(no subject)

[senoritafish]

(Warning - tea purists may be offended...)

Tea at Home:

1. Fill kettle with filtered water. Set to boil.


2. After water is boiling, add some to teapot to warm it.


3. Pour out warming water (if you are good, you'll water plants with it). Add preferred loose tea to teapot; one spoonful for each cup and one for the pot.


4. Add water to tea, allow to steep for five minutes (my father goes so far as to use a timer to the exact second; I am a filthy heathen who likes strong tea, and I've been known to let it sit for half an hour. The Australian family I once spent the holidays with referred to this brew as "poison.")


5. Pour tea into fine bone china cup, add sugar, milk or lemon if so desired.


6. Enjoy. Scones and lemon curd are nice, classical music, literature, or possibly the New York Times optional.

Tea at Work:

1. Dig box of tea bags out of bottom desk drawer.


2. Grab giant two-cups-worth mug from next to computer and head down the hall to break room.


3. If dish soap is available, wash coffee dregs from mug. Otherwise, rinse thoroughly.


4. Rip open tea bag packets and add 2 tea bags to mug since it's so huge - one will result in a dilute solution suitable only for watering your pothos.


5. Run hot water tap until glasses fog up. If glasses do not fog up, you're pressing the cold water lever; fine for your water bottle or pouring in the coffee maker, not so good for tea.


6. Peering over your now-opaque glasses, run hot water into mug, preferably directly on top of tea bag for maximum soakage.


7. Allow to steep while walking back to your desk and while you run to the mailroom and the restroom.


8. No lemon or milk available, so unless you want creamer, sip while spacing out during a conference call or analyzing fishery data trends...or procrastinating by writing an LJ entry.


9. Enjoy the astringent feeling your teeth get. Dig around again in bottom desk drawer for your toothbrush and discover you are out of toothpaste.


10. Leave tea bags in cup until finished with tea, then squeeze out and chuck in waste basket, unless your office is progressive enough to have a vermicomposter (mine isn't).

Brought to you by late afternoon Bigelow Constant Comment and Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger. Because Folgers, especially weak Folgers, is nasty.

Comments

[hoedownhick.livejournal.com]

Your posting made me laugh.

I am mainly a coffee drinker, HOWEVER....when I drink tea I like the "tea ceremony" as I call it. I have to use a teapot and tea leaves - one teapot is for herbal tea (chinese tea pot, with little mugs) the other is for "normal" tea. I have a tray, a milk jug, and a special cup/saucer that my son bought me 20 years ago.

I also have a coffee machine at home for my coffee.

WORK - now that's a completely different kettle of fish. Thank goodness I mainly work from home because the procedure there is:

coffee - always instant, we never have any milk - so have to use creamer YUK

tea - still, no milk, so the three of us use ONE teabag because we don't like it strong. DISGUSTING!

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

I drink far more coffee than tea, but sometimes tea is just better. I love teapots and have quite a few of them (I posted a few some time ago - check my tags under teapots), but so far I haven't differentiated them as to their use. It depends on the size, and how much I want to make, I guess.

We generally use a coffee maker at home, but it gave up the ghost last week, so I've using our French press. Which makes good coffee (and analogous to using a teapot), but when rushed in the morning, I'd rather not be babysitting a pot. My dad makes all of his coffee instant. I use it once in a while for what I call a "poor man's latte" where I stir it in some hot milk, with a little sugar.

As far as strong tea, I probably like it that way because I don't seem to have a very good sense of smell, so I must be overcompensating.

[kittylovedpain.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed! Tea with milk AND scones! How very British of you!

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say the latter is a far more common scenario for me than the former. ;) Scones and a fancy tea cup are generally reserved for my garden clubs annual membership tea. The nice tea cups generally stay in the china hutch because I have three rambunctious hellions who would destroy them as soon as look at them. Unintentionally, but still. And lemon is good, but in real life we use low fat milk, which is not quite as good in tea as the unadulterated stuff.

But I do like the ritual of tea in a teapot, and I have quite a collection of them - my father insists on microwaving water for tea, which makes me grind my teeth.

[kittylovedpain.livejournal.com]

I don't often use a teapot and when I do I very, very rarely use loose tea.

I drink a lot of tea and when I go abroad I'm always met with shocked faces when I ask for milk.

Microwaving water?!

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

Yep. One mug in the microwave for two minutes, more or less. Thing is, it usually doesn't boil until you put your teabag in (well, it fizzes for a bit anyway), and tea isn't supposed to be boiled. But it's quick, and he doesn't usually have the patience to wait for a kettle to boil

[kittylovedpain.livejournal.com]

We make tea with boiling water (well, as soon as the kettle boils, it's not actually boiling when it hits the tea bag but as close as). We don't put the milk in until after the water because it cools the brewing. I'm happy as long as it's warm and wet but my dad seems to know whether you've put the milk in before or after the water.

I suppose that's not actually boiling tea though...