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I need a tea expert.
I enjoy iced tea, which I suspect is an abomination to most Brits, but I believe there are a few things things that should be true about all tea whether iced or served hot.
The tea I buy from our local cafe is cloudy. It used to be very clear (like a jar full of honey) but now it looks as if it was made by placing tea leaves in a blender and atomizing them. I feel as if I should be able to see through a glass container of tea - the world on the other side clearly visible through an amber lense.
I may have to go back to making my own tea, which isn't good, because I make it too strong and it stops up my plumbing.
Am I wrong about this?
Am I drinking mud?
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A jar full of honey is not clear ...
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This is what I'm trying to communicate: Honey[^]
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This is what a jar of (proper) honey looks like.[^]
- Life in the fast lane is only fun if you live in a country with no speed limits.
- Of all the things I have lost, it is my mind that I miss the most.
- I vaguely remember having a good memory...
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Nothing that I have bottled looked like that at first. If it crystallized then it might.
I have not had a colony for many years but that did not look like good fresh honey.
pic[^]
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Crystallized honey is the norm in the UK - or at least it used to be when I was growing up there many decades ago. It is easier to spread without sticky spillage than the American stuff - which always tastes incredibly sweet to me.
- Life in the fast lane is only fun if you live in a country with no speed limits.
- Of all the things I have lost, it is my mind that I miss the most.
- I vaguely remember having a good memory...
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It's high pollen content that makes new honey cloudy -- different flower stock makes for different colours/flavours. It only crystallises if you mess around with its temperature.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Actually it depends on the type of honey. If you do not buy your honey at a mega store you find there are various grades of honey. From almost clear to almost black. I remeber that the dark stuff around here is from buckwheat. Clover is very light.
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Iced tea is very much not a British drink.
As for proper tea, I prefer it brewed for many, many minutes to get a very strong mug.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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Does your tea look muddy?
I blame myself for this thread.
*sigh*
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Well once it has had milk added that muddies the water as it were.
I think it should probably be clear though, no matter how dark it gets there should be a clarity to it still.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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Thank you.
Would you be willing to testify as a subject matter expert in the lawsuit I'm going to file against the cafe?
In the USA a British accent can win any court case, particularly if the jurors are female.
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MadGerbil wrote: Am I wrong about this?
Yes.
You should be drinking Coffee.
Or Beer, or Gin.
If you get an email telling you that you can catch Swine Flu from tinned pork then just delete it. It's Spam.
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Pretend I'm talking about a Long Island Ice Tea if that helps.
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OriginalGriff wrote: You should be drinking Coffee.
We call that nerd juice in our office... ![Java | [Coffee]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif) 
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You have the answer to perfect tea and deny me the information?
Sir, you are cruel.
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Perhaps if I whisper no one else will notice.
The perfect cup of tea requires a few things, first a white porcelain tea cup of reasonable depth, secondly a proper stainless steel tea spoon. One of Griff's coffee spoons won't do the trick, they're too small. Then a really good tea, bags or leaves doesn't matter, the fresher the better, must be Indian.
Steep the tea in the cup by pouring boiling water over it as you do and then the crucial tricky part. When is the tea perfectly brewed?
The answer is surprisingly simple and surprisingly complicated. The tea is perfectly brewed when the bottom of the cup is no longer visible ( hence the need for a proper white porcelain tea cup ) and when at the exact depth of a tea spoon the tea is red in colour. Test this by dipping in a spoon and taking out a level teaspoon full, to be examined from above in daylight. ( hence the need for a proper sized spoon and no mat alluminium rubbish ).
The tea should be red, niether yellow (under done ) nor brown (over done). At the exact moment this is so, and it is but a moment, the leaves placed by whatever means, should be removed and voila as M'Fermat would have said you have the perfect cup of tea.
Why does this work? Only a deity of tea would know for sure but I can tell you that it accounts for all the important factors including the time of day which determines the angle of the daylight for the red test. This is why sublime tea is only achievable at tea time and tea is second best in the early morning. The light being too low or too high will distort the test. As one gets older one eyes become less sensative to blue light and everything appears relatively redened which accounts perfectly for the liking of older people for weaker tea. Builders who work outdoors in bluer light will get the stronger tea they prefer and us sedentry types a happy medium.
The perfect cup of tea is the universes way of telling us that at some level it all does fit together and make sense and of course that there's no better way to enjoy it than being British. 
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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Don't forget that Matthew has only told you the "in the cup" method.
It is perfectly correct but you can also make it in a teapot (stainless steel or china or thin pottery at a pinch, the idea is for the pot itself to NOT absorb too much of the heat when making a brew). White china or pottery is preferred although once you gain enough experience with your particular blend and timing estimation you can switch to other coloured pots, such as brown or black. Ideally, the pot should be warmed with a little hot water just prior to adding the tea to assist in the reduction of heat loss. This way you can make several cups at a time (tea-cosies are required to maintain the temperature in the pot) and also have the option of putting milk in your cup prior to adding the tea.
Some people prefer the milk to be added afterwards but there is a distinct difference in flavouring (among true connoisseurs) between milk-before and milk-after methods. Neither method is technically more correct, although there are often many heated debates on this subject. The difference in flavour comes from the following physical effects:
--- milk-after --- When one adds the milk to the tea already in the cup then a small amount of cold milk hits the large amount of hot tea at any given millisecond during the flow. This very quickly heats the milk and can scald it slightly.
--- milk-before --- When one adds the hot tea to the milk already in the cup then a small amount of hot tea hits the (relatively) large amount of cold milk at any given millisecond during the flow. This slightly more slowly warms the milk and usually avoids the scalding occasionally caused by the milk-after method.
The difference in flavour is due to the scalding or lack of the milk. There is never any need to warm the cups. Anyone who does so is just being pretentious - and we don't want that, do we?
Note: True connoisseurs do not put lemon in tea, only milk. Lemon is truly an abomination introduced to the Scepter'd Isle by Johnny Foreigners (yes, I'm looking at you, Frenchman) - almost as bad as iced tea (or herbal teas).
- Life in the fast lane is only fun if you live in a country with no speed limits.
- Of all the things I have lost, it is my mind that I miss the most.
- I vaguely remember having a good memory...
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Thanks for stepping in there. My pot technique is nowhere near good enough due to lack of practice. I see you're a prelactorist as well which is a much more advanced technique than most people realise given that it makes the by-eye red test impossible. You have to really have your timing down to the second. 
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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Forogar wrote: Ideally, the pot should be warmed with a little hot water just prior to adding the tea to assist in the reduction of heat loss...
It was explained to me by a Greek kitchen goddess that the water temperature is quite important in making the best tea. The water must not be merely heated up but brought to a rolling boil, the pot pre-warmed with a cup or so of boiling water (and emptied before addition of the tea). And finally, the pot should be brought to the kettle, not the kettle to the pot, so as to maximize the boiling water flowing into/over the tea leaves, either naked in the pot or in a tea ball.
--
Harvey
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Matthew Faithfull wrote: There is a simple and elegant secret to the perfect cup of tea but to paraphase Monsieur Fermat, "The textbox is too small to contain it".
So neither simple nor elegant then!
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I pride myself on being a bit of a tea connoisseur, drinking gallons of the stuff daily, made from leaves, not bags, and I would heartilly agree that iced tea is an abomination.
Some varieties of tea are clear when infused, but go cloudy on standing - it's known as "tea cream" - there have even been scientific papers written about it:
Tea cream formation: The contribution of black tea phenolic pigments determined by HPLC[^]
It is very common with one of my favourite varieties - Assam
It's well known that if all the cat videos and porn disappeared from the internet there would be only one site left and it would be called whereareallthecatvideosandporn.com
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I think you just ruined my tea.
*gags at the phrase 'tea cream' for reasons that aren't clear* (1)
NOTES
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1: Unintentional pun FTW.
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