Page 62 - @ccess 2 Reader´s Book

• Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and
not the other way about. The water should be actually
boiling at the moment of impact, which means that
one should keep it on the flame while one pours.
Some people add that one should only use water that
has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never
noticed that it makes any difference.
• Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or
better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing
the leaves to settle.
• Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup
— that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow
type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other
kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well
started on it.
• Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before
using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea
a sickly taste.
• Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is
one of the most controversial points of all; indeed, in
every family in Britain there are probably two schools of
thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring
forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain
that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by
putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one
can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one
is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other
way round.
• Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style
— should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I
am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself
a true tea lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea
by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable
to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just
as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are
no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the
sugar; you could make a very similar drink by bitter
(adj.):
dissolving sugar in plain hot water. amargo

Reader's Book 61