From the experts comes this advice on how to make a perfect cup of tea.
Yorkshire Tea reveals how to make the perfect cuppa
I don’t know how to do that many things well — but when it comes to making tea, I do it perfectly.
From an early age, I used to make my mom a night-time cuppa, brewed in a small teapot, which I would take up to her bedroom for her to drink in bed before she said her prayers and went to sleep. I did it every night for years until I went to boarding school, and even then I’d do it for her during school holidays, right up until I moved out of home.
I have, in short, brewed thousands of cups of tea in my lifetime.
New Wife drinks tea, upwards of six cups a day where possible, and she says that indeed, I make the best tea she’s ever had. (She drinks Yorkshire Gold, by the way. I turned her onto it before we got married, and now it’s all she drinks.)
Just for the record, I make her tea precisely the way that Yorkshire Tea says it should be made, with one small addition: I first warm her cup with hot water while the water is boiling before emptying it and putting the teabag in, then pouring the boiling water over the teabag. (The tea brews more quickly that way.)
And before anyone gets on my case about teabags vs. loose tea: with YG, there is no difference in taste between the two — yes, I did a blind taste test with New Wife, who couldn’t tell the difference. (And if she can’t, nobody can.)
Finally: I’m a Tiffy. Always have been, because putting the milk in after the tea has brewed is the only way to bring the tea to the desired color / strength. Some people like it brown, others lighter. My kids — also devoted tea drinkers — prefer it strongly-brewed but paler (D1 in the chart below), with sugar, while New Wife prefers it to be medium strength and a sort of tan color (C3) with no sugar. It’s an art.
Like I said, this is important stuff.
