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Tuesday 4 November 2008

Make a better cup of tea

If you are doing any of these things, you could improve. Remember, making a good cup of tea could be the key to making friends, finding a lifelong partner, or getting a promotion by impressing your boss. Well, it would at least impress me. A bad cup of tea is a terrible thing.

Firstly, don't use Lipton. Lipton is BAD. No, that's wrong, Lipton is REALLY BAD. In general, Unilever makes good things like Lynx (also called Axe) deodorant, Flora margarine and Domestos bleach, but Lipton is an exception. It is NASTY. If you are ever given Lipton tea, get some food to take away the taste. It doesn't taste of much, but what little there is, is the bitter horrible part of normal tea and should never ever be given under the pretence of serving tea.

Secondly, use the correct temperature water. Normally this means boiling. For God's sake, don't pour some 80 degree water into a cup, wait a bit, add the teabag, wait a bit more, and take out the bag. You have to give it some kind of chance to infuse a bit. Black tea infuses best at boiling temperature, and unless you want to spend the next few minutes stirring, you need to put the teabag in before the water.

Green tea is a different story. Add 75 degree water and infuse it for 3 minutes. Many people say they find green tea very bitter, but it is only bitter if it's stewed for much longer than it should be or if boiling water is found.

Keep an eye on your tea. Tea brewed for 2 minutes tastes very different to that brewed for 5. So don't just forget it. For the few minutes that you are making tea, the tea should be your main concern, because people really notice when you make a really good cup of tea. Even people who don't drink tea that often can tell if the tea you are making has been cared for.

To make it really good, use a pot and loose leaf tea. It tastes better to anyone and everyone who has ever had tea before. So do these things if you really want to impress someone. Oh, and one last thing... NEVER EVER SERVE A CUP OF LIPTON TEA TO ANYONE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS IT IS AN ABSOLUTE TEA-MERGENCY

2 comments:

Rachel said...

Agreed on all points except - Lynx/Axe is not a good thing! :-O

Sorry I haven't replied to your last couple of texts, I lost my purse at the weekend and have no phone credit, no money, no card and no internet banking. Argh. But I'm in Cambridge now and living at PodTower so you can send my letter there, hooray! Hope you've been well and House is as good as it should be :D

Anonymous said...

john, you make me laugh. my housemates have been informed of your advice, and i feel that their chances of making friends, finding a lifelong partner and getting a promotion really have improved significantly. if you were an agony uncle that would be fuuu...neeee :-) lots of love dude