A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell (1946) | Hacker News Reader

A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell (1946)

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45 pointsTomte42 comments

I'm a coffee drinker. For some reason, waiters and baristas look at me funny and ask if I'm really sure when I say I don't want anything in my coffee. Apparently there aren't any other black coffee drinkers left in the world. So I've taken to telling them I want my coffee to match my soul: "black and bitter". This tends to get the point across that I'm serious when apparently "no, no cream or sugar, I just want black coffee" isn't enough.

That's actually not entirely correct. I hate west-coast style coffee, popularized by the likes of Starbucks. They burn the shit out of their beans, leaving no bean taste, replacing it with nothing but carbon black, and destroying most of the caffeine. I like a light roast coffee with no adornments. It's still bitter, but not unbearably so, and I would wager most people who drink coffee with cream would probably drink a well-made light-roast without cream at all, and it is also richly flavorful in many other ways, while providing the an excellent kick.

But I also drink sub-optimal coffee straight, too. Who has time to screw around with titrations?

I have not been a fan of tea because what I had experienced (even that provided by aficionados here in the states) had been woefully bland. It mostly tasted like hot water, with a slight floral taste, that ultimately reminded me too much of dishwater.

But on a recent vacation in Ireland, my wife insisted we "take tea" one day. First of all, coupling something with a smorgasbord of snacks is a brilliant way to get me to try anything new. But more importantly, the place we were at had given us twice as much leaf as anyone I had ever seen, apparently with the intention that the drinker would choose their own steeping time. I left mine in the entire time and found that I enjoyed it more and more as it steeped. My favorite was nearly indistinguishable from coffee in both color, bitterness, and caffeine kick.

So there we have it. I had given up on tea for 20 years of my life because most people who pick up tea in the states do it because they are too weak of spirit to handle coffee, not because of any inherent problem in tea itself.

I enjoy your mention of strength of spirit, because I rather feel that people who drink coffee are too weak of spirit to handle espresso :-)

Give me a few shots of straight, black espresso. Perhaps with a little whipped cream on top if I'm in the mood. Very easy to make quality espresso in the home with modern pre-ground capsule machines.

If you also like coffee black, I recommend giving espresso a try. Unfortunately there is quite a lot of variation in what coffee houses serve. Some indie shops serve espresso that is extremely bitter and not smooth; in my opinion these are not well made. I usually prefer the espresso made by larger chains or capsule machines. It is heavy on industrial consistency and quality control, with less emphasis on artistry (more relevant in mixed espresso drinks). Good espresso by my taste is strong and smooth, and only very marginally bitter, and at that only as an after taste.

Oh yes, I love a good espresso, but you are right, some shops either burn the beans or over extract and make it far too bitter.

I've recently come to see the light regarding light roasts, too. Tastes more like coffee and less like bitter.

But the other comment about tea, they're right. Tea in bags is hardly fit for making sweet iced tea. A hot cup of black tea requires loose leaf stuff from outside the US. And it's quite good. Not sure it beats coffee, but it's a lot closer than Lipton would have us believe.

You can get strong, flavorful tea, just not in bags. If you steep your own loose leaf tea, you can make it as strong as coffee with nearly as much caffeine. Unfortunately loose leaf is more expensive.

And I agree, both coffee and tea are better without additives.

it's a shame for such a distinguished person to make such an amateur mistake - point 10 is indeed answerable:

1. people who put the milk in first have become adept at adding exactly the right amount of milk to a cup of any size. It's a ubiquitous skill, learnt virtually as soon as the person begins drinking tea in this (proper) way. Orwell was clearly inexperienced.

2. adding the milk last requires simultaneous stirring to correctly assess the tea's consistency. This wasteful and complicated activity is not required when the milk is added first, as the milk is evenly mixed with the tea by the pouring process itself. This saves considerable time.

3. adding the milk to an already boiling cup of tea burns the milk, ruining the flavour of the tea.

However, a true tea lover would never soil their tea by adding milk in the first place.

The French upper class were the first to popularise the idea of adding milk to tea. This was back in the days of Napoleon and fine china, as in from China, was new too.

The reason for adding the milk first was to protect their finest quality china from cracking due to the heat of the tea (the teapots were metal, e.g pewter around that time too).

So, the origins of the milk first idea are deeply rooted in history. If you are drinking tea in 18th century fine china tea cups handed down from your aristocratic French ancestors, then you might not want to experiment with the tea first technique, however, if you drink tea out of a mug then consider the benefits of tea first.

As for whether 'tea first' needs a stir, the answer is not yes. There are convection currents inside the cup that will stir the milk in for you. A helping stir does help but is not always necessary particularly if the tea has cooled too much.

> 3. adding the milk to an already boiling cup of tea burns the milk, ruining the flavour of the tea.

No. The tea has to infuse in the teapot before pouring. Therefore it is not boiling by the time it gets to the cup and the milk can't be 'ruined'.

Unless you are using tea bags, teabags are an excellent innovation, personally I prefer single cup tea bags, tea made in cup with none of the paraphernalia of the pot. If you want a sharp cup of tea with no bitter taste an average teabag in cup with boiling water and no milk yet will work perfectly. No need for lengthy infusion time, add milk, get colour right, squeeze and remove bag, sharp cuppa made.

Orwell gets it wrong regarding the matter of drawing fresh water. Most water contains things that lead to limescale. It is important to draw fresh water so that limescale does not build up in the kettle. Dissolved oxygen levels is cited by some as important, theoretically you are boiling the oxygen out of the water too much if you reboil rather than draw fresh. This sort of makes sense and 'experts' say it makes sense but I have not tested this myself or seen a scientific paper explaining how this works.

A final detail: unpasteurised, fresh milk. Tea made with this 'forbidden fruit' is far better than when made with normal milk. The difference is hard to describe, but, to give you an idea it is like the difference between listening to traffic noise on the edge of a motorway and listening to Handel's 'Zadok the Priest' being sung by a choir in Westminster Abbey.

One can become just as adept at stirring the correct number of times. Its a ubiquitous skill too.

Also, this myth about 'burning the milk' - I get my latte at 180 degrees, and the milk is not 'scalded' or 'burned' or any other thing - its just fine.

To make coffee, you need water just below boiling. Commercial brewers are set at about 200 degrees. To make a proper pot of tea, you need boiling water.

I suppose there is a prescribed direction of stirring?

This depends entirely on which hemisphere said tea-maker is located.

North/South or East/West?

The milk in a latte is typically gradually heated to its temperature, whereas when cold milk is added to hot tea, it changes temperature rapidly. This causes the Maillard Reaction, fundamentally changing its flavour. This is like the difference between cooking a steak at immediately high temperature vs gradually increasing temperature. Same resulting temperature but one is delicious and the other is brown and floppy.

0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

Did you actually read the link you provided? The Maillard reaction doesn't appear to be relevent to milk and tea combining at the sub-boiling temperatures discussed. Unless you have another source that actually supports your statement?

Yes, I read it - I was rather hoping no one else would, it seemed just about plausible enough to be convincing.

Refreshing candor.

This is a religious matter and as such no tactics are off limits. Tea first is wrong.

That article has a lot of details without actually describing how the reaction is achieved. You say its by rapid heating instead of gradual heating. So a latte is safe. Have to get the word out to barristas nationwide, since I have to explain to every one that nothing bad is going to happen to my latte.

It seems, at least according to one double blind study[1], that there's not actually a noticeable difference in taste.

[1]: http://tomstafford.staff.shef.ac.uk/teatastetest/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea

"David Salsburg[5] reports that a colleague of Fisher, H. Fairfield Smith, revealed that in the test, the woman got all eight cups correct.[6] The chance of someone who just guesses getting all correct, assuming she guesses that four had the tea put in first and four the milk, would be only 1 in 70 (the combinations of 8 taken 4 at a time)."

The Sheffield study was inspired by Fisher's early experiment. I don't think a single study performed in 1935 with a single participant provides indisputable proof though, especially given that a later study with 94 participants and more rigorous statistical and experimental methods found no clear difference. It's hard to guess now what factors lead to the lady correctly guessing all 8 cups - perhaps the experiment was poorly designed, perhaps she had exceptional tasting skills, or perhaps it was truly chance (1 in 70 isn't actually exceptionally low odds).

The reason to put in milk afterwards: only then can you marvel at the swirling clouds of milk slowly dissolving in the tea. I don't think extra stirring is necessary. If you are fast enough, there will still be enough motion in the tea from pouring it.

Also, the Royal Society of Chemistry: http://www.rsc.org/pdf/pressoffice/2003/tea.pdf

I particularly agree with this suggestion:

> For best results carry a heavy bag of shopping or walk the dog in cold, driving rain for at least half an hour beforehand.

I personally follow the ISO 3103 standard when I'm brewing tea.

As a collector of knowledge of limited utility and a lover of various kinds of tea you have just made my day.

I'm totally going to start telling people I use the ISO 3103 standard for my tea preparation.

And here I was, thinking that the ISO Standard Cup of Tea from the Jargon File was just a joke.

I hope you're drinking black tea. ISO 3103 ruins most oolongs and just about all greens. :(

Great, now I'll have to check the volume of my cups.

It's so curious that in the UK there is no notion of time when brewing tea. In Germany you are supposed to remove the tea leaves after 3 minutes. Or if you keep them longer, the tea will change its nature from being wakening to being tiring. (Actually times vary a bit depending on the tea - green tea is usually shorter). Eventually the tea will get bitter if the leaves are left in the water.

In the UK, tea should be brewed for 6 minutes (see BS 6008:1980). :-)

Wow, you weren't kidding: http://skippy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/BS6008-1980-Preparat...

My Chinese co-worker introduced me to Iron Goddess of Mercy oolong tea, and it is incredible. Most of Orwell's points are still relevant, but the water is cooler and milk is not used. I realized that even nice tea bags like Twinings are basically floor sweepings compared to quality whole leaves.

Tie guan yin :-) great tea. I also love puerh to death.

Orwell is silly. You want your tea strong? Certainly. You want your tea pure, tasting like tea? Definitely. You want your tea bitter? ... While I can appreciate that for anyone who has to deal with the exigencies of war and rationing there is no real alternative, really good tea, made from the better parts of the tea plant, is not bitter even when exceptionally strong. It does, however, taste wonderfully of tea.

Try the Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (aka "far too good for ordinary people") some time. :P

I find the same with coffee and beer: notions of "acquired taste", "bitter", etc are the consequence of bad product or production; like tea, good coffee & beer isn't bitter.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that beer shouldn't be bitter. Hops are added early in the boiling of the wort in order to impart bitterness. You can skip this step, but the beer will be sickly sweet with no balance. All of course contingent on the other ingredients, steps, and desired style of beer.

I meant to clarify: if you want bitter, as the choice of an educated palate, that's fine - and is usually a factor of certain quality beers. I was focusing on poor-quality mass-produced products that much of society assumes is representative and can't see past.

Black tea does get bitter if you infuse it for too long because of the tannins in the leaves. (The higher molecular weight tannins infuse more slowly and are the ones that have the bitter aftertaste.) It's got nothing to do with the quality of the tea.

cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3...

Every time I see this, I assume it's going to be a story about fascism that refers to tea. It's always a pleasant surprise when I realize that, no, it really is just Orwell expounding on tea.

I like a little sugar in my tea.

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