Trouble's Brewing

April 21, 2012 9:07 AM

Everyone has a pet peeve. Angry Tea Rap (SLYT)
posted by Benny Andajetz (30 comments total)

BTW, Doc Brown is Zadie Smith's younger brother.
posted by surenoproblem at 9:12 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Clever! I got a chuckle or two out of it. I'm glad he can actually rap.
posted by cashman at 9:15 AM on April 21, 2012

Now this is serious.
posted by Infinity_8 at 9:18 AM on April 21, 2012

Downsides of strict gun control laws,

The people who put spoons wet from tea back in the sugar continue breathing.
posted by Blasdelb at 9:19 AM on April 21, 2012 [4 favorites]

And while we're at it:

Cup of Brown Joy
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:23 AM on April 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

You beat me to the Masters of Reality. Wait, that doesn’t sound right, does it?
posted by bongo_x at 9:36 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's deep-seated rage like this that makes me wonder if the Boston Tea Party was less about taxes and more about when to put the milk in.
posted by rh at 9:57 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

So what if you don't like milk (or sugar) in tea at all?
posted by octothorpe at 10:01 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

So what if you don't like milk (or sugar) in tea at all?

Then you are American (or as good as) and you have all my deepest sympathies. I bet you don't even have a kettle never mind a tea pot.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:17 AM on April 21, 2012 [5 favorites]

Wait, is it considered a Yankee thing to take tea plain? I just figured I was drinking my tea like an uncivilized no-appreciation-for-gourmet-tea peasant (or maybe shanty Irish) by drinking it with milk and sugar.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:31 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh, it's on, is it?

Then you are American (or as good as) and you have all my deepest sympathies. I bet you don't even have a kettle never mind a tea pot.

So I may be from the colonies but I'm no American. And I have a kettle AND I have several tea pots, thank you very much.

But I don't like milk in tea. I like it black. And when I say black I mean BLACK AS THE STYGIAN ABYSS THAT IS MY SOUL. Black and tannic like wood stain. Tea so black that if you spill it stains stainless steel. Tea so tannic that it tans my insides like leather. Tea that doesn't just antique paper for your grade 6 poem assignment but tea that turns corpses into bog men.

Have milk if you like. IF YOU'RE A BABY.

* NB: this of course does not apply to green tea, herbal infusions and selected teas that were expensive and that I'm not going to ruin by oversteeping.
posted by GuyZero at 10:55 AM on April 21, 2012 [13 favorites]

Sugar! Philistine. And I have that on the best authority. Orwell is, however, wrong about the milk which should go in first.
posted by Gilgongo at 11:23 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hey, I have a kettle on the stove and a proper blue tea pot but I don't really drink milk and I'm avoiding too many carbs so I drink tea black (or red I guess).
posted by octothorpe at 11:25 AM on April 21, 2012

The next time someone starts a Metatalk thread about something that annoys them, it should be in the form of a rap.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 11:41 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

The next time someone starts a Metatalk thread about something that annoys them, it should be in the form of a rap.

Until it happens the first time, and you're like Oh God, why.
posted by cashman at 11:59 AM on April 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

Wait what
"TEA BAG"???

*whimpers*

(otherwise funny!)
posted by Namlit at 12:16 PM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

One or two Americans have asked me why the English like tea so much, which never seems to them to be a very good drink. To understand, you have to make it properly.

There is a very simple principle to the making of tea, and it’s this—to get the proper flavour of tea, the water has to be boilING (Not boilED) when it hits the tea leaves. If it’s merely hot, then the tea will be insipid. That’s why we English have these odd rituals, such as warming the teapot first (so as no to cause the boiling water to cool down too fast as it hits the pot). And that’s why American habit of bringing a teacup, a tea bag, and a pot of hot water to the table is merely the perfect way of making a tin, pale, watery cup of tea that nobody in their right mind would want to drink. The Americans are all mystified about why the English make such a big thing out of tea because most Americans HAVE NEVER HAD A GOOD CUP OF TEA. That’s why they don’t understand. In fact, the truth of the matter is that most English people don’t know how to make tea anymore either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants.

So the best advice I can give to an American arriving in England is this: Go to Marks and Spencer and buy a packet of Earl Grey tea. Go back to where you’re staying and boil a kettle of water. While it is coming to the boil, open the sealed packet and sniff. Careful---you may feel a bit dizzy, but this is in fact perfectly legal. When the kettle has boiled, pour a little of it into a teapot, swirl it around, and tip it out again. Put a couple (or three, depending on the size of the pot) of tea bags into the pot. (If I was really trying to lead you into the paths of righteousness, I would tell you to use free leaves rather than bags, but let’s just take this in easy stages.) Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can into the pot. Let is stand for two or three minutes, and then pour it into a cup. Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. If you think you will like it with milk, then it’s probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea. If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea, you will scald the milk. If you think you will prefer it with a slice of lemon, then, well, add a slice of lemon.

Drink it. After a few moments you will begin to think that the place you’ve come to isn’t maybe quite so strange and crazy after all.

Douglas Adams - May 12, 1999
posted by knapah at 12:30 PM on April 21, 2012 [7 favorites]

Tea with a bit of milk is really good. I learned this from spending some time in England. I am American and it was totally new to me.

I grew up thinking that drinking tea with milk was wrong or childish. Perhaps that 'childish' judgement is the uniquely American thing. Tea and coffee are strongly linked in my mind, and i always heard my mom half-bragging about drinking coffee black.

I hate getting tea or coffee that is too hot. The milk cools the tea just slightly, and evens out the flavors. As for this post, this sort of joke-rap seems outdated.
posted by coaster at 1:25 PM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah well we saved your tea drinking ass in the war! Between you and China, we pretty much subsidized a whole generation! And what did we get for our troubles?The Spice Girls!
posted by Brocktoon at 1:58 PM on April 21, 2012

And what did we get for our troubles? The Spice Girls!

And we thank you for that.
posted by bongo_x at 2:23 PM on April 21, 2012

this of course does not apply to green tea, herbal infusions

Course not. Those aren't tea.

And Earl Grey is an abomination.

What you must understand about proper milky tea is that it should be very strong, then mellowed down with a lot of milk and sugar: builders tea, when you're working and only have time for a quick brew and a fag. The tea comes first, made with boiling water, then left to steep for a bit according to taste, bag taken out (no faffing about with loose leaves on a building site), milk put in now it has cooled down enough not to scald the milk (which is why you never put the milk in first), then sugar. Stir, then counterstir so the atoms are in balance.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:44 PM on April 21, 2012 [6 favorites]

I've always put a splash of milk in my tea as well, and thought I was doing it all wrong. Maybe because I have to add so much more to my coffee, so at first I was overwhelming the tea.

I've also avoided sugar since I stopped drinking soft drinks, but "builder's tea" with a cigarette in the open air sounds delicious.
posted by stoneandstar at 8:31 PM on April 21, 2012

A Nice Cup of Tea
By George Orwell
Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.
posted by J.W. at 11:01 PM on April 21, 2012

I think we can come to a rule about this. Learn about making tea from people who grow up drinking tea. Not from people who want to make it into an exotic thing
posted by the mad poster! at 5:57 AM on April 22, 2012

Douglas Adams: I like it with milk. If you think you will like it with milk, then it’s probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea. If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea, you will scald the milk.

George Orwell: 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.
posted by crazy_yeti at 9:45 AM on April 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

I find it interesting how the greatest minds of British literature spend so much time pondering the when-to-add-milk issue.
posted by GuyZero at 10:12 AM on April 22, 2012

I think that in the tea world it's the equivalent of "emacs vs vi". Except both editors have their strengths and weaknesses, but there's a clear right answer for the milk question.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:19 AM on April 22, 2012

I've wondered for a while if the Milk First argument was something to do with whether the tea was made in a pot and then poured into a cup, or made directly in the cup. If it's made milk-first with a tea bag in a cup, then it seems clear that the tea isn't properly made (boiling water + tea leaves/dust/what have you, steeping for some time) - because the tea leaves/dust is sitting in slightly-above-freezing milk while the kettle boils, then boiling water is added, and the tea really never interacts with boiling water at all. Whereas, if you make/steep the tea in a pot first, then yes, milk in the cup first, and fully-formed tea can be poured in. Assuming you know how strong it will be and therefore how much milk you'll want.

I read at some point (forgotten source) that this was a hygeine issue, and whatever-it-was was written at a time when tea would have been made with leaves in a pot, not bags in mugs. Made me wonder if it was a pre-pasteurization thing.

Of course, the real nastiness is the widespread (in my admittedly small and former universe) habit of not *only* letting the tea bag sit in the milk while the kettle boils, but also not being particularly fussed that the kettle switched off several minutes ago, and pouring the water anyway.
posted by magdalenstreetladies at 11:02 AM on April 22, 2012

I find it interesting how the greatest minds of British literature spend so much time pondering the when-to-add-milk issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_exact_test

"Fisher's exact test is a statistical significance test used in the analysis of contingency tables. Although in practice it is employed when sample sizes are small, it is valid for all sample sizes. It is named after its inventor, R. A. Fisher, and is one of a class of exact tests, so called because the significance of the deviation from a null hypothesis can be calculated exactly, rather than relying on an approximation that becomes exact in the limit as the sample size grows to infinity, as with many statistical tests. Fisher is said to have devised the test following a comment from Dr Muriel Bristol, who claimed to be able to detect whether the tea or the milk was added first to her cup; see lady tasting tea."
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:32 AM on April 22, 2012

I love tea and I love milk, but together? Nope, not gonna do it.

And Earl Grey is an abomination.

No kidding. Earl Grey gives me a headache almost every time.

Also, a bit off tangent but it's interesting to me that using links from Gawker as FPPs seems to be verboten on Metafilter but they're fine with FPPing links from here.
posted by fuse theorem at 3:49 PM on April 22, 2012