Written By John Bradley
According to Fortnum and Mason, low-quality china cups would crack when hot tea was poured in them, so putting the milk in first meant your cups would stay intact: “When finer and stronger materials came into use, this was no longer necessary –so putting the milk in last became a way of showing that one had the finest china on one’s table. Evelyn Waugh once recorded a friend using the phrase ‘rather milk-in-first’ to refer to a lower-class person, and the habit became a social divider that had little to do with the taste of the tea.”
Tea, introduced into Europe in the late 17th century, was a valuable commodity. It was kept securely in elegant boxes with secure locks. At that time, these were usually known as ‘tea chests’, although they are now generally referred to as ‘tea caddies’. Such boxes often contained two or more compartments for different types of tea, or for sugar, stored in small metal containers known as ‘tea canisters’.
“Weight for weight, tea has more caffeine,” Kate Woollard, tea expert at Whittard, tells BuzzFeed. “But you use more coffee to make a cup of coffee. So you’re using less tea, which means less caffeine.” For example: Cup of black tea = 40–70mg caffeine per cup. Cup of black coffee = 100–200mg caffeine per cup.
At one time in the late 18th century, many believed that more tea was imported through illegal methods than through legal channels. To make matters worse, smugglers began compromising the purity of the tea by mixing it with leaves from other plants; thus stretching their supply and increasing their profits.
You never want boiling water when you’re drinking tea. You don’t want to burn the leaf.
There’s some discussion as to when the first teabag was invented. A patent was filed in 1901 for a tea-leaf holder by Roberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren from Milwaukee. And in 1908, American businessman Thomas Sullivan shipped samples of tea in fine silk pouches – which customers dunked straight into hot water.
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey was born in 1764. According to his government biography, “He reputedly received a gift, probably a diplomatic present, of tea that was flavoured with bergamot oil. It became so popular that he asked British tea merchants to recreate it.”