Brewed to a Tea

My first memory of tea is a milky, sweet, lukewarm beverage that was consumed in great quantities in our neighbour's house and was something I sipped suspiciously when visiting them. I was never a big consumer of milk and was even more put off when it was served to me in the guise of tea. My mother, a die hard tea tippler, makes at least ten brews a day and over time I came to admire the art of brewing the perfect cup...tea wasn't all sweetness and white.

George Orwell, in his time as journalist for The Evening Standard, wrote about the fine art that is tea making, and the violent disputes that ensue when opinions collide as to how best to approach the craft. He himself had eleven rules for making the perfect cup "on perhaps two of them", he writes "there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial". I now enjoy a nice cup of tea in the evening, its more robust cousin Coffee taking the morning glory. I still can't bear a badly made cup of tea and have my own steadfast rules for making it just right.

1. Invest in a china teapot and cup. The old adage is true, tea really does taste better out of a china cup. A pet hate of mine is when you get a glass (albeit with a handle) of tea in some cool cafe.
2. If using a saucer, make sure the cup fits the saucer. Nothing worse than a wobbly cup and a puddle in the saucer.
3. Scald the pot with boiling water and add one rounded teaspoon of loose tea per cup of tea to be made. 
4. At this point I boil the kettle again and pour the water into the pot the minute it's boiled. I share this with Orwell, who wrote "one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact".
5. Allow the tea to steep for 3-5 minutes.
6. When adding milk I prefer to do this after I've poured my cup of tea as I can estimate the necessary amount of milk needed better. If I pour the milk into the cup first I invariably pour too much and the result is reminiscent of those neighbourly brews I remember from my youth.
7. I don't add sugar to my tea. I enjoy the taste of tea too much to mask it with sweetness. Also, I enjoy a cup of tea, usually, with something sweet on the side and find that the bitterness of the tea compliments the sweetness on the plate delightfully. Orwell issued a message to the "misguided" people who added sugar to their tea: "Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again."

So you see, there is an art to the humble brew, and when executed well it provides sip after sip of pure comfort.