Do you have any tea peeves?
Like people leaving a tea bag in the cup when they serve it to you or stained teacups or..I don't know, something.
OK, one of my tea peeves is this whole 'HighTea' craze that's going on. 'High Tea' was originally kind of basic and stodgy while 'Afternoon Tea' was the fancy occasion with petit fours and little sandwiches.
But 'High Tea' sounds fancier, so restaurants and articles keep advertising it! I know, I know, there are FAR more important issues to be peeved about (don't worry, I am peeved about them too!hee hee)
Anyway to back up my rant, here's an article I found:
http://www.joyofbaking.com
My biggest whinge is when someone makes tea in the mug with a bag and then puts milk in before it's finished brewing. After that, it never does finish brewing.
And it stays that anaemic tan colour…
I don't take my tea with milk, but I do observe it and cringe a little when I see it done!
I would LOVE to have a Sunday afternoon tea in my dorm some time…if I can have at least 4 people in attendance, I will.
I posted in another topic about this.
Hmm…distracting me while I'm brewing jasmine, causing the jasmine to oversteep and become grossly bitter.
Asking me what's burning when I'm drinking Lapsang Souchong.
Telling me that with all the iced tea I make, I should live in the South (yet I use little or no sugar).
Not understanding the redundancy of "chai tea".
Not knowing that black tea and green tea come from the same plant, and so people who like black tea can get the same health benefits as green tea drinkers (although maybe in a lesser amount, sort of like walking instead of jogging).
Telling me how complicated loose tea is–I actually find it easier for iced tea, and it only takes about half a minute longer to fill a tea ball for hot tea.
Worse yet, telling me that bag tea is cheaper. OK…maybe a bulk box of (insert cheap black tea here) is cheaper. For most specialty flavors, loose is definitely cheaper.
Sweetening tea so much that it becomes tea-flavored sugar, especially when it's tea that I brewed for someone. The former is an insult to the name of tea, and the latter is an insult to my snobbery.
This isn't a peeve against other people, but I hate how I have to make my tea with bottled/distilled water at school when I'm doing it for other people. My college's tap water tastes terrible! I'm thinking about getting a filtering pitcher…that's probably cheaper than buying all that bottled water.
If your friends want you to brew them some fine tea, maybe you can convince them to bring bottled water. Although I'd like an excuse to get one of those filters myself.
Tea brewed to long or not long enough.
When the person selling the tea asks if "you want to leave room for cream or sugar?"
Going to the chain coffe shops that really do not know much about tea and tuck the tea bag tag so tightly in under that second cup (which, really, is that needed?!) that you risk spilling the hot tea every where or looking like a fool as you struggle with the cups.
I also hate how sometimes the water isn't that hot. Luke warm at best at some places, not allowing the tea to steep properly.
And on the subject of milks: Why do some places only have Half and Half or Whole milk? I like skim or 1% in my tea, since then I can taste the tea more then the milk. Drives me mad most days.
How tea stains your teeth…
…I just had a dental visit…
You wrote:
Not understanding the redundancy of "chai tea".
EXACTLY! I have tried to explain this to my aunt and my mom but they keep saying it.
Not really a peeve, more of a LOL moment:
I was trying to explain to my spouse that I wasn't surprised that he found Assam, a lowland tea, too strong, since his favorite (Red Rose) is a mountain estate blend. He looked at me in surprise and said, "Really? I thought Red Rose was orange pekoe!" It made me realize that a lot of people like tea but don't really know much about the plant, the picking or the processing of it.
…I believe I have a bit of Red Rose for him! I've spent months trying to get rid of all the Red Rose my family has!
I'm afraid Red Rose will never be totally expunged from this house…everytime we visit his side of the family, it is proffered from morning to night. His mom is starting to branch out and try other kinds, but his brother's family still consumes large amounts. I was excited to have finally used up all the teabags in the house and switched completely to loose leaf, but after a few days of that he started moping around and then finally came home with a 40-bag box…after searching 4 grocery stores to find it! It's not very popular here, unlike in Canada.
Hmm…I don't know where mine came from. It was my mom's. But we live in New Jersey.
Do you want to know what really bothers me? I make massive amounts of iced tea…and my mom still prefers to buy Turkey Hill (or Wawa, or Arizona) diet green tea in a jug. I don't understand, I was instantly converted when I began making iced tea myself.
Wow, that is actually pretty surprising. Homemade iced tea is 10, nay, 50 times better than the additive-laced swill they hawk in supermarkets. And you can make homemade diet tea too…just don't add 5 scoops of sugar per 20 oz bottle like the manufacturers do!
Well…I leave it unsweetened. I like it with lightly sweetened or not at all, but it has to be sugar or honey for me. Artificial sweeteners taste funny, if nothing else. So I make a batch of sugar syrup for those who like sugar. For those who like Splenda, lucky them–it's readily soluble in cold tea!
But yes, you're right. I don't understand people and their obsession with additives (as I eat a bowl of Ramen noodles…)
Yea.
Nasty spammers who pollute our Teaspace.
Bump 'em down!
I second that, Michael!
The amount of spam on these discussion boards is my biggest tea peeve!
Make Tea, Not Spam! c\_/ ^(__)>
Seconded the bit about how it stains your teeth. I'll go to the dentist and they'll clean my mouth all out and I'll have perfect white teeth for about a week and then my rampaging quantities of tea consumption catch up with me again. TT^TT
Diana, I just clicked on your link to the joyofbaking…and the photo of the cream scones is heart-stoppingly beautiful. Can they be that lovely in reality? Or is this another of those 'too good to be real, food porn' ; ) photos that so often appears in glossy cookbooks? In any case, thanks for the link.
ps. I did read the article…which is very good. lol at Cecil Porter's description of tea as a 'khaki-coloured concoction'
I agree with your point about misleading adverts for High Tea and Afternoon Tea. My worst experience of this was when travelling, discovering (to my horror!) that a hotel's offering of Afternoon Tea included ONLY a fruity, hot raspberry beverage (I shall not name it tea) and some petrified biscuits. Not a sandwich or petit fours in sight, but more astonishing was that my request for a simple pot of tea, REAL tea, was refused on the grounds that the menu was 'set'. !
Yes,plenty,this being the most serious of tea related crimes…
http://www.facebook.com/to
The weak "tea" I got served in Holland in 1993 when I was in Valkenburg with the City of Salford Youth Concert Band. It was so weak it was a fortnight! It was more hot water with the slightest hint of evidence that a teabag had ever been near it! Milk would've killed the poor beverage off completely!
My other pet peeve, besides weak tea, would have to be SPAM!!! There is just too much of the vile stuff on these discussion boards and it needs obliterating!
Tea never tastes completly right on holiday in a diff country..
so its always a warm welcome to come home tooto make up for the constant rain in english summers
You're so right there!
It doesn't help that foreign milk always tastes a bit odd compared to our usual pints of semi-skimmed and the likes…
Oh I'm with you on the under brewed or over brewed David!
Another 'peeve' is when I make someone (not mentioning my husbands name of course…) a lovely brew…..and they leave it to go cold :-(
Here's another (oh I do get on my soapbox sometimes….) Wringing out (literally) a tea bag into the cup or mug of tea, giving you serious tannin overload and making for a bitter brew. It used to happen all the time where I worked. Yuk x 50
Tea Peeve #1 – Far Too Much Damn Spam On These Discussion Boards!!!
I have had it up to here (indicates very great hight) with spammers and, like a favourite former player from my club once said about his national team's manager, I am not far from thinking they are shitbags! Although I would also consider "turbulent prats" and "pointless wastes of carbon" to be suitably apt descriptions of our spamming "chums"….
How many times do we have to point it out to these sacs de merde?!
THIS GROUP IS ABOUT TEA!!! Tea, the Whole Tea and Nothing But The Tea! Oh, alright then, tea and biscuits! Preferably Hob Nobs or ginger nuts, if you're asking! BUT NO BLOODY SPAM!!!
Make Tea, Not Spam! c\_/ ^(__)>
By Order of the Facebook Tea Constabulary.
You've earned a WOW!
I apologize on behalf of Dutch people everywhere for your terrible cup of tea. My family is from Holland and I have never had that problem. Well, I guess every country has at least a few who know nothing about tea.
I agree with the post about drowning tea in sugar!
Also, putting cream in my tea when I specifically asked for milk. I ruins it!
Oh, and worst of all, storing tea in a thermos that has been used for coffee. Disgusting!
It's ok – it was 15 years ago now, back in 1993, so I trust matters have improved and those at the Tourotel in Valkenburg have learned how to make a nice strong cuppa since then!
After all, the Dutch invented the craft of tea bag envelope folding! (I'm into card making so I dabble in lots of papercrafts!)
Cream in tea is a tea crime, so I totally agree with you on that matter. Cream is all very well in coffee, but doesn't go well in tea. Milk yes, cream no.
Never had sugar in my tea. On the rare occasions I have coffee, I need a fair bit of sugar in that and a fair bit of milk or cream, but tea needs no sugar and little or no milk. I'm now quite used to taking tea as it comes without anything in it and just enjoying the taste of the tea. Especially a nice malty Assam, which is what I'm enjoying right now! c\_/ ^(__)>
I never drink coffee but, I'll drink tea with almost any combination of milk and sugar or lack thereof. You have to be careful with sugar: no more than a teaspoon or you're in definite trouble. I have had a few cups made for me that tasted like sugar water.
I'm going to go make another cup!
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