A Proper Cup of Tea

Two famous sets of instructions, sixty years apart, that agree on almost everything except the milk.

George Orwell’s eleven rules, 1946

From his essay “A Nice Cup of Tea”, in short:

1. Use Indian or Ceylon tea; China tea, he allowed, is economical and can be drunk without milk, but there is not much stimulation in it.
2. Make it in small quantities, in a china or earthenware teapot.
3. Warm the pot first, better on the hob than by swilling hot water round it.
4. Make it strong: six heaped teaspoons to a quart pot.
5. Put the leaves straight in the pot; no strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea.
6. Take the pot to the kettle, so the water is actually boiling as it hits the leaves.
7. Stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, then let the leaves settle.
8. Drink from a good breakfast cup, the cylindrical sort, not a flat shallow one.
9. Pour the cream off the milk before using it.
10. Pour the tea into the cup first, and the milk after: “one of the most controversial points of all”.
11. No sugar. Tea is meant to be bitter, as beer is.

The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003

For Orwell’s centenary, the Royal Society of Chemistry published its own method. Soft, freshly drawn water, just boiled; a warmed pot; a teaspoon a cup; three minutes’ brewing; drunk at 60 to 65 °C. And the milk, chilled, goes in first: poured into hot tea, it heats unevenly and its proteins spoil, giving the faint taste of something boiled.

The milk, then

Orwell argued that tea first lets you judge the milk exactly; the chemists that milk first treats it more kindly. In a pot of loose tea poured into a cup with milk waiting, both are right. With a teabag in a mug, put the milk in last, or the water will never be hot enough to brew it. Tell us which you are on your Me page.

The tea

An Indian or Ceylon black tea, as Orwell insisted, or a good breakfast blend.