With honey. (And rum sometimes if I’m sick.) I also say “Engage!” as I hit the “go” button when I start the microwave to boil the water.
Ice tea (or “iced tea” if that’s how you want to say it) in the summer, no sugar. If I remember to make it.
In my proud tradition of inane polls, how do you drink your tea?
-Rue. (make it so Number One)
As an Englishman I can tell you that there is nothing trivial or inane about tea.
(brewed in a pot with loose leaves, milk in first. No sugar unless you are a builder, then five sugars. Thems the rules.)
BTW Earl Grey is an elaborate practical joke. Who drinks tea with soap in it?
English Breakfast, hot, straight up. In a mug, it stays warm longer that way.
[sub](an owl stretching time? time for stretching owls? huh?)[/sub]
As a South African, I drink Rooibos Herbal Tea, black (more of a reddish-gold than black) with half a spoon of sugar.
Gp
owly-boy, I thought chamomile was the soap. Shows what I know.
So…
[ul]
[li]You take a kettle and fill it with cold water.[/li][li]Put it on to boil.[/li][li]Swish some hot water in your pot.[/li][li]The tea goes in the pot. Loose. (Can you use a tea ball? Or is that cheating?)[/li][li]In with the boiling water.[/li][li]Let steep for, what?, two minutes? Three? (Don’t want it to go all bitter.)[/li][li]In your mug (or beaker) goes the milk. (Why milk? It makes it all… milky.) (And you can use a mug? Right? Not just those fussy china tea cups. I hate those.)[/li][li]Pour the tea. (Are there strainers for the leaves? Or do you just live with plant parts in your beverage?)[/li][li]Sugar for builders only. Check.[/li][/ul]
This would be English tea?
Japanese tea needs a little bamboo whisk (and a geisha girl)(or is that for a bath?) and it’s all green in the end.
Yeesh. I’ll stick with my bag. The real nice foil ones that “Lock in the flavor!”.
-Rue.
Mornin’ Rue! I actually have a bunch of teabags on my desk right now, remnants from my cold a couple of weeks ago: Earl Gray, Lady Gray, English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast. I actually prefer Oolong, but thought the variety pack looked interesting. Normally a touch of sugar, no lemon or milk.
Iced tea? No thank you! Probably something to do with denial about being raised in the South.
Hot tea preference: Jasmine tea. Yum. Or any other of a zillion different varieties of Asian teas. Green tea? Yessir!
The pause that refreshes.
In the mornings I prefer coffee.
I agree there is something soapy about Earl Grey tea. But it’s my favourite tea. I drink mine from a Russian tea class, a glass in a somewhat ornate metal holder. No milk, no sugar, no lemon. I’ve hear that drinking tea without milk and sugar is barbaric, but that’s the way I like it.
I take my Earl Grey like I, er, take my men: strong, sweet, and warm.
Rue, if you’re ever in Boston, there’s a Starbucks–esque tea place (whose name I cursedly forget!) near Copley Square in which you can order around 200 different kinds of tea (including several very good blends of Earl Grey). They have a website where you can order the tea in bulk, so if some kind Boston Doper could supply the name, I could provide the link.
Help?
So…
[ul]
[li]You take a kettle and fill it with cold water.[/li][li]Put it on to boil.[/li][li]Swish some hot water in your pot.[/li][li]The tea goes in the pot. Loose. (Can you use a tea ball? Or is that cheating?)[/li][li]In with the boiling water.[/li][li]Let steep for, what?, two minutes? Three? (Don’t want it to go all bitter.)[/li][li]In your mug (or beaker) goes the milk. (Why milk? It makes it all… milky.) (And you can use a mug? Right? Not just those fussy china tea cups. I hate those.)[/li][li]Pour the tea. (Are there strainers for the leaves? Or do you just live with plant parts in your beverage?)[/li][li]Sugar for builders only. Check.[/li][/ul]
This would be English tea?
It surely would be, the stuff that empires are built on. Accept no substitute. And yes we have tea strainers. Here are some nice old ones:
http://pages.tias.com/1931/InventoryPage/1046956/1.html
These however are, frankly, questionable.
http://www.afternoontea.com/tinfuse.htm
You can tell a lot about a man from his tea strainers.
Oh, and coffee is the devils work.
When I said:
“I’ll stick with my bag. The real nice foil ones that “Lock in the flavor!”.”
I meant the tea bag comes in a little foil packet. A foil tea bag wouldn’t be much use. You’d wind up with a mug of hot water with a slight metal taste.
Just a regular paper tea bag in a foil packet.
-Rue.
STOP TAUNTING ME YOU EVIL B*STARDS!
I’m in Germany, where a decent cup of tea is nowhere to be found. I have to make do with PG Tip tea bags that I bring over from England whenever I can. The problem is, even these princes of tea bags make a mockery of tea - when it comes down to it, loose leaf is the only type that doesn’t taste like the devil’s snot, but if I try and bring this stuff back, it always explodes in my luggage and makes me smell like one of the Tetley Tea Folk for weeks.
I enjoy my korean ginseng tea. But I am not a regualr drinker, only when I am feeling really fatigued or worn down.
Preferably, warm the pot first, then put in one teaspoon of tea leaves for every cup being made & one for the pot. Water must be absolutely boiling when it is poured on, then it is left to brew. Do not forget the strainer when you pour it! Milk goes in the china mug first,then the tea.
In the mornings it is usually 2 teabags, no prewarming & i’m doing other stuff whilst waiting for the kettle to boil & while it brews (& drinking it too hot).
Re Earl grey - it’s bergamot, not chamomile. And it’s revolting! It’s like drinking perfume*. Yack! Allegedly (according to the tour of the Cutty Sark I went on, so it could be totally wrong), it originated in an accident in a tall ship transporting tea when the cargo shifted & the tea got mixed with bergamot. Tea was very expensive then (one of the butler’s priviledges was that he could resell the tea after it had been used twice, to supplement his income!) & so rather than waste it, they sold it & claimed it was a new variety.
*[sub]No, I haven’t drunk perfume![/sub]
Rue DeDay Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 
You’ve made my day…that is my all time favorite Picard quote…something in the delivery.
Thanks to none of you.
fierra, I knew there was bergamot in Earl Grey. It says so right on the back of my foil packet. Right below where David and Eunice Bigelow hope I enjoy it.
But I don’t know how to say it. Not that it comes up in casual conversation. It looks French, but hey, like I said, what do I know? Berj- ah- maht? Berzh- eh -moe?
But they make a chamomile soap as well as a tea. Herbs: Usefull in so many ways.
And your story? Yeah, I can believe it. But that’s not the first taste treat created by accident. (“You got you peanut butter on my chocolate! Bastard! I should kill you! Hey, wait… this isn’t half bad.” And the gumdrop was born.)
Mogwei, it’s more than a quote, it’s amatuer theater. I stand tall before the microwave, strighten my shirt and say “Engage!” (projecting from the diaphragm) as I punch out with two fingers to emphasize my point, and start the heating process at the same time. I get raves. (Oh wait… you meant the other one. Glad you liked it.)
-Rue.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Rue DeDay *
**fierra, I knew there was bergamot in Earl Grey. It says so right on the back of my foil packet. Right below where David and Eunice Bigelow hope I enjoy it.
But I don’t know how to say it. Not that it comes up in casual conversation. It looks French, but hey, like I said, what do I know? Berj- ah- maht? Berzh- eh -moe?
Berg a mott. Always happy to help. It shouldn’t be allowed near any form of beverage product (except possibly coffee which is already ruined by not being tea)
Earl Grey with only a very little milk, but it must be accompanied by a belgian bun or something similarly sweet and sticky.
Celestial Seasonings Chai, with milk & equal.
I like to change it up. Right now, at work I’m working on some green yerba mate . . . loose, of course. I’ve got one of them Swiss Gold filters, and blessedly there are hot water dispensers in the kitchenettes at work.
At home I do the whole proper tea ritual with my Bodum pot, and my tea cosy which I knitted myself, thankyouverymuch. I’ve got more different kinds of tea than you can shake a stick at. I’m rapidly consuming a tiny precious box of darjeeling that a colleague brought back from India. Darjeeling is the champagne of teas, you know . . . and this is primo stuff. I also have some ridiculously expensive white tea that I scored at a specialty shop in Minneapolis–but that’s only for when I have time to savor, and when my husband’s not home, because he has a childish affliction requiring him to put sugar in everything, and it completely destroys the subtle taste of this stuff–so he don’t get any.
Bagged tea is acceptible, preferrably brewed strong with lots of sugar and milk.
Here are some things to keep in mind about bagged tea. Good tea is in large pieces. It’s easy to hide the little bits in bags, which means that on average you’re getting a lower quality tea in bags. Also, tea must expand as it steeps in order to release its flavor, which it can’t properly do if it’s confined to a bag or a tea ball.