Tea making: Milk first or after!!

[artyboy]

Right then, I want to started a heated debate!!

So I make my tea by letting putting a tea bag then boiling water leaving it for a minute or two and then I put a drip of milk in it.

So people think for have to put the milk first which I think is totally stupid!

So what do you think?

[Chase]

I have a friend from India who makes the best tea I've had, and he always brewed it in the milk. I could never replicate it, but I try following a recipe when making masala chai, and if the recipe says add milk first, I'll do it.

For earl grey, I usually add it last.

I heard the milk helps prevent a nice kettle from getting stained, and I heard it might help prevent staining teeth, but I'm not a dentist so don't take my word on it

[InbetweenDreams]

@artyboy So what is the difference between adding milk before or after? I'm not much a tea drinker, but I do drink coffee lol

[Cridders88]

Not a fan of tea. When I make Coffee, I always put in the milk in last. I guess because it is easier to gauge the milk/water ratio that way?

[LONDONER]

Right then, I want to started a heated debate!!

So I make my tea by letting putting a tea bag then boiling water leaving it for a minute or two and then I put a drip of milk in it.

So people think for have to put the milk first which I think is totally stupid!

So what do you think?

To understand why milk is put in tea at all, one has to know a little history.

When tea was introduced in the the UK, it was imported from China and consequently, incredibly expensive, as was the porcelain cups that it was drnk from.  Porcelain was not only expensive but also very delicate, so much so that it could crack if subjected to sudden heat.  To prevent damage to the cups, milk was added first to enable the tea to cool a little.  The milk had nothing to do with how the tea tasted.  Nowdays people still add milk to their tea without actuall knowing why.  What we drink from is made of much hardier stuff than the original Chinese porcelain.

Personally, I drink lapsang suchong tea and it would never enter my mind to add mlk.

[InbetweenDreams]

@LONDONER I already knew that! I'm kidding, I didn't, but that is pretty interesting. I suppose milk might have been more readily available than water at the time?

[LONDONER]

@LONDONER I already knew that! I'm kidding, I didn't, but that is pretty interesting. I suppose milk might have been more readily available than water at the time?

Water, probably very unhealthy water, would have been more readily available than milk, especially in big cities.  When I say "very unhealthy water" I'm referring back to the mid 1850s when thousands of people died from cholera due to the unhealthy water.  It was only after Joseph William Bazalgette consructed a new sewerage system that London became free of the recurring bouts of the disease that in one year killed over 14,000 people.  Bazalgettes work was more or less prompted by The Great Stink of 1858 when Parliament couldn't be held because the Thames was so pulluted, filled with human excrement and indusrial waste, that work on the new sewer system was authorised.

[Tjemka88]

Adding milk to tea or coffee is weird to me. A different culture, I guess.

[Insertnamehere]

Never heard about putting the milk first, but hey, people can do whatever makes them happy as long they do no harm to others.

I love tea and everything (As in, maybe 1-1.5 L a day) but I have never in my life liked it with milk. My mother, however, does. We would always brew the tea in a separate pot for the family (and visits) and then anyone can have their tea however they like it. Tea water, tea mud, tea with milk, all the etc.

Coffee is the same for me, whenever I'm not asking someone to inject it directly to my veins, it's the concentrated shit first and then the milk (because coffee and milk, yes, so much yes). But, hey, I'm not exactly drinking coffee all that much and I mean 1 time in the last 2 months.

These days is all about the gallons of tea and then some post-lunch mate, man.

[InbetweenDreams]

@Insertnamehere I've kind of became somewhat of a coffee snob and I don't mean going to Starbucks asking for a crazy order. I like roasting my own coffee, dark to Italian roast. After the coffee sits about 24-48 hours after roast is the best. Milk/creamer sort of takes the bitter out letting you taste the bean a little but (of course you can go overboard with the creamer), at least that's my take. Of course I drink it plain a lot too, as I don't always have creamer at work. I've got my boss addicted to my coffee now, to the point where he pitches in some money occasionally. I guess to ensure I keep bringing some in lol.

It's simple to roast....but time consuming since I am only able to do small batches at a time, but way better than the stuff they sell at the store. I got a small roaster, a camp grill and as long as it isn't freezing I sit outside and roast it. You don't need a fancy coffee bean, just unroasted. I've been buying coffee from Smokin' Beans Coffee Co.