Having witnessed the anger over the lycra/baggy question, I thought I would see if its possible to have an even more pointless argument.
Oh, its milk first by the way.

Milk?? How could you pollute tea with milk??

Tea first always.

Depends if you’re brewing it in a pot or, if you’re a pauper, in a mug.

For the perfect cuppa.Mug, milk, kettle in hand. Drop tea bag on milk pour water on tea bag. Hot water inflates teabag which rises up on the surface of the water. All the tea loveliness floods out, a quick uppy downy job done.
Tea bag first always leaves a film on the top and also makes it taste watery.
Try it I have many converts. When I have coffee drinking reps in they will have one of Mr Zips cuppas in preference.

Loose leaf tea in pre heated teapot. Just boiled water in teapot, poured to swirl leaves in an anticlockwise direction. One heap for the small, two for the medium, three for the big pot. Brew for at least 5 minutes. Dash of milk, tea strainer, fill to brim with tea. Wait to cool for 5 minutes. Ace!
le creuset mug for volume and heat retention.

Milk? WTF! Get yourself some proper tea… *walks away shaking head and tutting*

I love PG Tips

Proper tea is theft.

It doesn’t matter – if you put milk in tea your judgement and taste are so fundamentally compromised that nothing you think, believe or do is worthy of consideration. 🙂

Milk whould have no contact with tea whilst brewing, make it however you like, but only mix with when the tea has finished brewing (& tea leaves/bags removed).

You can keep you green tea, earl grey, whatever & throughly enjoy it if you want, but I’ll be sticking with PG tips/Typhoo/yorkshire (Breakfast tea if pushing the boat out) with milk & lots of sugar….

I can only think of ice cream as a meal that tea won’t go with.
If we are out for a meal and I’m driving, tea is my soft drink of choice.Cuppa and a curry, lovely.

Milk first (rather disturbingly I first typed that as Milf fist)
It’s what Guy Martin does, and is therefore the correct method.

BS6008:1980 is the British Standard for making Tea…. seriously! 😆

I haven’t read it, I’m not that sad!

Tea then milk for me and if that means I’m going against the ‘official line’ then I relish my method even more… fight the power! 😆

I make the tea at work, as most people seemingly cannot! I often refer to these types of tea as ‘liquid brick’.

My method is, add only tea bag to mug > leave for 30 secs > squeeze twice against side of mug, firm but no so you bend the spoon > add milk. Drink, received many a compliment for this method*

So yeah, tea first!

* Saddest post on a forum ever 😆

Hot water first, milf fist lowers the teabag brew temperature. Then milk.

I haven’t read it, I’m not that sad!

I have. I am 🙂

add only tea bag to mug > leave for 30 secs > squeeze twice against side of mug, firm but no so you bend the spoon > add milk. Drink, received many a compliment for this method

err, sounds like your brew would improve if there was hot water involved 😉

Oh, and it’ll be milf fist every time from now on in the pants household

The milk first “method” came about pre-tea bag (quite a bit pre) when tea was brewed in a pot. The milk was put in to the cup to minimise thermal shock in some of the bone china which was more prone to breakage from thermal shock than more recent product.

Generally I’m a bag in mug person and shun those miscreants who add milk as soon as they have put the water in the mug. IMO this reduces the temp too soon in the steeping process and you rarely get a strong cuppa.

But hey, do it your way.

no milk please … lol.

haha, yes, I forgot to mention add boiling water as step 2! 😆

I’m kind of with speaker2animals on this one but I thought it was to do with protecting the china glaze. Anyway it is about keeping your china fine and then being british we just took it as thing to do because thats what the posh people do. Just like having too many bathrooms.

I’d heard the suggestion that the posh types who could afford good china put the tea in first, as the good china could withstand the hot tea. The poor people who had rubbish china had to put the milk in first so the tea wouldn’t be hot enough to break the mug when it was poured in.

milk in first means you are a scrubber that cannot afford good china

Use a teapot – avoids the scummy film on top if you have to use hard water and removed the temptation to mash the teabag with a fork like some moderately civilised ape

teabag first, for a few seconds
then milk, skimmed btw 😀

Milk or Sugar are for folk who don’t actually like Tea, you know like kids 😉

I can just see the reaction to having a teapot at work, and standing around for ten minutes waiting for it to brew, then pouring into nice china. That then goes cold while your back’s turned running machinery. Ponces. Boil kettle, milk to determined level in insulated mug, teabag in, add boiled water, stir bag and remove when appropriate strength. Don’t squeeze bag, it makes the tea bitter. Milk first lets you fill the mug up to the top without over filling the adjust the strength easily. It’s not rocket science, dammit!
Oh, and the insulated Stanley mug let’s me keep a mug of tea drinkable for around an hour to an hour and a half, it’s usually too hot to drink for the first half hour.

Milk in the cup with the bag for me, it tastes exactly the same. Just like the cream before jam debate on scones.

This is making me thirsty.

Any contact between milk and teabag is wrong. Wronger than lycra on top of baggies.

IIRC there’s been a double-blind taste test to see if milk first makes a difference to flavour (for pot brewed tea, they weren’t the kind of sickos who’d put milk on a tea bag) and apparently it does.

Morrisons Red Label* teabags, in the mug with just boiled water. leave to stand for a bit, swirl around & press with teaspoon to extract maximum flavour.

*Taylors Yorkshire Tea is an acceptable substitute.

**M&S gold label is NOT tea, it’s a vile malted something or other. If I want my tea to taste of malt, I’ll drink horlicks thank you very much

then you can add the milk.