American Ilxors: Do you use Kettles to make tea?

I drink my tea iced, and sweet enough to give you instant diabetes.

I use a kettle. I have to make sure that the water is exactly 205 degrees when I pour it in the press pot, or else the coffee flavor crystals won't be able to find their new homes in the new order of hot liquid and my entire day will be ruined.

The 13th Floor Elevators, a band from Austin, Texas, formed as an electric jug band, featuring Tommy Hall as electric jug player. A similar revival began in the UK in the 1960s, possibly as an offshoot of the revival in the United States.[citation needed]

Oops, this is about tea. I also use the kettle to make water for tea, in the 180 degree range

Electric kettle. Mostly for coffee.

Electric kettle for me.

I used a kettle on the stovetop for those rare times I'd make tea.

Then I married an Australian, whose mother occasionally visits and prefers to make her coffee with an electric kettle. So now I use that when I need it, but mostly it stays unplugged in the corner for most of the year.

Actually, when I made hot chocolate this winter, I'd use the Keurig without a cup.

stovetop kettle tho i've v nearly gotten an electric on a number of occasions

Once you get the electric you can't go back. The water is 118F...now it's 121F! How did I live before knowing this??

The electric ones don't seem to be any faster than the stove kettles, which may have more to do with the 120/240 volt difference.

Electric ones don't whistle a song of their people when they're done either.

Update: it's 139 now

Dang, mine's not that fancy. It won't even turn itself off when the water boils.

It's just a cultural difference, but it was weird for me to visit Australian relatives and have them pull out this steampunk contraption to make coffee.

I mean, yeah, I guess they've never heard of Joe DiMaggio either except for that one song.

A Nice Cup of Tea
By George Orwell
Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.

If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. 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.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

i microwave my water and i am too pretentious to even use teabags half the time (i have a spoon for looseleaf tea)

i have an electric kettle and it's very fast; like it boils the water in about a minute and a half, as opposed to 10 with my stovetop kettle, which is now on a shelf in the garage

Stove kettle, whistles and everything

be interesting to compare the orwell with commentaries on japanese tea-making ceremonies -- orwell writing it (knowingly?) as if such didn't exist tho i feel he likely knew they did, via arts & crafts movement ppl

(bernard leach had invited hamada shoji over to st ives on his own return from japan in the 1920s: japanese rituals of teaware making and tea-making were intimately folded into one another -- orwell wasn't very kindly disposed to the arts & crafts movement but also wasn't very distant from it, class-wise and politics-wise)

pity skidmore isn't with us to talk about this :(

as soon as I read that first sentence I thought how much I'd love to talk about this with Martin.

George Orwell kind of a Nazi when it came to tea, ironically.

Only thing I know about japanese tea-making ceremonies is that they always pour away he 1st cup undrunk.

My mum still does the hot water in the teapot then pour it out despite the fact it's bags she uses not leaves so it defeats the purpose and it wastes water.

Also if making it in a cup she will stir the bag in the cup ARGH.

also they put milk in my dads cup first. That is so wrong. It ends up far too often as too much or too little.

If you have milk with darjeeling you only need a splash. If it's assam or a strong builders tea you need more.

the handy thing for me re tea protocols of all and various stripe is i hate tea so i can ignore everyone one

But I bet you still know how to make it for friends and family.

Milk in the cup first is correct. Prevents cup staining.

But it doesn't prevent it staining

I am American, I drink tea every morning, and I use a kettle. I drink it with soy milk and I would never pour the milk before the tea.

how I handle mug staining: I wash them

Why Only Fascists Wash Their Mugs
George Orwell
Evening Standard, 6 April 1944

Bonavita electric kettle. I was also given a Breville automatic tea maker that's pretty awesome but it's still easier to just use the electric kettle.

i use a saucepan (for coffee anyway)

even my anglophilic mom who is absolutely obsessed with old english shit has upgraded from stove kettle to electric

Oops, this is about tea. I also use the kettle to make water for tea, in the 180 degree range

― Karl Malone, Saturday, 11 March 2017 16:02 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Let's get one thing straight buck

In a poll about tea, water is steam at 180 degrees

U clear now?

American Ilxors: Do you use Kettles to make tea?

Kettle electric.

Teapot stainless steel.

Water poured scalding hot onto bags (one per mug and one for the pot) and then onto the stove top until the bags develop sentient thought and pop out to remind you that the tea is now ready

Three sugars, added to mug with milk in advance.

The whistle in the morning is for instant espresso, Cafe Bustelo usually. The whistle in the evening is for tea, any kind of tea.

i do not make or drink tea

microwave

can't imagine ever buying a kettle

didn't we just do this

You're thinking of POLL: ILX Puts the Kettle On. As polls go, they are fraternal, not identical, twins.

US electrical mains are rated about 100 V lower than those in the UK, which is why US kettles come to a boil slowly enough that we might as well just use granny stovetop kettles (which I do).

lol @ microwaves

American and use a stovetop kettle -- I put the kettle on, go outside and smoke a cigarette, come back in, water is ready for tea

i tell the replicator 'tea, earl grey, hot'

xxpost A decent explanation of this phenomenon.

electric kettle is the way to go

ours is still rocking after like 13 years

American, rare but occasional tea drinker, electric kettle. I intend to brew a cuppa right now, bcz of this thread.

personally, I don't see a reason to devote one of the precious few electrical outlets in my kitchen to a kettle, when I have a perfectly serviceable stove and stovetop kettles can be come by at the thrift store for $2. Being able to make tea during an electrical outage was a proud moment in my life.

I want one of the fancy electric kettles that will heat water to the right temperature for green tea and opposed to letting it boil and then cool

Water boiling at sea level will be 100 C (212 F). Below sea level or under pressure the temperature of the boiling point will be higher. Above sea level or under vacuum, the temperature of the boiling point will be lower. Inclusions dissolved in the water can impact the boiling point - for example, salt will lower the boiling point. The same applies to the freezing point, always 0 C (32 F) at sea level.

this is why you can make a tolerable cup of coffee with a percolator in Colorado.

pure water in a smooth container in a microwave can reach temps far above 100C (or whatever the boiling point is according to the air pressure) without boiling, because of the lack of nucleation sites necessary to begin the boiling action. relevant to making tea for both flavor and avoiding third degree burns to your face and hands. google "superheated water"

(checking my own work reveals that I am talking about superheating water to a metastable state, not superheated water which only refers to water above the "normal" boiling point due to overpressure, very interesting)

You’d warm a teapot before making a pot of tea, so it stands to reason that warming the mug is a good idea for the same reason. British accommodation is not as warm as it could be in the winter, broadly speaking, so starting with an ice-cold, unwarmed mug means my tea would be too tepid to drink after about 10 minutes.

British accommodation is not as warm as it could be in the winter

let's keep this civil

I have a USB mug warmer at my desk

it's my English blood that chills my mug

thats right

who amongst us hasn't come down to a freezing British kitchen on a winter's morning and boiled the kettle to warm the place up a bit?

if i can see out the window, am i really British?

who takes ten minutes to drink tea

lads

Enjoy your tepid winter tea.

I use microwave energy at the center of a box created for the purpose. And yes, Red Rose tea - cry if you must!

Hot muggin’
Check it and see
Gotta teabag
That’s a 103

listen to this scientist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SzUrjfvWPU

I was told not to put metal in the microwave and many tea bags have staples

u wot

The staples on tea bags aren't big enough to disrupt a microwave, I assume, since I've seen tutorials for making your own microwave popcorn that said that even a regular office supply-sized staple was small enough to be safe to microwave.

I think I have seen teabags with staples before but usually crap ones nobody drinks, like lipton

it's any tea bag with a string, except for the expensive ones that have like silk bags or whatnot

The herbal ones I sometimes have still have a paper bag but there's no staple: the string just sits in a little slit in the bag.

In the tag, rather

crap ones nobody drinks, like lipton

hey there, it makes decent iced tea.. also if you go to a diner and ask for a cup of tea, you're probably gonna get lipton or twinnings

America's Test Kitchen did an iced tea test a while back and reported that Lipton tea bags delivered the best tea flavor for iced. So I always have a box of them in the cupboard (but I never use them for hot).

many years of living outside the UK and asking for tea and getting a nasty weak lipton yellow label or twinnings English breakfast teabag with a stupid label and stupid drawstrings served next to a cup of tepid water, fuck lipton and fuck twinnings too

Twinings Afternoon Blend is nice, but not stocked in many shops

English Afternoon it's called, sorry

years ago I bought a box of Lipton's at an Asian market - can't remember if it was packed in India, or maybe Hong Kong - but it was notably better and stronger than the U.S. blend we grew up with

I had some really sad looking Lipton instant soup packs foisted on me recently.

Aww, on a cold day (like today) some vintage lipton onion soup would hit the spot

I remember with the vintage American coffee vending machines (instant), you could order beef bouillon in a paper cup as well

I'm curious what would be the quintessential UK tea would be... Barry's?
Also curious what the fancy lad version would be.

I remember with the vintage American coffee vending machines (instant), you could order beef bouillon in a paper cup as well

xp Yorkshire Gold or similar, I imagine - PG Tips, maybe, in terms of popularity.
Twinings or Clipper is probably "British" but we just get supermarket own brand tbh.

yeah PG Tips is tops in my experience

Twinings and Yorkshire gold are seen as 'posh teas' but good.
Tetley or PG Tips is probably the quintessential supermarket tea.

You’d warm a teapot before making a pot of tea, so it stands to reason that warming the mug is a good idea for the same reason. British accommodation is not as warm as it could be in the winter, broadly speaking, so starting with an ice-cold, unwarmed mug means my tea would be too tepid to drink after about 10 minutes.

100% behind warming mugs.. but its more essential for Coffee where I have one a day so need to make that last.. less essential for Herbal Tea as there is no milk to further drop the temp.

I'm also bringing back warming dinner plates, but that's a hill I'm prepared and no doubt destined to die on....

Barry's is sold in England in the Irish section of the supermarket. Def Yorkshire or PG Tips.

Got a box of Barry’s Gold this week; it’s excellent. Yorkshire hard water is my usual choice. I dislike round or pyramid-shaped teabags.

I get relatives to send us Rington's

I think I once read that they sell different blends in hard water areas even if they don't mark it as such on the packets

Yorkshire’s hard water tea is sold as such - Yorkshire water is very soft and London’s is nails. When I spent lots of time in Sheffield, I really noticed it because shampoos and bubble baths were that bit bubblier because of the natural softness of the water.

I've got a poncey softener on my water because it's so hard. No more shiny flakes in a cup of tea!

no love of TYPHOO??

(RIP)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/28/typhoo-tea-falls-into-administration-after-121-years

used to be a proper country

I am confident Typhoo will survive - is coffee flooding British mouths?

People who are dogmatic about preparing tea = kettleonormative

kettlediversity

Domestic tearrorism