please empty your brain below
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So... bsiness opportunity here for someone to open a chain of tea shops, that is like Costbux, but serves tea (done properly) as its primary drink, and coffee as a lacklustre second, surely?
geofftech | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 7:51 a.m. | #
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As the immortal Douglas Adam said
No,” Arthur said, “look, it’s very, very simple…. All I want… is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Now keep quiet and listen.”
And he sat. He told the Nutro-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting the milk in before the tea so it wouldn’t get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the East India Trading Company.
“So that’s it, is it?” said the Nutro-Matic when he had finished.
“Yes,” said Arthur. “That is what I want.”
“You want the taste of dried leaves boiled in water?”
“Er, yes. With milk.”
“Squirted out of a cow?”
“Well in a manner of speaking, I suppose…”
“I’m going to need some help with this one.”
Peewit | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 8:01 a.m. | #
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And of course, what Arthur got was 'a warm, brown liquid, almost, but not quite, totally unlike tea'. I've had a few of those myself!
tony Martin | 15.04.14 - 8:13 a.m. | #
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I drink tea - mostly. When I'm out, I drink coffee as I refuse to pay £££ for a cup of hot water with a tea bag floating in it. It's just not right, has no class and is an effrontery to any civilised nation.
Running Correspondent | 15.04.14 - 8:35 a.m. | #
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Tea in Switzerland. A tall glass, sitting in a chromium-plated 'cradle' with a handle. Filled with hot - not boiling - rapidly-heading-to-warm water. A yellow-wrapped 'Lipton' tea bag on a string lying on the saucer in which the glass stood. A sachet of coffee-creamer. A slice of lemon. A tea spoon.
Closest I have ever been to murder.
David | 15.04.14 - 8:49 a.m. | #
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If you want a decent cup of tea go to any bog standard workers cafe where they charge 50p. I was so fed up with the strange tasting tea they serve in many high street coffee chains I resorted to drinking the herbal varieties - they seem not to be able to destroy them!
john | 15.04.14 - 9:05 a.m. | #
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I'm a different David to the one up above, but I could have written that exact comment. The Tea is no better in Denmark or Netherlands from recent experience.
David | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 9:40 a.m. | #
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Yet another David here (sorry!) - I second John's comments - a good workers cafe will do a fantastic brew. But the best I have had of late was at the amazing old pie and mash shop in Walthamstow, a proper strong brew that you could stand a spoon up in.
David | 15.04.14 - 9:44 a.m. | #
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Your experience of 'bought' tea is probably the reason why I hate tea. Only once have I been offered something that I thought was "quite decent after all" - that was an old fashioned tea urn brewed up by the cleaning lady.
B | 15.04.14 - 9:47 a.m. | #
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I sometimes wonder if the bean-counters at head office who sacked all the tea ladies still get tea brought to them in nice china on a tray.
Great Aunt Annie | 15.04.14 - 9:52 a.m. | #
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It's sometimes possible to get a decent cup and when you do it's a pleasure, but what I find particularly annoying is the number of outlets that use really cheap teabags. When you consider that premium teabags bought at retail prices will rarely cost you more than 4 pence each it is a bloody cheek that they use cheap tea when they're charging more than two quid a cup!!!!!!
Ray | 15.04.14 - 10:27 a.m. | #
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Tea tips: Teapod, SE1 (Shad Thames and Fashion & Textile Museum) - lots of varieties, lovely surroundings, a brewing timer on a big screen.
Massis Tea, various markets including Deptford's Giffin Food Fair once a month (but they're based in NW London somewhere I think).
Massis Tea may well not be to your tastes, though, DG, because their mission is to bring the latte experience to those of us who don't like coffee with their 'Tey Latte' - so the result is not very recognisable as tea, but it was delicious.
Teapod also do a similar drink but it only seems to be on request now, I can't see it on their menu any more. I get it made with their Dark Vanilla tea blend, which is already pretty sweet, then I pour in the portion of honey they supply with the drink and it's just ridiculously sweet, aka ideal for me.
Finally, Good & Proper Tea are worth looking out for at various trendy KERB street-food gatherings, and nearly every Saturday at Brockley Market (although not the next two). Like Teapod, they serve a wide range of varieties, brewed in front of you with a timer over a tea-light (which I'd never previously considered might be named as a result of this being their raison d'être).
I'm not that big on tea myself (though I do like it, and really don't like coffee), but my wife is and she loves Teapod and Good & Proper Tea, if that helps. (She also enjoyed Massis but reiterates that it's not something you'd want to drink if you were after a cup of tea in any recognisable form.)
Paul | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 10:41 a.m. | #
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As you said, DG, buying tea from a coffee outlet is a bit of a non-starter. Try finding a proper tea seller, or ask for plain water, preferably cold, from a tap or a fancy source.
Bronchitikat | 15.04.14 - 11:26 a.m. | #
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I was about to read your article in my lunch break (CEST) when I remembered the teabags floating in a thermos next to my desk since 7:50am. To my surprise, the result is still drinkable.
Joachim | 15.04.14 - 11:59 a.m. | #
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... and tea in Ameria ... the wooden box with wide selection of teabags, the waiter's or waitress's request - "Hot tea?", and then the not quite boiling water. "Cream?"
And I believe that teabags for different parts of the country are formulated differently, to account for the hardness of the water. So the bags you bought on holiday in the Western Isles might not work so well in London's hard water.
... and I did once meet someone whose profession was a tea taster for the Co-Op!
Half a physicist | 15.04.14 - 12:07 p.m. | #
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US is probably worse than UK for getting a decent cup of tea as it is mostly a nation of coffee drinkers. I rarely order tea when out. I keep an electric kettle in my office so I can make my own tea (bringing tea bags from home) at work.
Wistfully remembering the old Lyon Tea Shops.
| 15.04.14 - 12:13 p.m. | #
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Never buy tea out especially at football grounds and never never at cheltenham town on a very cold February evening
Graham | 15.04.14 - 12:46 p.m. | #
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None of it is objective. Much prefer making all these things at home - you can make it to your own taste - I personally hate overbrewed builders tea that you get from greasy spoons, also hate tea you get from coffee shops. But a good cup of tea made at home to your own specification is delicious in a very refreshing way that coffee never is. I don't really like the coffee from coffee shops either - because its usually too strong and I don't like a really rich roast! Fussy. Rather!
Harriet | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 12:46 p.m. | #
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agreed, tea from any of the high street coffee chains is always dreadful.
i really dont understand the fixation with coffee everyone seems to have.
i am sure, years ago, people just had a cup of tea in the morning and one in the afternoon, and that was it.
drinking water throughout the day will give you more energy than coffee, it will be cheaper, and better for your body too
Coffee - dont believe the hype....
dave | 15.04.14 - 1:15 p.m. | #
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I too cannot justify paying for ordinary tea when I'm out, and have never drunk tea from a takeaway cup. In a proper caffeine restaurant, I expect loose leaf but it's sadly very rare.
In my office it goes like this:
Posh front of house meeting rooms - coffee (prusambly instant) in a Thermos; good selection of Twinings bags and hottish water in a Thermos. Tiny cups. Saucers.
Staff kitchen: posh coffee machine with real beans and frothy milk, or instant if you prefer it. Anonymous tea bags but boiling water on tap. Range of cups and mugs.
In my desk drawer: huge range of self-funded tea, including my faves Lady Grey and jasmine green :-)
EskimoPie | 15.04.14 - 1:24 p.m. | #
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Tea is awful in the US, so I started drinking coffee. I found out all the left over bits go into teabags. So, now I order loose Typhoo by the case from a British online shop. Brewed properly in a teapot, it reminds me of my London childhood.
Jackal | 15.04.14 - 2:15 p.m. | #
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Can't stand either tea or coffee, so on the rare occasion I find myself in Costbucks (usually only when I'm frozen solid and in need of thawing out) it has to be a hot chocolate!
CornishCockney | 15.04.14 - 3:17 p.m. | #
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We in the UK think we are a nation of tea drinkers, the post and the conversation demonstrate that. And, up to a point, we are. The point is where our national taste is satisfied by a quite brutal flavour, made more distinctive with milk. Nothing wrong with any of that per se, but it misses out on a huge spectrum of flavour and experience.
The Chinese are a nation of tea drinkers, it is a Chinese drink. Tea is why we took over India, having found that it would grow there and we wouldn't have to deal with those pesky Chinese. Go to China, and you discover a bewildering range of teas, with the European taste tea at one end of the spectrum - "Hong Cha" (lit red tea, but they mean black, go figure) is the oxidised tea we drink. That's the only one that actually benefits from boiling water. The rest of them brew happily much cooler and, once you have acquired the taste, have more flavour and variety of flavour than the (pretty much single) one we drink. Milk has no place in the drink at all.
Yes I know we have different varieties like Kenya, Assam etc, but they have more in common than they do to divide them, when compared to what else is available.
Ham | 15.04.14 - 3:28 p.m. | #
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Liptons Yellow Label is the best marketing job ever done on the non-UK world.
Being another non-coffee drinker and refusing to pay to drink 'tea' while out means lots of £££ in my pocket. If I drank just one £3 coffee a day that would be more than a thousand quid a year. A thousand quid saved!
Blue Witch | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 6:37 p.m. | #
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Hear hear.
Other than in old fashioned caffs, tea is *always* too weak.
People all to commonly confuse strength with brewing time. Strength is all to do with the tea:water ratio, and if there isn't enough tea no amount of time will make it decently strong; all you end up with is stewed weak tea, the worst of both worlds.
Sarah | Homepage | 15.04.14 - 9:12 p.m. | #
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If you're ever up my way Baskerville's in Palmers Green (opposite the gorgeous Broomfield Park) is your must-go. To be fair I've only actually drunk tea there once but they specialise in it - and mine was super.
Stephen | 15.04.14 - 9:49 p.m. | #
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I think that part of the problem with tea bought from coffee shops is milk being sloshed in straight after the teabag. It drops the temperature of the water and somehow interferes with the brew. How can they put so little effort into getting tea right while taking all fussing over patterns in the froth on the coffee.
Tunnel Bore | 15.04.14 - 10:42 p.m. | #
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Ha ha if you want the worst tea in the world, go to a non-touristy place in Spain.
The waiter will bring you a tiny glass of really hot milk, a weak tea bag and five to ten sugar lumps.
Now, despite what someone says above, if you put the tea bag in milk or milky water it will not infuse properly, if at all.
So you ask the waiter in impeccably poor Spanish for a glass of boiling water and a tea bag.
Tepid water comes along, plus the tea bag, which is no stronger than the first time.....
Anyway, I am about to go out there for a week and am readying myself for a whole seven days of NO PROPER TEA.
Small price to pay, though, for those stunning mountains to cycle up and the fantastic food, sun, climate, people (even poor tea makers).....
Viva Espana | 15.04.14 - 10:45 p.m. | #
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I was told (but am not enough of a tea drinker to confirm) that if you put a teabag into the water with the milk already added, the milk clogs up the fabric that the teabag is made of, which prevents the water from reaching the tea leaves - or is it tea dust.
Caroline | 15.04.14 - 11:13 p.m. | #
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What also mystifies me is the price difference between a large tea and a small tea. All you get is one tea bag with a different amount of hot water. Has nobody noticed this outrageous rip off?
Richard | Homepage | 16.04.14 - 9:07 a.m. | #
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It is a rip-off............all proper tea is theft!
Auntie Doris | 16.04.14 - 10:02 a.m. | #
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Born and bred a pg tipper, but now.........Its herbal infusions for me these days. Hot water, cold water, reuse the bags over and over, no tanin stewing, and oh very healthy
Roger Brown | 16.04.14 - 4:36 p.m. | #
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A good way to get copious drinks in mountain huts in german-speaking areas is to bringb your own tea bags and ask for "teewasser". You get a large litre pot of boiling water (properly boiled - it comes from their local source and they don't want their clients helicoptered out through catching something, or to clean up the mess) which you make your own tea with. Much cheaper than buying their tea or coffee, or even bottled water brought up from the valley. Any left over can go in a metal water flask which, inside a sock, makes a useful hot water bottle and can then be taken with you as your water supply in the morning.
Of course, at altitude water boils at a lower temperature, which can impair affect the brewing process a little.
timbo | 16.04.14 - 5:37 p.m. | #
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I second the comment that the Chinese know how to make tea. It is a pleasing shade of translucent green, delicate tasting and very refreshing. In restaurants, it is served in small bowls of a few mouthfuls and topped up every time the staff visit your table, often from a nice octagonal porcelain teapot, meaning it stays exactly the right temperature throughout the meal.
In East Africa, the local method is often to place the tea leaves, water, milk fresh out of a goat (and sometimes the goat's blood too) into a large pot and boil together.
Siwi | 16.04.14 - 6:21 p.m. | #
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In hotel rooms Seattle and Amsterdam I have ended up having to make tea in a coffee maker.
Both provided tea bags but the only way to brew anything was to run the coffee machine (thoroughly washed of course) without the coffee (which was, naturally, supplied in a "coffee bag") in order to get a jug of hot water. Then the tea bag got shoved in; the coffee jug being used as an impromptu tea pot.
Passable until (in the US at least) I had to use coffee creamer.
In the latest hotel in Seattle I stayed in, they naturally gave a range of teabags. English Breakfast, Earl Grey, two herbals... And of course, only one of each.
Really, what is wrong with a kettle?
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 17.04.14 - 11:53 a.m. | #
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I live on tea, but I never drink it when out either as it invariably tastes like pencil shavings. Most places just seem to have sad old boxes of Twinings that have been left open in a cupboard for years.
Cream in tea is an abomination! Even worse than UHT milk.
teapot | 17.04.14 - 9:35 p.m. | #
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In the middle east for a month, I had to survive on tea made with Carnation evaporated milk. I've never been able to enjoy tea in the same way since.
s | 20.04.14 - 8:29 p.m. | #
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DG, you say you don't need your caffine fix, but black tea does contain caffine, the UK Tea Conncil suggests 40mg per "cup" (whatever size that is!). Your 4.5 cups a day are giving you 160mg of tea, which is equivalent to a couple of coffees.
http://www.tea.co.uk/tea-and-caffeine
Coffee has varying amounts depending on the style, what suprises me, is that an expresso could only be 40-75mg, so similar to one or 2 teas.
Mark | 23.04.14 - 9:11 a.m. | #
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