#teamaking

A kettle

Yes, everybody in Britain uses an electric kettle. You can get very cheap plastic ones but in my household we tend to favour the slightly more expensive stainless steel ones. You can get glass too (but they become unsightly very quickly when they start to scale up.) This:

might be what you picture a kettle to be. We call this a hob kettle and you boil it on the hob/stove. It probably takes about four times as long to boil water in one of these bastards. Brits are serious about their tea. How are you gonna make a cuppa during the adverts of Coronation Street with one of these things?

I know it’s a bit hypocritical to slag these kettles off when I clearly have one in my home, but my mum swears the tea tastes better with water boiled from it. Me, myself? I can’t taste the difference. My mum only uses it at the weekends when she has ample time to wait.

Also, we never call it a tea kettle and if you’re unfamiliar with electric kettles, they rumble as they come to the boil and they automatically click off when they’re done. None of this whistling business and none of this needing to pay attention.

Teapot

A tea strainer

A teaspoon

Fresh milk

And of course.... tea

Yes friends, it really is Yorkshire tea.

First step is to fill the kettle with water and put it on to boil.

Cute, right?

While it’s boiling, you should empty the teapot (god knows if it’s a general thing but we have a tea bucket outside the back door which we empty the contents of the teapot into) and rinse it out if that isn’t done already. 

Some people believe in warming the pot first. It’s not something we tend to do in my household. (It’s the same concept as warming plates before you put dinner on them, which is another thing we don’t tend to do in my home). If you want to warm the pot first, use a bit of boiled water to swish it round and tip it out before you put the tea in.

 When you put tea in the teapot, you should put one teaspoon’s worth for each cup you’re making plus one for the pot. (Don’t let anybody tell you that’s a myth because I personally endorse it okay)

When the kettle boils, pour the boiling water straight into the teapot. If you’ve left the room and the kettle has boiled by the time you come back, click it on again to bring it to the boil. This is essential for effective brewing.

Give it a stir then pop the tea cosy on.

It’s under there, I promise.

(I’m not cute, let’s move on)

Now, a decent tea cosy will keep the tea warm for a good hour, I’d say. But it would be pretty stewed by then, so I wouldn’t leave it that long. If I was desperate for my cuppa, I might leave it 2-3 minutes, but if I’m willing to wait for a quality cup of tea I might wait up to 15 minutes. 

When you can’t wait any longer, you need to grab your mug and, if you take sugar, put that in the cup NOW. I’m very emphatic about putting the sugar in before you pour the tea. It melts much more effectively this way. 

Now it’s time to pour the tea. Put the tea strainer over the mug (most strainers will have a little ledge so you can balance it on the cup with no hands) and pour the tea out through the strainer. 

Before any creeping Brits drag me, the tea was darker than it looks. You should be hoping for an almost mahogany-type colour to the tea. If it looks like piss, it’s gonna taste like piss. (Not literally, but that’s what a Brit would say your tea tastes like.)

Stir in a splash of milk (look. Most Brits drink tea with milk. You would never ask someone if they take milk, because you would just assume. I was once asked in a cake place and I was confused and panicked) not too much. You don’t want to really taste the milk. You really want it to be a nice rich golden brown colour, or like Harry in 2013. 

Stir your cup of tea and then you’re ready to go!

an alternative method

Sometimes, you don’t have the time or inclination to make a whole pot of tea. This is where the teabag comes into play!

Boil the kettle as usual, grab your cup, and pop a teabag in it. If you take sugar, put it in the cup with the teabag. Pop the water in and leave it for a little bit to brew.

I like to stir the bag around a couple of times and squeeze it against the side of the cup a couple of times, too. Finally, I squeeze the bag with two teaspoons (people tend to squeeze the bag against the side of the cup but, like, it doesn’t work), chuck the bag and pop the milk in and stir. Done!

Brands of tea

You all know Yorkshire Tea, which is fairly popular (identified by a rectangle teabag) but other brands include PG Tips (who pioneered the pyramid teabag, said to brew tea better with all the space to float around and shit. In fact, upon Googling for this post, I found out an advertising watchdog officially ruled that the pyramid teabag is more effective), Tetley and Twinings.