Our Life

I know it’s true… you feel bad, you have a cup of tea and you feel better, you are sad and a cup of tea helps you to feel less sad if not happy, you are confused and you sit with a cup of tea and it help you to see through your problems….. but WHY??????????????????? *coughs like an academic about to begin a lecture*

I would have to take the stance that a cup of tea acts on an individual in both a psychological and biological manner. Initially, we are offered a cup of tea in times of great stress, and generally in a comforting family environment. The composition of the tea, has a soothing effect, no doubt due to its hot nature and the actual tea leaves and milk themselves. However, as we grow older this part of the effect becomes less relevant. As I and I’m sure many others now begin to experience the sooting effect of tea before we’ve even taken a sip, in fact just as soon as we sit down with it.

I would believe that this is all part of a conditioning process in that drinking tea results in a relaxing process, so we then come to associate this relaxed state and from then on just the presence of tea creates a conditioned soothed response.

Well that’s my psycho-babble-crap explanation for it anyway… Who knows! I’ll just keep lovin it! I’m a nurse. If my patients or their families are stressed, I’ll offer tea. Even the tought of a cuppa makes people feel cared for. Because….it is the simplest act of cooking and cooking is an act of comfort , an act of giving of oneself to provide for the basic human need…
boiling water to brew herbs from mother earth is something that has been passed down from (dare I say the caveman)…its bred within us
the monotonous actions of boiling, pouring, stirring……the smelling….
the steam rising up with the aroma and as it hits your nose, the taste simultaneously hitting theback of your throat your body sighs and releases all of its pent up stress and toxins because it’s warm and cosy, and because someone else usually makes it for you if you’re upset, and that makes you feel better, because they care! Tea is like comfort food–while you drink your body is warmed by it, you lose yourself in the flavour and yu just relax…. We may not sit for hours and use really pretty cups and stuff but when it boils down to it (no pun intended) its still a tea ceremony, we all have our own and that is possibly what makes everything better.
When you make a cup of tea I bet that 9 times out of 10 you make it the same way (milk, sugar, bag order, personally I just have bag and water but hey), have a favourite mug from which to drink and even a favourite place to sit and drink it. Even taking the first tester sip and realising its still far too hot for human consumption. So true :-) Ah Yes!…….. as I sit with my tea in my hand and cuddle in my soft arm chair I could imagine what if……….., the magic of this cup of tea can bring me to Shangri-La. Here is where all the imperfections can disappear. This would be the cup of Tea that would solve everything?! necrothreader! Well i just had a cup of tea..and id have to say i love it because there is something earthy and rootsy about it. It makes you feel so cosy..like reading a book by the fire in socks with an old mangey cat by your side and a patchwork quilt over your shoulders..there is something wistfull and romantic about it all. And its true what they say, that adding sugar takes some of the excitement out of tea-drinking. Because it is the magic powers of tea, from the tea god, that visits tea plantations at night !

But why? That’s like asking why is the sky blue? Just BECAUSE…….

Tea is like a gay man. Warm and comforting on the bad days and clean and refreshing for the good times. Tea solves everything without leaving dirty socks on the couch. Tea cares about its appearance and will hug you no matter whether friends are watching or not. Tea will be there for you in the middle of a dark, desperate night. When good things happen to you, it’s rejoicing there with you. Tea can cry, laugh, and tell really good jokes. Tea is sensitive without being embarrassing. You don’t exactly want to have sex with it, but you may have to call it up afterwards to let it know how things went. Tea doesn’t ask for much but delivers much in return. It doesn’t talk down to you, dump you for someone else, though it may dump on you occasionally (but you forgive that because of everything it’s done for you in the past).

Tea is a really really good friend. That’s why it solves everything. So true. You expressed it delightfully. Tea! Tea! our precious tea. the happiness in a cup just for you and me. We can dream right?! It is okay to dream of the prefect place to be ………………with your tea. 1.Put the kettle on to boil. 2.Warm your favourite teapot. 3.Add one teaspoon of tea for each person.
4. Pour in boiling water and allow to brew for ten minutes, while you do one or more of the following: Lie on the sofa like a great big slug. Hug somebody. Dance like you danced when you were five years old CLINT. Rest. Take off your shoes and wiggle your toes. Sing like Pavarotti. Shake like Elvis. Help yourself to a huge slice of chocolate cake. Call a friend CLINT. Listen. Remember the last time you laughed out loud. Tickle somebody. Sit where you can feel the sun on your face. Smile. Look out a window and drink in the world. Run a hot bath. Wrap yourself in a duvet. Think about someone you love. Light a candle. Be still. Be present. Just be IN SHANGRI- LA

5.Stir and pour. 6.Enjoy.

It just does.
The dozens of groups on Facebook saying something similar -including the interestingly named A Cup of tea Solves Everything!! with the added !!- indicates that many folk just believe unquestioningly in the problem solving abilities of TEA.

Believe. As others have stated, it just DOES. Especially for those of us here in the UK.

I think it’s probably to do with the fact that tea is such a normal part of everyday life (well, in my country, at any rate) that helps. Especially when things go wrong – anything from a minor problem to an out and out catastrophe. Anything from misplacing your bus pass to a terrorist atrocity, really…

When such things happen, tea is comforting. If it doesn’t actually solve something, it at least makes it that bit better, that bit more bearable. I guess it may have something to do with the “business as usual” factor. Something abnormal and not very nice has happened so a cuppa gives that sense of “normal service will be resumed shortly”

It helps people calm down, thus preventing them from flying off the handle and doing or saying something they may regret later.

It helps people focus and thus enables them to get on with their jobs. I speak from very personal experience on this matter!

I think it may help, also, with certain major sporting fixtures… like a certain match this coming Sunday! I have an agreement with a friend from this group who suports my team’s rivals – an agreement about our post-match conduct here on Facebook. I suspect we will both need several good mugs of tea to help us stick to our parts of the bargain and not gloat or sulk towards one another (I’ve said we can do all the celebrating/comiserating with our fellow supporters of our respective teams in order to get it out of our systems).

Win, and a cuppa or two should help the fan not to get carried away.
Lose, and a cuppa should help the fan to show his/her face on Facebook and handle the disappointment that bit better.
Draw? Both fans need cuppas to help ease the mixed feelings – disappointment of not having won but also relief at not having lost.

Well, I guess Sunday afternoon/evening will put that theory to the test… Fair enough people love tea (i happily get through a minimum of 5 a day) but does anyone else here also love the smell of tea? been caught taking a deep satisfying sniff when opening the tea jar or maybe just squeasing the sealed foil wrappers till it pops?

i used to work in Co-op, and when facing up (making items look all lovely and neat on shelves) the shop at night, id always take the longest in the tea section, just cos the whole isle would smell so comforting and reassuring. of course the down side was that id also start heavily craving tea too. i used to get a few odd looks from customers every now and then, ‘whats making him so happy? why’s he smiling like that? he must be on drugs, thats it, we’re never shopping here again..”

Geez, Linda, I think this should be written on a wall hanging or something like that for everyones kitchen. You know, an embroidered tapestry with all sorts of lovely illustrations on either side of the words. You are indeed a master of the craft of writing!!!

Oh, BTW, Iain’s pretty good at the oratorical, too. Maybe “Tea is like a gay man” should be set to some cheesy piano music and we could have William Shatner narrating it. It’s sure to be a hit and we can retire in luxury, living out our last days making tea for each other and looking out on the sea from our cottage home in the Channel Islands or something. Yes!!!Yes!!!! The whole world needs that to happen!! When I’m brewing up my loose leaf tea at work… Having warmed the teapot, then put a measure of tea in the pot, even before I’ve put the boiling water in, I like to take a good sniff of the satisfying, comforting scent coming from the now warm leaves in my teapot…

Mmmmmmm……. :) :) :)

I don’t doubt the tea aisle at a supermarket smells pretty good, but tea leaves inside a warm teapot…. a nice malty Assam for example….

Oh yes….. lovely! :) I think you’re right there, Linda! :D Yes! Yes! So let’s celebrate and commiserate ,as mentioned to the magic and powers of tea that bring us to happiness with our friend and foe. Tea is a sacred fluid sent from above to help us poor morals with the day to day grind of trying to get the bloody thing to work. There’s no way I’d let you hang that up in my kitchen, especially with those revolting illustrations :-)
Don’t put yourself down. Having a poor character shouldn’t prevent you from
enjoying a cup of tea. After all, nobody lives forever :-) Having a poor….
whats do you mean by that!
my character is bloody brilliant thankyouverymuch!
god, i need another cup of tea now!

I recently went to a friend’s house, who put milk and sugar in my mug BEFORE adding the tea!! Has anyone any comments on this downright odd way of enjoying the wonders of tea?

NOOOO thats a crime.
my order is : tea, hot water, (brew for a min or 2) take bag out, add sugar, stir, add milk whilst stirring…lol
Surely thats the perfect cup of tea!!

Yup, that’s how I make my tea. Definitely perfect and problem solving :-D

It depends – did she make it in a pot, and pour the already brewed tea into the mug, or did she put the milk in the mug, then the tea bag, and then pour the water in?

The first is correct – the second is just deviant and will result in a foul hot liquid that tastes of paper and tannin.

I agree with the banjo man. If the tea is already infused in hot water (as though it has been in a tea pot) then the milk should be in the cup/mug/rinsed out castrol 44 drum first. For a tea bag in the drinking vessel (or many bags, as would be the case with the oil drum), milk in last.

yes, that’s evil and she should be punished – I can’t even stand it when people put the milk in first for a cup of coffee!

I advise you never to go to that “friend’s” house again!!!!

that is indeed, a shocking account!

I do however put milk into the cup with the instant coffee and sugar, before adding hot water – his seems to decrease the bitterness. when i use real coffee, i brew it first – then add sugar and milk.

my mother-in-law uses one measly tea bag in a 4-6 cup teapot! the resulting tea looks and sometimes (i imagine) tastes like urine even with heaps of sugar and milk! my mother and I use ‘pot-strength’ bags in our cups – which produces a magnificent mahogony liquid!
Right now Im sipping a cuppa – Ive added a rich bloodwood honey and creamy raw milk.

It’s only evil if the order is milk-teabag-hot water. If it’s milk – brewed tea from the pot, that is not only acceptable, but preferable, as it avoids scalding the milk. The tea is already brewed, and you can’t damage the flavour by putting the milk in the mug first, unless you put in too much milk.

Making tea in a mug with a teabag has a correct order, but there is a trade off between convenience and taste.

Unfortunately, Laura has yet to enlighten us as to how her friend makes the tea, so I’m reserving judgment on whether it’s a crime or not.

tea bag, hot water, milk then sugar………perfect!

OK, here is the great enlightenment which will end all controversy and contention…

The tea was brewed in a pot, then added to the milk which was already in the mug. I never said that this was a crime, only v strange as I hadn’t seen this done before. I prefer to put tea in first and then add milk, depending on the strength of the tea as this seems to make more sense to me and I get v particular about the colour of my tea.

Ah, it’s not strange – it’s the right way! Milk in first, then you don’t scald it. You DO have to be careful not to put too much milk in, though. You need a good eye, and familiarity with your drinking vessel.

That might be true, but I prefer to watch the billows of milky chaos mingle with the clearity of the tea when I pour the milk in! A miniature storm in a tea cup.

you DO NOT EVER EVER EVER put the milk in first it goes last, damn it!

Says someone with a Starbucks mug!

Are you talking about making it with a teabag in a mug or brewed in the pot?

If you put milk into hot tea, the first splash will be scalded by the tea, and you will taste the difference.

If you put the milk into the mug first, then pour in the tea, because at the precise moment of contact, there is more milk than tea, the milk isn’t scalded, and the temperatures of the two liquids meet in the middle.

If, on the other hand, you’re making it in a mug with a tea bag, the milk will have to go in second, otherwise, the milk soaks the tea, it won’t brew properly, and the whole thing will taste disgusting. That is the only way milk should go in last. If you can’t judge the amount of milk you need before you put the tea in, you need more practise at making tea.

While I can see the aesthetic attraction of that, I’d still rather do it the other way round if the tea’s been made in the pot. If you do put the milk in second, it’s interesting to watch the tea stir itself by means of convection.

This is, apparently, a class thing. If you were working class you did milk then tea, if you were upper class you did tea then milk. I am not entirely sure why this but I suspect it’s to do with the fact that you had a choice between lemon or milk and less milk seemed to be seen as more refined, they probably passed the milk jug round as well.
I’m not sure how true it actually is but I find it amusing that my dad (who grew up on a council estate in Wood Green) does milk-tea-sugar-stir and my mum (posh) does tea-milk-drink. I just do whatever comes to hand first.

As a trainee historian, I have to ask, do you have any source evidence to support that theory? If they were that posh, surely they’d have a butler to do it for them, hence I’m slightly sus about ‘passing the milk around’.

God, I’m so pedantic and picky!

From my own point of the view, the order is based on taste and a little bit of science.

Some coffee houses also sold tea in loose leaf form so that it could be brewed at home. This meant that it could be enjoyed by women, who did not frequent coffee houses. Since it was relatively expensive, tea-drinking in the home must have been largely confined to wealthier households, where women would gather for tea parties. Such a party would be a genteel social occasion, using delicate china pots and cups, silver tea kettles and elegantly carved tea jars and tea tables. All the equipment would be set up by the servants, and then the tea would be brewed by the hostess (aided by a servant on hand to bring hot water) and served by her to her guests in dainty cups. Both green and black teas were popular, and sugar was frequently added (though like tea, this was an expensive import); in the seventeenth century though, it was still unusual for milk to be added to the beverage.

The hostess would pour the tea, but it was the responsibility of the men to hand the cups round. If there were no men present, this job fell to the daughters of the hostess or other young women present

Rationing by no means diminished the British enthusiasm for tea. In January 1946, the author and journalist George Orwell published an essay called ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ in the Evening Standard newspaper, calling tea ‘one of the main stays of civilsation in this country’, and listing his 11 ‘golden rules’ for tea making. He acknowledged the controversial nature of some of them – such as his insistence that the tea should be poured and then the milk added, and that tea should always be drunk without sugar

Certainly for much of the twentieth century, methods of preparing tea were still the subject of some snobbery: in a letter to Nancy Mitford (a social commentator and great satirist of upper class behaviour), the author Evelyn Waugh mentions a mutual friend who uses the expression ‘rather milk in first’ to express condemnation of those lower down the social scale. Nowadays the ‘milk in first or tea in first’ debate is altogether more light-hearted, but nonetheless everyone has his or her preferred method of making tea. Tea has for centuries been a beverage at the very heart of social life in Britain – for millions of people today, just for Dr Johnson nearly 250 years ago, tea amuses the evenings, solaces the midnights and welcomes the mornings.

http://www.tea.co.uk/index.php?pgId=98

I must admit to my knowledge being rather word of mouth but I’m sure the evidence is out there if you look.

Interesting…but not really conclusive! If Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford are taking the pee out of tea snobs, that suggests that even in the upper classes, there was room for debate on the topic!

I think when all is said and done, it’s all down to personal preference and long may that continue to be the case.

“If, on the other hand, you’re making it in a mug with a tea bag, the milk will have to go in second”

thats exactly what i do

Milk and tea and suger first THEN add the water!. I like mine sweet and weak. If you like it strong you should always add the teabag later as you will taste the tea more.

Yes… i am a big tea fan lol

That is OK, then! Milk in with the bag is disgusting!

Milk always has to go in last.

I generally put the milk in last, but I’m not really bothered about the order as long as it’s proper milk.
Part of my ongoing teavangelical work is to gently but firmly inform servers in restaurants that ‘creamers’ (whatever is in those nasty little plastic cups) or coffee cream is not suitable for tea.

Tea first. Only reason milk was ever put in first was so that the hot tea didn’t crack the bone china cups. Can’t afford bone china so why bother?!?! Anyone who adds sugar is spoiling the taste……..

now i always put the milk in first – I think that the hot water then heats the milk, rather than adding the milk after the water, because then surely the milk would then vool the tea down – and cool tea is a no – no – discuss …..

I always put the milk in first, because then you know you have the correct amount of milk, and as a result have the perfect cup every time :).

Hi Carol,

Yes i agree with you, that is how i make my cuppa tea, for the simple reason the hot water warms the milk…lol….
Luv Les, x.

You see, i made my tea in that order for ages, but i found later that adding the milk after, when the tea has brewed a little stops the milk from being scalded and tasting funny. You can also still tell if you have added enough milk by the colour.. simple as.. And this order doesnt effect the temperature of the brew atall… poifect!