Tea drinking

[Vox Humana]

I'm a coffee drinker myself, but Mrs Humana prefers tea. A month or two back she was very taken with a friend's glass teapot so for Christmas I bought her a large one from the Teamakers of London along with a warmer (basically a night light under a stand) and a box of flowering tea bulbs. It was a bit of a punt since neither of us had ever encountered flowering tea before. I can't say I'm convinced - it seems like an expensive way of drinking hot water - but Mrs H likes her tea weak anyway and has quite taken to this type of green tea.

A former work colleague of mine gave up drinking wine recently because the only wines he likes cost upwards of £60 a bottle and he felt he couldn't justify the extravagance. So he has moved onto tea instead and, yes, he's spending inordinate sums on the substance. I'm tempted to ask him exactly what it is he's buying and where, but it's probably safer not to.

[Pulcinella]

Tea is my fuel - Yorkshire teabags, left in the mug for ten-fifteen minutes, no sugar, plenty of milk. Decaff after 4:00pm. Blue Flower Earl Grey tea leaves in a pot when drinking tea in a Tea Rooms (avoid Betty's - overpriced and not especially good).

Yorkshire Gold / hard water blends for other parts of the country - 23 miles from Harrogate means perfect water conditions here for the original.

Sorry ferney: my move to York will NOT include a conversion to Yorkshire tea, and the prospect of steeping for so long (do you keep the mug warm somehow?) sounds quite disgusting.
But each to their own.


Loose tea in a brown (prewarmed) pot, with removable plastic strainer built in, usually Tesco Red Label (but that might have to change as not really near a Tesco now). Not strong, milk first, no sugar. Tea leaves occasionally removed if lots made (two different-sized pots!) and pot kept warm on a tea-warmer fuelled by a tea-light. Partner likes Earl Grey with milk; I drink it sometimes, but without milk.

Peppermint OK for a change if offered when out; fruit teas too sweet; camomile like grass clippings! Whittards Christmas blend (not sure if still available; ours is quite old, so using it is probably a heinous crime to the tea cognoscenti) refreshing for a seasonal change: again partner has milk but I drink it black.

[teamsaint]

If you are really into different varieties, and especially green teas and the like, this is a fantastic place to go.

http://www.bollandsofchester.co.uk/

If you are into herbal infusions, the Druids Brew is absolutely superb.

[BBMmk2]

That's my poison, in this hard water area. Don't drink a lot of tea, but once in a while a hot cuppa just hits the spot. Strongish, with milk and 1 sugar.

Aboluteley! Yorkshire hard Water Tea is superb! :)

[vinteuil]

... tea in bed every morning, only occasionally tea at tea-time. (We don't seem to have tea-time here anymore - nothing between coffee after lunch and drinks before supper. I think tea at tea-time wd require biccies, and neither of us are too keen on biccies.)

Loose tea, in a teapot - one spoon each of assam, ceylon, and darjeeling. Brewed for four minutes. Small splash of milk, no sugar.





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[Barbirollians]

Sorry ferney: my move to York will NOT include a conversion to Yorkshire tea, and the prospect of steeping for so long (do you keep the mug warm somehow?) sounds quite disgusting.
But each to their own.


Loose tea in a brown (prewarmed) pot, with removable plastic strainer built in, usually Tesco Red Label (but that might have to change as not really near a Tesco now). Not strong, milk first, no sugar. Tea leaves occasionally removed if lots made (two different-sized pots!) and pot kept warm on a tea-warmer fuelled by a tea-light. Partner likes Earl Grey with milk; I drink it sometimes, but without milk.

Peppermint OK for a change if offered when out; fruit teas too sweet; camomile like grass clippings! Whittards Christmas blend (not sure if still available; ours is quite old, so using it is probably a heinous crime to the tea cognoscenti) refreshing for a seasonal change: again partner has milk but I drink it black.

Lots of milk is the idea I find disgusting !

[Conchis]

Don't like tea, never have. Coffee's my thing.

Since the Swindle of 23rd June, I've given it up altogether: it's un-European.

[Lat-Literal]

I suppose the stickers were not really stickers but rather cards. It was necessary to have a pot of glue to stick them in. Later I was given a lot more cards from earlier times by two elderly sisters. They were Sri Lankan but also partially Dutch. The box had the smell of cigars. I like granules. People say that it isn't proper tea but I find there is more taste to them and there is less washing up. No one else buys them and the price keeps going up. I save up to buy several jars on a regular basis so the supermarkets believe there is demand for them. When I don't, they disappear as quickly as tins of Homepride chasseur sauce and the managers pretend they have never heard of them. It's a constant battle.

[P. G. Tipps]

I couldn't possibly comment preferring to remain loftily aloof from this particular discussion/controversy.

However I would point out that, when it comes to that incomparable brew called tea, there are nearly as many versions as there are within the Anton Bruckner symphonic oeuvre.

Nevertheless there is, I understand, only one truly authoritative tea on which hopefully someone like JLW might be able to give us something of a taste ... ?

[cloughie]

Lots of milk is the idea I find disgusting !

Quite so. No milk, Yorkshire leaf tea, Gold if available, in basket, straight from the pot, or as a change occasionally, Lady or Earl Grey. But the key is never too strong and no milk.

[cloughie]

I am happy drinking either coffee or tea at either work or home and frequently swap round. It was either PG or Tetley for years and my mother always bought loose Typhoo back in the day but nowadays I very much like Twinings Everyday at home. I've tried Yorkshire and don't like it but do like Earl Grey.

One of the women in the office has her Yorkshire tea at maximum industrial strength, black no sugar, teabag left in and has to be seen to be believed.

The woman or the tea?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But the key is never too strong and no milk.

I'm atonal.

[teamsaint]

The woman or the tea?

I didn't like to ask that............

as for Ferney's 15 minute brew, that makes it almost time for the next one.......

[Nick Armstrong]

One of the women in the office has her Yorkshire tea at maximum industrial strength and has to be seen to be believed.

The woman or the tea?

Love it! (and I'm not talking about the tea).

An unpleasant recollection from 'the office' is of two types of horrendous tea which I avoided like the plague - the stewed stuff that the 'tea ladies' used to trundle round the office in big metal drums on trolleys (with Kit-Kats etc on the shelf underneath) mid-morning and mid-afternoon, when I started work in the 80s; and latterly 'tea' available from a drinks machine made from some sort of brown 'dust of death' powder (lemon being available in the form of an additional pale dust sprayed in, milk ditto).

Anyway this thread has made me start the day with a cuppa for the first time for years.

[Barbirollians]

Strong builders tea , not much milk is my favourite but am also partial to a cup of Yunnan china tea and a china darjeeling mix on occasion but always very little milk . I find milky tea revolting .