This appearing right above @darthputinkgb.bsky.social reminded me: you missed out "with polonium", which made the UK government officially, formally peeved.
Even here in the US I know a bunch of other people who keep Barry’s in the house, and zero who bother with Lyons. I’ve become a fan of the black box one, which is harder to come across here but so worth it.
Last I heard, British tea is a sufficiently complicated affair that they just have instant coffee, just like we Americans microwave a mug for tea because coffee is too complicated an affair.
Modifying a commercial brewing machine with a wifi connected controller to always keep tea ready 24/7 because when you tried it with a consumer grade machine it kept burning out elements.
Considering the godawful things Brits put tea through, and the absolute disaster of a substance they use for tea, they have zero standing to call out anyone else's tea making.
I mean honestly. Using bags full of tea dust. It's like they WANT the tea to be bad.
who steeps their tea in a kettle? That's just for boiling the water. Just because it looks vaguely similar to a teapot doesn't mean it serves the same purpose
Making tea in a kettle? That’s the weirdest idea here. What do you do, put the milk and a teabag into the kettle? I’m not so much angry as concerned about the poor (and potentially lethal) grasp of how domestic appliances work.
@xkcd.bsky.social It's my impression that when you say "kettle" here, you mean the ceramic pitcher into which the hot water and tea are placed (teapot).
Is this correct? Because lots of people think you mean to make it in the kettle in which you boiled the water on the stove.
Yup, I use one regularly now :) The microwave approach has some guesswork involved in getting the right time to boil for a given mug and volume of water, plug it makes the mug really hot.
But since most Americans don't have, need, or want a kettle to make tea like 3 times a year, microwaves are fine
When you're at work. Your options for getting to a kettle are slim. Also when you are home. Who wants to take the time?
Myself, I drink half a gallon, or more, of brewed ice tea.
Well a lot of cold water machines have the hot water tap but of the offices I have worked in don't have it plugged in.
The joys of IT life.
These same offices, oddly, have Keurig machines. The most expensive way to have a cup of ANYTHING. Might as well add a Sodastream.
Including, and this is true, their tanks.
I'm an American. You would think we would have free Coke and Pepsi for all employees because diabetes be damned. It's the American way. We don't though. Water usually is a privilege.
This is why I have a 50oz thermos I take to work.
Fill a Moka pot basket with tea leaves instead of coffee, pour cold water into the base, screw the top on and put on the stove over medium heat. I have never tried this because I don't have a lab coat or safety goggles. Or graph paper and clipboard.
Orwell sez: "…the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water."
Is it? And why?
All you need to know is that the first act of rebellion from the British colonies in America was to throw some tea into a bay, to understand how much disdain Americans* have for the beverage.
The whole of the UK really didnt disapprove of that incident, we were busy dodging the tax man ourselves, I believe even members of my own ancestors were involved in smuggling.
Bless your heart! To make tea, you put a cup of sugar and several teabags in a qallon jar, leave the jar out in the sun for several hours, stir it, and put in the fridge. That how you make tea! Oh, and you pour the cold tea into a tall glass over ice cubes. Yep, that's how you make tea!
Those of us from the tea countries are often told as children that microwaving liquids is very dangerous. I have done it to reheat things but felt very odd about it because my elders insisted doing so would create some sort of malevolent air bubble (?) that would attack my hands (???)
It can happen, but it's very rare, and only happens when very pure, still water is microwaved for far too long. If the water doesn't immediately boil over the first time it's jostled, it's not going to happen. In 40+ years of my life microwaving water, I have never experienced it.
If you microwave distilled water for too long it can become superheated and will boil aggressively the second it's exposed to a rough surfac, which can be dangerous. Any other liquid is fine though, since it already has surfaces where boiling can start.
that's a real thing which can happen, BUT only in very specific circumstances. as Christopher said, a wooden stir stick (or chopstick, or whatever) will prevent this.
Here's a vid showing why (at about 5:30) with a full explanation from someone better at it than me
I've had that happen! Took the mug out of the microwave, and when I lowered the teabag into it the water went "Flgrbgh!" all out of the mug.
Luckily it missed my hands, but it was really weird.
Beautifully described! It’s become superheated, and can’t nucleate as well in ceramic mugs, so it doesn’t bubble until you introduce something to it. I maaay have had similar accidents myself 😅
Yep! It’s pretty much the smoothness that causes the problem, because there are no sites for bubbles to form.
Adding a small wooden stirrer or chopstick will help by adding nucleation sites and prevent it exploding :)
Liquids that become superheated in the microwave can then rapidly boil when jostled or when something (like sugar) is added. It can indeed lead to the liquid rising out of the vessel at speed and burning hands or faces. It's not a common event but it can happen, theoretically.
I'm the type of guy who boils the water and places it in a mug with the tea bag in it!
Then i stir it juuust right to get the juices out of the bag so the tea won't taste like water! And you got yourself a juicy tea that is sweet and won't fail you :3
I thought that was George Orwell's preferred way to do it?
(Seriously: There's a video tape of George Orwell in the Spanish Civil War telling the camera his preferred way to make tea, and IIRC, he notes that he prefers to put the milk in the cup first.)
I once saw an explanation that poor people put milk in first, to cool the water and save the cups. Rich people had better quality cups that could survive milk second.
Class is behind things like pale skin vs tan, wood floors vs carpet (at different times, once one was harder to achieve).
Some of the UK still has lead pipework for the hot water. This is significantly less common now, but people living in older houses really shouldn't drink from the hot tap
Also, some of the UK still have hot water storage tanks, preferably copper, but even so, they are breeding grounds for "Legionella" disease. Legionella is potentially life threatening.
Nobody in the UK drinks from the hot tap.
It's also less energy efficient than a kettle, in no small part because so much of the power is going into make the mug a burn hazard instead of heating the water.
US kettles seem to be different from ours in the UK. We use a kettle only to boil water, which takes a couple of minutes, or less if you're boiling a small amount.
I doubt they're different. We have stovetop kettles for boiling water, electric kettles that click off after boiling water, and electronic kettles that stay on after heating water (that's what I was talking about).
Kettles aren't super common in the US, so I think they're split between the English kind and the kind I see Asian households use a lot. Those ones are big insulated reservoirs that you can fill up and leave for a while.
If you have hard water, boiling it in a kettle will soften it as limescale gets deposited in the kettle. Tea is definitely affected by water hardness. Boiling the water for a few minutes works better than an electric kettle that shuts off automatically.
There's a difference when it comes to tea types that taste better when steeped in certain temperature ranges, since a temperature controlled kettle is, well, controllable.
Most British tea is boiled anyway though, so I think the brits are just silly about microwaves.
Based on how many British people are shitting themselves in the comments I think the scale should be adjusted as follows:
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Murdering the King personally
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I think you meant teapot rather than kettle, which is the device used to boil the water before pouring it into the teapot… and if you were to make tea in a kettle you would be well to the right of microwaving a mug
It depends how many people you’re making tea for. Less faff to stick all the boiling water and teabags into one pot then share it out than make individual cups.
American tea drinking is probably a more solitary affair in general, but also if I'm making tea for multiple people it's often several different kinds of tea so can't do one tea pot.
No, he means what he said. It's not at the angry zero point. And no, doing it in a kettle is about as angry as it shows, certainly way less angry than microwaving. (Stupider though)
But "boiling water in a pot, steeping in a mug" is to the right of that. Boiling in a pot seems weird (especially if what's meant is a teapot), but what's wrong with steeping in a mug?
He means boiling the water in a pot (not a teapot) on the stove, because they don’t own a kettle. He specifies steeping it in a mug because it shows they don’t have a teapot either.
I think the first one is meant to be boiling the water in a kettle, steeping the tea in a teapot, for contrast.
I have several teapots, but I don't use them for one cup of tea, so steeping in a mug feels neutral to me. Boiling the water in a pot instead of a kettle seems at most mildly annoying (but I am Canadian).
However, if "making it in a kettle" means steeping it in the kettle, I think that's way worse.
I did once have to reprimand a contractor for preparing his ramen in the f***ing kettle in the room we provided for beverage-making. Sauce and all. Twat.
I put the bag in the water and add monkfruit. Then I put it in the microwave for 2 minutes. Then I leave the bag in the mug as I consume it. Herbal tea only.
Brit here 🙋♂️ . Only pop a mug of tea in the microwave to warm it up when it's gone cold, though. Works very well. Wouldn't use microwave to brew tea, but would heat water in a jug in one ready to pour onto leaves in the teapot 🫖
Doesn't matter because the only tea which Americans have are those horrific Lipton's teabags with the string on them - which tastes revolting no matter what you do to it.
Ok ok but I’m a NYC native and I feel the same way about tea-making. I don’t really care if others want to ruin their own tea, but don’t make me watch and DEFINITELY don’t serve me microwave “tea”. Everyone’s feelings will be hurt
I literally just get a couple cups of sugar from a canister of iced tea mix and dump it in a pitcher, then add water. It’s not even tea at that point it’s just flavored sugary water
No we don’t, Sprite is called Sprite. It’s a brand. Maybe if you ask for lemonade in a pub they’d give you Sprite as that’s what they have. It’s similar.
There's alt-text on this site you can add the mouse-overs to if you want. If that's on purpose so people go to your own website though, feel free to cast a thousand suns upon my house.
(traditionally, this is only 100 suns, but with the 10th anniversary and all I figured I'd keep with the theme.)
He does indeed mean an actual teapot, ceramic, into which one places the hot water and the tea. The tea is bag or loose leaf; and some people don't use a ball for the leaves, they just trust the little strainer holes at the base of the spout. Oh. This teapot doesn't have... Okay, then, chunky tea...
in high school my friend showed me this trick where you microwave a plastic water bottle to heat up the water and then you put the tea bag in the bottle and then your sugar and milk, shake it up, and bam, tea. where does this fall
I need to go find Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, instructions on making a good cup of tea. He didn't have kind words on how we Americans made it :)
Man I miss him.
I miss Douglas Adams horribly, but I’m glad he did not live to meet the drinks machine that will not make tea. My local auto repair shop has a fancy one in the waiting lounge, and it makes me laugh each time. Tea is 4 menus deep.
Waiting until the tap water gets really hot. Filling a coffee mug with it. Add tea bag, sweet n low, and maybe some lemon.
Use this to annoy your favorite Brit.
See I love ice tea but that's because I've been drinking it since I was a kid.
Oh and how are you doing going through life with two heads? (looking at your name there)
Oh it's normally ok, except when *he* wants chips and *I* want ice cream... I might have two heads, but only one stomach, so it can sometimes get full!
ok this grosses even me out and I'm a yank. I was always told never to cook with or drink hot tap water (hot water dissolves the lead in pipes easier, & apparently even new pipes have small amounts of lead. or so I've read.)
It’s more because hot water tanks get gross on the inside. We’ve had tankless for years, but it’s still so ingrained in me to only use cold tap water for consumption.
The reason I was told not to drink hot water from the tap was that hot water tanks generally spent a lot of time at 50-70 Celsius, which is a great temperature for breeding Legionella bacteria. They only went through a cleansing cycle at over 85 Celsius once a month, if the householder remembered 😬
Indeed. And taps that get water hot enough to be used as an alternative to water heater in a kettle (or microwave 😬) are likely the newer ones that effectively boil the water on demand.
On the other hand, my household only recently replaced an open vented cylinder without automated anything, so 🤷
As an American Gen X'er. I just assume that there is so much lead in my blood that when I am cremated that they are going to use part of my ashes to make ammunition.
Further right... Dumping the tea into naturally occurring bodies of water... Putting the water into the crown jewels and then heating them in the microwave...p
No, it's the "making tea wrong" that upsets us. You can throw it away all you like, as long as you don't make it "milk first, hot tap water next, then the bag".
I just saw a British guy make tea by dunking the teabag in a mug of hot water for literally two seconds before squeezing it out, which made me angry as an American.
The Dutch make tea "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit". After the third dip, the teabag is placed on a twee little teapot-shaped dish to recuperate. It is invariably Pickwick tea, which only ever tastes like hot water or vaguely bitter hot water no matter how you prepare it.
To make a perfect cuppa:
1) Use good quality tea bags (In Ireland we use Barry's or Lyons)
2) have a nice teapot and leave the patina from prior brews alone!
3) Boil water. Just before it boils pour some into teapot and swish around, then dump into sink.
(1/2)
4) Put one tea bag in the tea pot, plus an additional bag for each cup/person (minimum three).
5) As soon as water is boiled pour water into tea pot. Stir well and set aside for at least five minutes.
6) pour tea and add milk/sugar to taste.
I mean that's fair. Most of us annoy the French by refusing to learn their language, even though we're next door neighbours and our languages are practically dialects of each other.
I never realized until recently, that in the UK it’s probably even faster to use an electric kettle than the US since their electrical outlets are higher voltage.
You boil the water. Then you put the boiling water in the teapot and rinse it out. Then you put the tea in the teapot and then you boil the water a second time!! At least, that is how I learned it.
Comments
Coz I'm sophisticated ebpnough to use a teapot!
A US kettle is say 1.5kW from 120V.
Maybe one day kettles in the US will include a battery so they can discharge to quickly boil water. 1 minute of 3kW is 50Wh battery.
And the MOST angry you can make an Englishman is to pour warm water over a tea bag and add cold milk before saying "That'll be $3.50".
US Deli Tea. Lukewarm watered milk with a soggy hackysack in it.
I’d say, as a Brit, popping the tea bags in the kettle then boiling would be worse than microwaving the water.
https://youtu.be/PSdxFccfgNI?...
Also, you should heat up the tea pot first to keep the water temperature hot enough for the tea leaves if you are hot brewing.
Though I guess they get angry when Americans are copying this method.
I mean honestly. Using bags full of tea dust. It's like they WANT the tea to be bad.
Hot bean juice for life.
(Also, I microwave my ☕️ water. Sue me)
Is this correct? Because lots of people think you mean to make it in the kettle in which you boiled the water on the stove.
But since most Americans don't have, need, or want a kettle to make tea like 3 times a year, microwaves are fine
from room temperature to boiling in 2 minutes 🫖
Myself, I drink half a gallon, or more, of brewed ice tea.
The joys of IT life.
These same offices, oddly, have Keurig machines. The most expensive way to have a cup of ANYTHING. Might as well add a Sodastream.
Every. Single. One.
I'm an American. You would think we would have free Coke and Pepsi for all employees because diabetes be damned. It's the American way. We don't though. Water usually is a privilege.
This is why I have a 50oz thermos I take to work.
Is it? And why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob7V_WtAVg
YMMV, some tea taste awful when cold brewed, some meh, some actually not bad. But you need much longer to do so.
Here's a vid showing why (at about 5:30) with a full explanation from someone better at it than me
Luckily it missed my hands, but it was really weird.
Adding a small wooden stirrer or chopstick will help by adding nucleation sites and prevent it exploding :)
Then i stir it juuust right to get the juices out of the bag so the tea won't taste like water! And you got yourself a juicy tea that is sweet and won't fail you :3
(*as opposed to what? I drink my weight in orange-pekoe iced tea, when supply permits. unsweetened.)
Maybe it's so far too the right it didn't fit on the scale.
(Seriously: There's a video tape of George Orwell in the Spanish Civil War telling the camera his preferred way to make tea, and IIRC, he notes that he prefers to put the milk in the cup first.)
*splash*
This was the answer I was given when asked why the milk was in first, in a tone that indicated I was an utter idiot for asking.
Class is behind things like pale skin vs tan, wood floors vs carpet (at different times, once one was harder to achieve).
FUCK/ is this mon-stros-i-ty?
I...I...I...[Speechless]
How the heck are you still alive?
and wtf is "Powdered instant tea"?... it even sounds revolting.
Nobody in the UK drinks from the hot tap.
M'bout ready to hide a water dispenser at the back of a closet.
Nobody uses them to brew or cook things.
Most British tea is boiled anyway though, so I think the brits are just silly about microwaves.
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Making tea any way but you're British
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Murdering the King personally
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Making tea any way but you're American
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I think the first one is meant to be boiling the water in a kettle, steeping the tea in a teapot, for contrast.
I’ve known very smart Americans be unsure what kettles are. One even pointing at mine and asking “woah, is that a pitcher with a built in hot plate?”
However, if "making it in a kettle" means steeping it in the kettle, I think that's way worse.
There is no third way.
(Brits call Sprite "lemonade")
It's Glizzys with extra glizz sauce.
The chili only barely masks the texture of the paper.
Not the worst thing i've eaten though. I'd says a 4/10.
(traditionally, this is only 100 suns, but with the 10th anniversary and all I figured I'd keep with the theme.)
Man I miss him.
Use this to annoy your favorite Brit.
Oh and how are you doing going through life with two heads? (looking at your name there)
On the other hand, my household only recently replaced an open vented cylinder without automated anything, so 🤷
I don't like getting my water boiling kettle contaminated with tea.
I bet that annoys some British people.
To make a perfect cuppa:
1) Use good quality tea bags (In Ireland we use Barry's or Lyons)
2) have a nice teapot and leave the patina from prior brews alone!
3) Boil water. Just before it boils pour some into teapot and swish around, then dump into sink.
(1/2)
5) As soon as water is boiled pour water into tea pot. Stir well and set aside for at least five minutes.
6) pour tea and add milk/sugar to taste.
You now have the perfect cup of tea!
(2/2)
The most angry way of showing that would be "Do you mind if I make my own?"
I mean, they stole them first.
that implies brits are "people" lol