exaggerate the problem by causing local heating. Tea added to milk would initially be slightly cooled, but also heat is dissipated over a greater area and is less stressful. I think I need a nice cuppa now, before I start a discussion on mashing, brewing and stirring!!

as ive been told, milk in the cup first comes from preventing that scummy floting on the top of cuppa, and was only ever brought to my attention when in the south of england... up in the north (well as far as i know liverpool and more spesificaly(sic?) my grans house) milk was either optional extra or poured in last... but thats just what i was brought up with... shall i pour?

If DNA said the tea should go in first, then he new best.

Din't forget, the man submitted a spaceship to a missile attack just to get it right.

Granted, the Salmon of Doubt does say that milk should be added first, however, it also says that tea can only be made properly if the tea is made with boiling (not boiled...) water, so if you're making your tea by the cup, I'd say that getting the best flavor out of your tea is most important.

I was always told 2 reasons for putting milk in first, a) so as not to scald the milk and b) so as not to _stain_ the china with the strong tea!

Mel

The way it was explained to me, if you were rich and posh you didn't care if your china cracked because you could just buy a new cup! Only the cheapskate, penny pinching middle classes put the milk in first, as they could not afford to replace the china. My mother is as middle class as I am, so she may have been teasing with this explanation! I don't take milk so I don't care either way. As long as you don't milk and (shudder) sugar the tea pot before pouring. Yes, I have seen this done...

I saw this on a history TV programme (It MUST be right!) about the industrial revolution. Apparently workers in the new factories were given tea breaks as it improved productivity, stopping them getting dehydrated and giving them some energy from the sugar in it. It was the factory provided mugs, cheap so not made out of china, that broke when the tea was put in first. as such you were seen as very uncooth and "lower class" if you put the milk in first.

Either way my mum can tell when the milk has been put in second even when she doesn't see you pour the cup. She refuses to drink it and makes you pour another one with the milk in first.