...the Campaign for Civilised Tea Drinking.

Only in England.

/Zzzzzzzz...

That would be a tea kettle that does the shouting. You pour the hot water from the tea kettle into the tea pot.

/Just saying the song is wrong.

Fed up with being offered tea in mugs, Liz is fronting the Campaign for Civilised Tea Drinking and said: "We must preserve the custom which for centuries has been the hallmark of polite society."


"And while we're at it, let's retake India and America and give those savages what-for! Jolly good!"

/that was the most British sentence I have ever read

shivashakti: As a tea drinker, I have to agree. Putting a bag in a mug of hot water is no substitute for loose tea in a teapot.

Plus, a teabag only contains the worst quality teas - literally the powderized "tea dust" that is left over from wholesale tea sellers or tea auctions after the quality leaves have been picked away by discerning buyers. It's like drinking tea steeped from crushed dried leaves in that respect - utterly unsuited for consumption in beverage form.

/However, tea dust makes for an excellent seasoning in congee. Try it if you don't believe me.

Chinchillazilla: Fed up with being offered tea in mugs, Liz is fronting the Campaign for Civilised Tea Drinking and said: "We must preserve the custom which for centuries has been the hallmark of polite society."

Screw the Brits and their "tea traditions." They don't know the meaning of good tea. Adding milk and sugar, indeed. That's the mark of a cad.

B...b...b...but my brown Betty loves it when I teabag her...

/Yes, I keep her locked up in a cupboard.

capt.hollister: 24 comments in and only one mention of the egregious spelling confusion between "here" and "hear"

Where are you my fellow spelling Nazis ?

There were two mentions of the spelling confusion. Two. AH-ah-ah-ah.

RexTalionis: shivashakti: As a tea drinker, I have to agree. Putting a bag in a mug of hot water is no substitute for loose tea in a teapot.

Plus, a teabag only contains the worst quality teas - literally the powderized "tea dust" that is left over from wholesale tea sellers or tea auctions after the quality leaves have been picked away by discerning buyers. It's like drinking tea steeped from crushed dried leaves in that respect - utterly unsuited for consumption in beverage form.

/However, tea dust makes for an excellent seasoning in congee. Try it if you don't believe me.

Depends on what Tea you buy. Liptons or Rose or one the other big cheap brands? Yep.

But go for the higher-end stuff like Revolution or Stash, and the quality of the tea inside the bag improves dramatically. Still, nothing quite like being able to pick your own from the bag like I could when I lived in Chicago near the Coffee and Tea exchange. The leaves really do make a huge diffence to the flavor.

Brewing it in a pot as opposed to a tea ball? meh. not so much

Also if you ever find a chocolate bar infused with tea (particularly Earl grey)? Grab one. You can thank me later.

ArcadianRefugee: "We must preserve the custom which for centuries has been the hallmark of polite society."

That sentence alone is reason enough to abandon the custom.

You forget yourself, sir!

johnson442: For some reason, I don't think "Potty tea" means the same thing to us non-tea-drinkers over here.

At least i hope it doesn't mean what first came to mind when I read the first two words of the article!

"Potty tea"???

One of the reasons I used to love partying with a Plumber friend of mine. His Punchbowl at most parties was a fully functional Toilet bowl (new never used, but he didn't always tell people that) When the punch supplies started getting low-viola just flush and replenish

Magorn: But go for the higher-end stuff like Revolution or Stash, and the quality of the tea inside the bag improves dramatically. Still, nothing quite like being able to pick your own from the bag like I could when I lived in Chicago near the Coffee and Tea exchange. The leaves really do make a huge diffence to the flavor.

Again, even the higher quality tea bags are generally inferior leaves as compared to something from a tea seller's.

Magorn: Brewing it in a pot as opposed to a tea ball? meh. not so much

Well, that's why you have tea strainers. And you can use a tea ball in the pot as well. Frankly, I'm more in favor of the tea strainers because you're not supposed to leave the tea leaves in the water.

Magorn: Also if you ever find a chocolate bar infused with tea (particularly Earl grey)? Grab one. You can thank me later.

I can't say I have, although I'm not terribly fond of chocolate.

HailRobonia: RexTalionis: Plus, a teabag only contains the worst quality teas - literally the powderized "tea dust" that is left over from wholesale tea sellers or tea auctions after the quality leaves have been picked away by discerning buyers.

That is a myth.

According to Wikipedia: "A broad variety of teas, including herbal teas, are available in tea bags. Typically, tea bags use fannings, the left-overs after larger leaf pieces are gathered for sale as loose tea, but some companies such as Honest Tea sell teabags containing whole-leaf tea.[3]
[edit] Paper"

Everyone knows the best tea comes out of a replicator.

/Earl Grey
//Hot

HailRobonia: RexTalionis: HailRobonia: RexTalionis: Plus, a teabag only contains the worst quality teas - literally the powderized "tea dust" that is left over from wholesale tea sellers or tea auctions after the quality leaves have been picked away by discerning buyers.

That is a myth.

According to Wikipedia: "A broad variety of teas, including herbal teas, are available in tea bags. Typically, tea bags use fannings, the left-overs after larger leaf pieces are gathered for sale as loose tea, but some companies such as Honest Tea sell teabags containing whole-leaf tea.[3]
[edit] Paper"

Most large-scale tea companies find the demand for bagged tea outstrips the supply of fannings. They find it more economical to just pulverize regular tea.

Even so, pulverizing regular tea ruins it. It now steeps differently as a powder than it would as a leaf.

As much as I love teapots (I have six or seven despite a pressing lack of space) this sort of nostalgic bunkum makes me want to revive another old custom.

Shouting "Get a horse!" at stupid people. I mean really. The teapot is obsolete from a practical point of view. You can boil the water right in a vessel as varied and elegant as any modern teapot. It is called an electric kettle. Or you can put the tea pot right on the burner. It can easily be made fire-proof and shatter proof, although the glass is as thin and delicate as those tiny porcelain cups as thin and translucent as flower petals.

Teapots are definitely one of the many things I would collect if I dared collect any more things. I love novelty pots, classic pots, elegant pots, mod pots, one-cup pots, silver, china, ceramic, clay and iron pots. I would own hundreds of them if I only had the shelf space. And yet I think it is largely snobbery and delusion that makes people sneer at teabags. True, many companies put inferior tea in their tea bags (flannings, which are basically composed of tea dust, floor sweepings, twigs, and damaged leaves). But many do not. There's no reason why the tea in bags should be inferior to the loose tea, or that they should become stale by not being sealed in an air-tight box.

It's also true that there is more elegance to full leaf teas such as gunpowder teas or tea flowers, and that loose tea infuses better, but I doubt if most of us could taste the difference and you can always slosh the teabag gently. I don't think there is a reliable or measurable difference in the infusion of a good tea bag and good loose tea.

As for infusion, some people like weak tea--I mean homeopathic infusions, barely tea at all--and some like a cup the will take the rust off of nails. It is a matter of habit and taste. Since it is a matter of personal preference whether the tea is a faint as a politician's promise or as tannic as a tannery, it can only be a matter of personal preference whether you make tea with bags or loose tea or whole leaves or those tea flowers.

After adding milk and sugar or worse yet, sugar and cream, you're not drinking tea any more any way.

I formed the habit of drinking my tea black from the get go. I don't mind a bit of lemon, but it only takes a couple of drops--any more and you are drinking lemonade. A few sprigs of lemon zest would do the job. The idea of pouring nearly boiling water on leaves and then adding the excretions of cow mammaries and the sap of cane or beets seems rather odd to me. I don't much care for the taste of the milk, either.

I don't care for milk as a beverage, although I can drink it if I must.

I suspect that most tea drinkers don't need a teapot any more than they need to make lie, card wool, make their own candles, or shovel out the horse stall every day. Screw teapots if you are happy with a mug of tea that's ready in under five minutes from turning on the tea kettle (or stove top burner).

In Canada we have electric kettles that boil just the right amount of water, from one tiny cup to two litres, and are thus very energy efficient. In France they have glass coffee pots that explode if you turn the heat up half way. French burners are exceptionally hot. I don't know why. They have no concept of heat-proof Pyrex dishes for the most part, and we had to boil the water in a metal pot.

I've had tea made in a tin can over a fire, but this is not optimal, although in the woods it is very good strong tea and tastes great, especially when there is snow about. I am astonished that the idea of an electric kettle has taken so long to occur to the British (they still haven't grasped it totally). You can boil water anywhere there is an electrical outlet, surely a Good Thing, and it saves electricity, something which the British do with a fanaticism that borders on insanity due to the high cost of their electricity and the inadequacy of their wiring.

karnal: The Tea Party Movement works in mysterious ways.

It's pronounced "Tea Potty". Like Nazi is pronounced "Nutsy".