Everyone knows that drinking too much coffee is dangerous. Or, if not dangerous, a reliable route to illegible handwriting nonetheless. I like coffee, and will happily drink it when I can be sure it won’t taste of dishwater (Hello filter machines!) or frazzled milk (Hello Starbucks!), but generally I’m more of a tea person.
Ok, I’m sorry.
Hi, my name is Nick and I’m addicted to tea. If I were being honest I would admit that calling myself “more of a tea person” is akin to describing Mr Bond as “more interested in ladies.” I drink a lot of tea – in the region of 6-12 cups a day. In reality, many of my English friends wouldn’t call this a lot of tea, but to my acquaintances across the pond it will nicely fulfil the image of the nutty Brit fighting (or not) an unhealthy obsession with a somewhat stewed, tasteless drink made with hot water and dust.
Which brings me to the main point of this post. The reason you, my American friend, (and even you, my British friend who doesn’t like tea) are averse to the greatest drink ever invented is that you’ve never had it made properly. And this is perhaps not surprising, for the British carry with them not only the great legacy of tea-making but also the rather less impressive twin traits of laziness and reluctance to complain. In point: my office has a “tea station,” apparently so named without a trace of irony, in spite of the fact that it is humanly impossible to make a decent cup of tea at said “station.” And why is this? It’s because instead of a kettle, we have a wall-mounted water heater which permanently keeps its water at or near 90 degrees. Unfortunately, so long as one isn’t half way up a very large mountain, one cannot make tea with water that is doing anything other than boiling at 100 degrees. I stress boiling over boiled, of course, because making tea with boiled water is like skiing with fir trees attached to your feet.
Yes, mounted top end backwards. It’s that difficult.
So, in order to clear things up, I would like to offer two alternative ways of making tea. First, for those of you that are making a right bog-up of it at the moment, and second, for those who can make a reasonable cup of tea and now want to achieve sinensine nirvana.
I should emphasise that all of the above directions are for good quality black tea. Brewing times and the temperature of the water should be changed appropriately for green and white teas, but if you’re drinking things like Oolong and Rooibos you probably know what you’re doing anyway.
Happy drinking. Oh, and yes, it is a healthy obsession. You will not grow hairs on your palms. Do pass Go, and do collect 250g of the finest Indian Assam.