Fun:Tea

A Rosy Lee.

Tea is, of course, the lifeblood of the gods, and soul of the British nation despite their Irish neighbors drinking more per capita, Paraguay drinking the most in the world, and tea having a much richer history and culture in Asia with origins in China as well as the Russian nation. Japan is also known to like tea.

The Americans hated tea so much that they dumped it into an ocean bay river harbour harbor just to get rid of it. The king was so incensed at their lack of good taste that he sent an army to remind the colonists all about tea drinking. The rebellious colonials won kicked ass (with a lot of help from the French) and to this day rely on coffee as their primary source of caffeine.^{[citation NOT needed]}

How to make a nice cup of tea

The Royal Society of Chemistry recently came up with a definitive recipe for the perfect cup of tea. Loose leaf Assam tea should be used (teabags don't allow the flavour to circulate properly). Soft water should be drawn into the kettle and boiled. Never re-boil old water as this drives out too much dissolved oxygen, essential for some of the chemical processes involved. While waiting for this, microwave a teapot, containing a quarter of a cup of water, on full power for a minute.

British tea for one

1. Pour water into a kettle, then heat it over the stove in a nineteenth-century British house.
2. While the kettle is boiling, add the preferred amounts of sugar to the cup using a standard British teaspoon. Make sure the sugar is added to the mug in which the tea is later to be poured into. The maximum recommended number of teaspoons of sugar to add to the cup is three. Three is the maximum number recommended, and the maximum recommended number of teaspoons of sugar for one cup of tea is three. Four teaspoons of sugar is right out - and this amount should not be added to the tea under any circumstances for risks to one's health. One or two teaspoons of sugar are acceptable, and if one was so inclined, one may proceed to add an extra teaspoon of sugar to the cup, to make the total number of teaspoons of sugar in the mug three. Sugar in tea is a vile abomination and all those who practice this should be hung by the ankles until they have had enough! In the wise words of Orwell, "To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again."
3. Once the kettle has boiled, pour a small amount of water from the kettle into the teapot and use it to warm the pot.
4. Throw the water in the teapot away and re-boil the kettle to ensure the water is boiling.
5. Add a teabag to the teapot and pour the freshly-boiled water over it. Leave for at least two minutes.
6. While the boiling water is mixing with the teabag, take up to three biscuits - digestives are acceptable while chocolate Hobnobs are preferable - and place them on a plate in a nice triangular pattern - ensure that this is done within the two minute gap as the tea mixes with the water.
7. Pour the tea from the teapot gently into the mug. Make sure to not overfill the mug and to leave room for milk.
8. Add the desired amount of milk to the cup from a freshly milked goat - make sure the milk is taken directly from the goat's udder and milked into the cup of tea. (What? What's wrong with that???)
9. Make sure to change one's footwear to a nice pair of Burberry slippers, and then proceed to the living area and sit in a reclining armchair while reading The Telegraph or listening to anything by Liszt. DO NOT EVER attempt reading The Telegraph and listening to anything by Liszt simultaneously, as doing so will cause a paradox, triggering a set of chain reactions which destroy the entire universe. Of course, that would be the worst case scenario...

Top tip Dunking your toast in your tea makes for a lovely accompaniment, providing your toast is buttery.

If you're feeling very rigorous, there's actually an ISO Standard for brewing tea, pioneered by the British. We swear we are not making this up: the British Standards Institution was awarded the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for it. Not to be outdone, in 2003 the Royal Society of Chemistry published their own news release titled "How to make a Perfect Cup of Tea."

Teabag-less tea

1. Place one rounded teaspoon of tea per cup into pot.
2. Take the pot to the kettle as it is boiling, preferably filling the kettle with water first. George Orwell recommends that the kettle should still be on the gas flame while pouring (what, didn't they have electric kettles back then?), pour on to the leaves and stir, leaving the tea to brew for three minutes.
3. Pour milkthe tea into a ceramic mug, followed by the teamilk, aiming to achieve a colour that is rich and attractive.
4. Add sugar to taste. Orwell was against this, sarcastically noting that "it would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt". It is of note that the only proper way to consume tea is untainted.
5. Drink at 60-65 ºC, to avoid any vulgar slurping which results from trying to drink it too hot.
6. To gain optimum ambiance for enjoyment of tea aim to achieve a seated drinking position in a favoured home spot where quietness and calm will elevate the moment.

Canadian tea for one (or you and your buddies)

1. Run tap for a while so it's nice and cold, eh?
2. Pour into electric kettle (might swish it first to get rid of any loose flakes of lime or whatever-it-is that makes water hard) or pour water into mug(s) or glass stein(s) and heat on full blast in the microwave.
3. If using a microwave, take it out every 45 to 75 seconds to stir, lest you get splashed with super-heated water—but it's good water for tea, eh?
4. Fuck putting in milk, cream, or sugar first. You want to calibrate it, eh? (Yeah, I know what frikin' George Orwell said about sugar, but he had the good stuff.)
5. Swish the mug(s) or stein(s) with hot water if using a kettle. Toss in teabag(s): Tetley, Red Rose, Salada, Galway, King Cole, maybe PC, or some of the discount Indian tea. Avoid the Selection brand unless you have no other and are really hard up, eh?
6. Let it steep for 3 to 15 minutes.
7. Put enough sugar, milk, or cream to kill the taste of the excess tannic acids because you let it steep too long, as well as for that pleasant sugar rush.
8. Might want something to eat with it, eh? Toast, cookies, cake, pie, doughnuts, whatever. Digestives are okay if you're into that sort of thing. Also good with fruits like bananas, old carrot sticks, and spicy food.
9. Go outside if you want. Don't worry about what to do with the mug or stein when you're done. It ain't frikin' fine china, and it's thus easy to replace. Just stash it somewhere close, like a tree branch stub, or put into your bag, or maybe even coat pocket, eh?
10. Don't give rose-hip tea to your cabin mate unless for the duration of the teatime you want to hear him yammer on about how shitty it is and that it's the worst tea he ever tasted.
11. Mint tea is good with honey.

American tea for a par-tea

1. Obtain several hundred crates of tea, preferably in a ship on a body of water
2. Get as many of your buddies to dress up as Indians as possible
3. Dump the tea into said body of water
4. Go to the store
5. Buy a fucking Snapple or drink instant (coffee)

American sweet tea for one

1. Boil the damned water
2. Brew some patriotic black tea, presumably bagged
3. Add the patriotic cane sugar, max weight ratio of 1:4 to tea
4. Cool the brew or ice it until almost frozen
5. Share with family or Bible study group, hold on to it dearly because it is as important as a rifle or a Bible today

Southern American tea for one

1. Make some tea
2. Sweeten it with enough sugar to give diabetics a heart attack if they find out how much is in it. (Some lemon juice would also be nice; alternately, just add lemon slices indiscriminately.)
3. Just a dash more sugar.
4. Put enough ice in it to make it cold. It has to be iced.
5. Drink the tea. You may have to call Liberty Medical if you get diabeetus if you didn't have it already.

ALTERNATIVELY

1. put eight cheap-ass tea bags in 32 oz of water, nuke in microwave for five minutes
2. Let steep for forty minutes or longer. Basically as long as you want
3. Pour two cups of sugar into 1 gallon container.
4. Pour tea on top of sugar, squeeze teabags over it, dispose of them ecologically.
5. Begin running water into the 1 gallon contain, stirring the entire time to help dissolve the sugar, until you have filled the container.
6. Put container in the fridge and leave it in there over night, until it is cold enough to not need ice. You're in the south, watering down drinks is for pansies.
7. Drink, but share with everyone who comes into the house.

Western American tea for one

1. Heat the water however you like, but don't boil.
2. Stick in a teabag. Steep as long as you like.
3. Before removing the teabag, dip it a few times to make sure you're gettin' all the good stuff out of it.
4. Add sugar if you must, but milk in tea is just wrong. Besides, if you get used to putting either of these in your tea you may slip up at a Chinese restaurant and get nasty looks from the staff.
5. Squeeze out the teabag into the mug and discard it. Enjoy.

Builder's tea for one

Since the unveiling of the Welfare State in post-WWII Britain, the traditional British method of making tea was seen as far too elitist for this new, more socialist era. The answer was Builder's tea which, with its more egalitarian flair, soon usurped the old tradition of British tea. It is made thusly:

1. Boil kettle (ensuring the element is sufficiently furred with limescale).
2. Whilst kettle is boiling, place a teabag and sugar to taste into a ceramic mug. Please ensure it is a sturdy, tea stained mug with some dodgy slogan on the side, eg. World's best Dad or I heart London. DO NOT use a delicate bone china teacup unless you are Hyacinth Bucket.
3. Eat a biscuit while waiting for kettle to boil.
4. Once boiled, pour water into mug.
5. Leave for a minute, squeeze and then deposit into sink the teabag, add milk and stir with 6-inch nail. Perfect builder's tea.

Step 5 may be replaced with "leave for ten minutes or until the spoon dissolves."

Builder's tea for many

1. Boil large kettle, stock pot or galvanised bucket (Cement residue in bucket won't hurt you. It's full of calcium which is an essential mineral).
2. Whilst large kettle, stock pot or galvanised bucket (The zinc won't hurt you... It's an essential mineral... Probably) is boiling add 20 tea bags, 1 pound of sugar, one pint of milk (or large can of condensed milk).
3. Boil vigorously for ten minutes.
4. Send labourer to Cooplands or Greggs for sausage rolls.
5. Enjoy.

Laboratory technician's tea for one

1. Shake 1½-2 oz. 40-60 g loose tea into a 1L stainless-steel beaker. Fill with water.
2. Place on a tripod over a Bunsen burner and bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat and leave to simmer.
3. When in need of refreshment, strain through a fine-mesh laboratory sieve into a mug. Serve with sterilised milk ("stera") and sugar. (Note: no need to go overboard with the sugar - there's no known way of disguising the taste of the decoction.)
4. If needed, top up the beaker with more water and return to the boil.
5. At the end of the working day, discard the tealeaves and rinse the beaker with water. Never, ever, disturb the tannin coating: it protects the metal from attack.

It is good manners to offer a mugful to unwary visitors.

Herbal tea

Herbal tea (or Urbal tea if you're American) is somewhat of an oxymoron. The more accurate term would be "herbal infusion", but nobody calls it that.

Tea is made out of tea hence the name. Foul tasting concoctions of twigs, roots and goat droppings are properly known as infusions or "Jesus H Christ! What the fuck's this shite?". Although Good Earth does make a fantastic herbal tea infusion — just don't follow the instructions on the packet. Rather than removing it before 3 minutes to avoid making it "bitter", let it sit until it gets cold. That'll give you a mug of absolute eye-popping cinnamon & allspice goodness.

Communists like herbal tea because proper tea is theft.

Tea in Japan

The Japanese take tea very, very seriously. There's a whole Japanese tea ceremony over there and everything.

This raises the all-important question: Who is more serious about tea, the British or the Japanese?

Tea for religious purposes

For a considerably less relaxing experience, make tea with crushed psilocybin mushrooms and squeegee your third fuckin' eye.

Tea for nonreligious purposes

People who don't like tea are called ateaists.

In popular culture/real life

• Tea is sodding important in Britain, and is one of the cornerstones of British society. Ask any of the British editors here about tea and you will observe a love for it which borders on the erotic. (NOTE: there are exceptions)
• In the popular Irish sitcom "Father Ted", the housemaid, Mrs Doyle, was a strong proponent of tea-drinking, and often asked the protagonists several times in one episode if they would like a cup of tea, and when refused, she would reply with "Ah, go on!" until they concurred. This was taken to the extreme in one episode, when a guest in the parochial house was playing music so loud that voices could not be heard, and Mrs Doyle showed the guest signs which said "Cup of Tea?" followed by several signs afterwards reading "Ah, go on!". She also insisted on making a cuppa for a delivery man who stated that he had a lethal allergy to tea. She also apparently believed that it should always be made by a person as, when she was given a tea-making machine as a Christmas present, she brutally murdered it with a screwdriver in the dead of night.
• Tea in Britain is generally of the black variety. Drinking Green or White tea will cause others to question your sexual orientation. Worse yet, they may see the green tea and start talking woo at you.
• Despite the British obsession with tea, many some entirely imaginary migrants to America may be heard to opine that the American varieties are of superior quality, to the point that many quite a few some one no Brits will go to the trouble of having their tea shipped in from American manufacturers if and when they go back home.
• Prior to World War II, Americans mostly drank green tea. Since the Japanese occupied places where green tea was produced, Americans started drinking black tea from British India and developed a taste for that instead.
• The steampunk-themed rapper Professor Elemental has rapped about tea in great detail.
• The song “T.U.S.A.” from Masters Of Reality's 1992 album Sunrise On The Sufferbus is an extended rant by drummer Ginger Baker on how Americans can’t make tea. Given Baker’s reputation for, ah, volatility the rest of the band – Americans to a man – probably decided it was safer just to let him get on with it.

The Big Three of Tea

According to some survey I can't be bothered to find, the British actually come in third in terms of 'most tea drunk per head' globally, behind Turkey and Ireland. Which just goes to show that this country is going to the dogs, why oh why oh why, must write a letter to the editor, faww faww fafaaw faw.

Too long, didn't read

You may choose to watch the movie instead.

Tired of laughing? RationalWiki has a slightly more serious article about Caffeine.

See also

• Tea Party movement, which nearly single-handedly ruined the act of drinking tea in the modern-day United States.
• Russell's Teapot
• Teabagging

External links

• A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell
• Royal Society of Chemistry pdf on tea making
• Douglas Adams on tea making
• Christopher Hitchens tells Americans how to make a cup of tea (the way he likes)
• Drink Tea (for the Love of G-d!) - Kula Shaker's Hymn to Tea.
• Fuckin tea
• The Russian Tea HOWTO, By Daniel Nagy (exquisitely detailed instructions on making the hacker's more refined alternative to Mountain Dew)
• Professor Elemental has the proper attitude.