George Orwell apparently had some thoughts on tea. Eleven of them, in fact—the tenth of which goes so far as to address the controversy over precisely when milk should be added:
“…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.”
On a recent trip to Colorado to shoot some television commercials for the City of Greeley, I had the occasion to meet with a couple of British expatriates. I asked them about proper tea preparation, and, apart from the timing of the milk (both were indifferent on this point), they take it as seriously as Orwell did.
I’ve been a daily coffee drinker since I was 11; tea came a little later—when I was a junior or senior in high school, I think. Both were always taken black. Recently, however, I’ve discovered that strong British tea—like Yorkshire or Typhoo—can be a truly sublime experience with a little splash of milk.
To Orwell’s list, I’d add only one thing. He mentions drinking from a “cylindrical type of cup” as opposed to the more typical flat, shallow cups, but doesn’t specify that it should be made of fine bone china. It really does make a difference.
