Tea purists get their knickers in a twist over teabags. I’m not that much of a purist. But tea gets made in a pot, not a mug, and squeezing the bag makes the tea bitter, not stronger.
Freshly drawn cold water brought JUST to the boil, a teapot pot scalded quickly with same water, two cups of water poured over 1 teabag, let it steep for 5 minutes or so, and enjoy. Get yer crochety aunt (or yer knitty aunt) to make you a tea cozy and life could scarce be bettered.
If you must make it in a mug, I wash my hands of you.
No kidding. Anybody who cares how I like my tea (except in the case of “how do you like it, so I can make you some” sort of thing) has issues I’d really rather not deal with, and no doubt very tightly twisted panties.
I read some etiquette book or other years ago and retain nearly nothing except these two factoids:
It’s gauche to squeeze out your teabag.
It’s gauche, when drinking a drink through a straw, to suck it all out of your glass down to the very dregs, resulting in that gurgling noise. They called it a “Scotchman’s whistle”.
The book implied that both of these infractions would point you out to others as someone too penurious to let a few drops of soda or tea go to waste
You have to love the irony of an etiquette book that would give a prejudicial name based on a national stereotype to a faux pas. What would Miss Manners say!
I try not to make a mess, which I guess makes me look slightly more civilized than I actually am. My more immediate issue is how to get from the coffee maker to the garbage without the basket dripping all over everything, and without dripping on my already stained-and-dingy dish cloths. I mean, it’s not the end of the world, but the stained-and-dingy dish cloth makes my skin crawl.
