The wonders of an ancient Indian plant were discovered for the Western world by British explorers hundreds of years ago. If you are some of the many who annoyingly doubt the good that the British Empire has done, and instead focus on the bad; you must give my country at least one benefit, TEA.
It is a special and unique drink. The leaves of the plant are dried and when they are infused with boiling water, the flavour and the colour of the leaves are released into the water. You will see a majestic brown cloud sweep through the liquid until the entire teapot is swamped with colour.
I must digress before I continue, tea can only be tea if it is made from loose leaves. Teabags may be efficient and well meaning, they may make it simple to may a cuppa - one bap per cup, and all that bollocks - but it just takes away from the eccentricity of the art of tea making, tea is supposed to be a careful and intricate creation. You take a heaped teaspoon of your tea leaves for each cup - be it Orange Pekoe, Russian Caravan, Samakand, Lapsang Soushon, Rwanda or an Assam or the classic Earl Grey - and place it into the centre of your, at the moment, empty teapot. As the water is boiling in your kettle, you now have time find some cold milk from the fridge. But, you must decant the milk from the bottle or carton into a milk jug; it just adds to the tea-ness of the occassion. Since you're now using tea leaves, that also means that you must use a tea-strainer, unless you would like a mouth full of sodden leaves.
Once the water has boiled you now must quickly pour it into the pile of leaves. Now, after the pot has been filled, you must wait around four minutes for the tea to brew, otherwise it will not have developed a full enough flavour. But a quick reminder: drink it within 45 minutes at the most, otherwise it will stew, due to the leaves continuing to diffuse their flavour into the water, strengthening the taste, until it's rather disgusting.
And you see that teabags take all these glories away; they contain just dust and the cheap disgusting pieces of the plant - most probably the roots and stems which have been devoured by slugs.
As I mentioned before, the equpiment with which you prepare the tea - tea strainer, tea leaves, milk jugs, teapot instead of just a cup - has been an important part of process. This leads me neatly to the debate over "mug verses cup" it really doesn't make a huge amount of different to the tea-ness of the occassion. A mug is for a less formal style of tea drinking, but, as I have done, buy a historic mug from the Imperial War Museum - with Earl Kitchener on, or Doctor Carrot, or a strong British Spitfire. A teacup is often used to finish off your Sunday lunch, after three or four courses of decadent British food - wintery soups, roast beef and heay cakes - you must carry the saucer around with the ornate cup, otherwise you have commited a faux pas of tea and will henceforth become branded a yobbo for your entire life.
Now, onto milk and sugar, they are entirely down to personal preference, but I am not a fan of other's views. Milk, I think is a neccessity of tea, but only if the tea keeps its colour. It must not verge on the white side of brown. I find sugar completely ridiculous, it sweetens tea, which it isn't meant to do. Sugar takes the original taste from the tea - which milk does not - it enhances it. If you want a slightly sweeter taste, get a slightly sweeter tea, like Orange Pekoe, it has a maltiness to it.
This concludes my first tea segment. Tea, the pinnacle of Englishness, we are stereotyped and mocked for it by the ignorant. These people are just jealous of our beverage, distraught that they have to settle with a poor freeze dried coffee substitute or Lipton tea bags. I hope you have enjoyed this week's post, now as I head off to the loo, after a tea binge, I sincerely hope that you don a pinstriped suit, a black umbrella, a bowler hat, a copy of The Daily Telegraph, vote Conservative and drink a cup of real tea. I thank you in the knowledge that you have hopefully managed to elevate yourself from the ignorant drones of the majority.
I love tea. I actually really love tea. And I am not being sarcastic. I make it exactly how you say (maybe a bit more casual) but I don't add milk, I can only drink it with water.
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