The Tea Thread

Trevp666 said:
Wait...what?!
How do they boil water for a cuppa then?
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America. Tea? Not compatible (and if you can get tea it will probably be undrinkable) Coffee machines of many types everywhere.

I would suspect an inadequate ring main in the office building myself, it's old and sounds maintained at minimum expense.
 
Right, well, that's just awful.
No decent tea in America?
.
.
.
What kind of monsters are you Americans?
 
Some Americans do use electric kettles, but they are not very popular. We generally heat water in a kettle or pot on the stovetop, with the whistling teakettle being an iconic image. Most tea is made by the cup using teabags - loose tea is not even available in many supermarkets - so heating a mug in the microwave is also common.

A rather mundane generic Lipton blend is the tea standard, with other, cheaper brands sometimes making the situation worse. Those of us who do like tea will at least spring for Twinings.
 
ChasFink said:
A rather mundane generic Lipton blend is the tea standard, with other, cheaper brands sometimes making the situation worse. Those of us who do like tea will at least spring for Twinings.
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Good God man......how on earth do you manage to survive on such awful infusions?????

I'll leave some PG Tips, Tetleys and some Yorkshire Gold 'on the side' in the Troll's Head for you.
Remember, if you use loose leaf tea, it's one spoonful into the teapot for each person, plus one for the pot.
Or a teabag for each person.
And you use boiling water, straight as it comes off the boil, not just 'hot' water.
And you must leave it for at least a couple of minutes to 'mash' (or 'steep' depending on where you are).
 
My Mum and Grandmother were fanatics about their tea, and had many cups a day. Always with boiling water and steeped.
I only drink unsweetened iced tea all day long, and one cup of coffee in the morning. If I have tea, it is only black tea, no milk, and one sugar.
 
I think it was in 'bottom' in which they offer the 'gas man' a cup of tea, but as they are so poor and cannot afford to turn on the gas, they offer him a nice steaming cold cup of tea.

And IIRC it is the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch in which one of them states they had nothing, so they had to have tea with no milk, or sugar.
Or tea.
 
Getting hot, fresh tea in restaurants here in TEAM AMERICA land has gotten much better the past 20 years or so. Cheap restaurants still serve really bad hot tea.

I use Twinnings English Breakfast in a bag or sometimes loose in a covered spoonlike sieve which is dropped in the cup. I heat the water on the stovetop or in the microwave. In the microwave, it is possible to superheat the water, which then gives quite a show when the teabag is dropped in. I remove after 1 minute as I dislike the tannin bitterness.

One can order almost any kind of tea over the internet, but my bank account prefers the less expensive varieties.

Welcome back, @Ronnie Jersey! We hope to have details of the adventures you had while you were away from here. Aliens? Lost Time? Bigfoot? The Jersey Monster? ....
 
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ChasFink said:
Y'know, for such intrusive* mods, they sure know what they're doing!
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InvisibleSmokingMan.jpg

Bwa-ha-ha-ha ... BWA-hahahahaha!​
 
My wife was given a Keurig machine and she puts a K-Cup in the machine for a cup of coffee or tea made in about 2 minutes.

I guess a true tea drinker would not go for this 2 minute tea ?
 
As a real tea drinker - Harney & Sons loose leaf, with water from an electric kettle - I've seen some awful stuff go down. People use a disgusting office water cooler with a "hot" tap to make their Lipton tea. The water can't be more than bath-water temp and loaded with algae from that community tap. They dunk the bag a few times or leave it in the whole time they drink. Yuck.

In a decent-sized city supermarket, you can find PG Tips, Tetley British Blend (my choice for teabags just in case of visitors), and Twinings loose leaf. These occupied the very top or very bottom shelves, not the prime middle space of Celestial Seasoning or Bigelow brands. There are also many tea shops in towns that feature a tourist shopping area that sell tea of all kinds by weight. Places that host tea events are usually at capaci"tea". But this sort of experience is not available to those of lower income, I think. Also, most people were simply never exposed to it, so they continue using the crap they are used to.

In sum... Parents: TEAch your children well.
 
charliebrown said:
My wife was given a Keurig machine and she puts a K-Cup in the machine for a cup of coffee or tea made in about 2 minutes.

I guess a true tea drinker would not go for this 2 minute tea ?
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There is nothing worse than weak tea that tastes like coffee residue.
For whoever invented tea-K cups, his head should roll.
 
charliebrown said:
My wife was given a Keurig machine and she puts a K-Cup in the machine for a cup of coffee or tea made in about 2 minutes.

I guess a true tea drinker would not go for this 2 minute tea ?
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Tea K-cups are way more expensive than teabags, which actually provide a better cup of tea. I just put a teabag in the cup and run the Keurig without a pod into it.
 
ChasFink,

My wife said you have a brilliant idea of just using the teabag in the Keurig holder.

K-Cups are expensive.
 
Sharon Hill said:
I've seen some awful stuff go down. People use a disgusting office water cooler with a "hot" tap to make their Lipton tea. The water can't be more than bath-water temp and loaded with algae from that community tap. They dunk the bag a few times or leave it in the whole time they drink. Yuck.
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I thought you had guns in America so that you could deal with these people?
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
Here is a question for the UK-based Forteans: is Twinnings considered a good tea brand? I much prefer it to Liptons. I don't want to be a tea snob, but only a middle-of-the-road tea imbiber.

I think Earl Grey smells and tastes like cat piss. Meow!
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How dare you Sir. How dare you. Earl grey is undoubtedly the finest blend of tea ever to be found on this planet. If I wasn’t a natural coward and 5,200 miles away, I would demand satisfaction Sir.

You are clearly getting confused with Lady Grey. A blend of tea so weak, that it does actually taste like cats piss.
 
Look, any tea that isn't a 'builders tea' (strong brew, almost orange in colour, with not too much milk in it, and a bit of sugar) is for pansies and women.
So that's anything that appears to have been created specifically to appear 'artisan' in some way (eg; in a handmade box with a bit of ribbon around it), or anything purporting to be in some way 'posh' (I'm looking at you, Twinings), anything with an odd flavour (I'm looking at you, Earl Grey), and/or anything claiming to be 'tea based' ('herbal' tea, 'green' tea, 'lemon' tea, etc etc)
Also, rule out any 'budget' varieties which are often referred to as having been made with either 'dust', or 'sweepings from the tea factory floor'.
Also, who decided to make 'instant tea' in a glass jar?
 
Dick Turpin said:
How dare you Sir. How dare you. Earl grey is undoubtedly the finest blend of tea ever to be found on this planet. If I wasn’t a natural coward and 5,200 miles away, I would demand satisfaction Sir.

You are clearly getting confused with Lady Grey. A blend of tea so weak, that it does actually taste like cats piss.
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So, the cats have gotten to you. :)

Seriously, so many people like Earl Grey tea while I dislike it that I think the appreciation of the bergamot oil must be genetic - you either like it or you don't.
 
I think the Earl Grey thing is further complicated by what exactly is used as the underlying blend, and how the bergamot is added. One of my two go-to teas is Twinings Earl Grey (endorsed by the current Earl Grey). I have tried the Earl Grey made by Bigelow (an American company that was founded on a popular flavored and spiced tea blend) and find it less appealing. It seems that Twinings adds the actual bergamot peel, while Bigelow uses only the oil.

In case you were wondering, my other go-to is Twinings Irish Breakfast, which produces a nice strong brew that I've come to like better than Earl Grey most of the time.

And leaving the tea bag in while drinking - yeeech! The American standard for delicatessens and other to-go places seems to be put a teabag in a cup, add the boiling water, immediately add any sugar, lemon, and/or milk, and put a lid on the whole mess - double yeeech!
 
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