I Was a Really Weird Kid

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

At age eleven, I was very serious about tea. I considered it an art. I would always strive to improve my skills. My family had a nicely stocked tea cupboard, and I would spend a great deal of time sorting through it, and experimenting.

One thing I really liked doing was making other people tea. I would want to make them teas that were very exotic and elaborate. Unfortuneately, people would only ever want simple teas - like orange pekoe with a small amount of cream.

Because of this, I would argue with my parents about the tea I was making them. My mum might want the simple concoction described above, and I would talk her into something more elaborate - like earl grey with frothy milk and a dash of honey. She would only ever want simple things, and I would try to convince her to have something more complex.

Something occurred to me. With a pencil and a sheet of lined paper, I made a form. I then spent a good chunk of my own allowance to have the form photocopied many times.

Whoever I was making tea for would have to fill out the form. If they did not, I would refuse to make them tea.

On the forum was the following fields: Requirement, Preferences, Current Mood, and Ideal Mood.

The person would be allowed one Requirement. This is something absolute, like "no caffeine" or "added soy-milk". I only included this grudgingly.

They would also be allowed two Preferences. These had to be abstract adjectives, such was "warming" or "refreshing".

They would then have to describe their current mood, and the mood they would hope to accomplish through the cup of tea.

(I would do this to guests, as well as family.)

I would go make them a cup of tea. The idea was that they would blindly fill out the form, and I would make them the tea best suited to their desires. It didn't go as planned.

Instead of filling out the form blindly, they would do so with an agenda. They would already know what kind of tea they wanted, and would try to put in the answers most likely to achieve the desired result. I picked up on this. I was not happy.

I discontinued the program after a couple of months. I still like to make tea for people, but I am a bit less of a fascist about it.

[TaiLiu]

I can hardly blame you! Tea is serious business!

[Temotei]

I wish for you to find the perfect mate or friend or whatever some day who will accept your most exotic teas with a smile and a sip with a pinky in the air.

Good day, sir.

[ShadowFireLance]

Would ye happen to have that form?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Would ye happen to have that form?

I do not. I could re-create it, though. I remember what all the elements were - and my handwriting hasn't improved since when I was eleven.

[Drakeburn]

I only drink tea whenever I'm really sick.

Have you ever done any herbal tea before? You know, the kind that has "medicinal" properties?

[Don Julio Anejo]

You, sir have my respect!

Them bloody yanks and canucks need to take their tea more seriously.

[Traab]

Unfortuneately, people would only ever want simple teas - like orange pekoe with a small amount of cream.


My idea of simple is a bag of lipton. :smalltongue:

[Jay R]

I have designed character sheets for many classes, in many systems, but never one for tea.

[KillianHawkeye]

You're right, that IS really weird!

[Partysan]

I'd have totally loved that. Shame, really.

[FinnLassie]

People drink tea with milk and cream? :smallconfused: This forum is opening some very odd doors in my life.

But, yes. Tea is serious business. I enjoy it when my friend get's all hyper about it and makes us experiment his latest findings.
Never understood camomille tea. Never makes me tired. I want tea that makes me feel droozy! :smallannoyed:

[Traab]

People drink tea with milk and cream? :smallconfused: This forum is opening some very odd doors in my life.

But, yes. Tea is serious business. I enjoy it when my friend get's all hyper about it and makes us experiment his latest findings.
Never understood camomille tea. Never makes me tired. I want tea that makes me feel droozy! :smallannoyed:

Bleh, that stuff always tasted nasty to me. I am always willing to try new things, and yes, in my standard teabag cup, plenty of milk and sugar for me thanks.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Black tea with milk and sugar is the traditional English way of drinking it. Russian way has sugar and a slice of lemon. Highly recommend everyone to try it. It's like iced tea but hot and better. Works better with a stronger brew since lemon neutralizes some of the tea flavour.

[SiuiS]

People drink tea with milk and cream? :smallconfused: This forum is opening some very odd doors in my life.

But, yes. Tea is serious business. I enjoy it when my friend get's all hyper about it and makes us experiment his latest findings.
Never understood camomille tea. Never makes me tired. I want tea that makes me feel droozy! :smallannoyed:

Chamomile isn't a drug, so muh as it's taste and aroma are supposed to be relaxing. They won't do much if you don't let it placebo you. I always found the fifteen minutes of making a cup of chamomile the most relaxing part.


Black tea with milk and sugar is the traditional English way of drinking it. Russian way has sugar and a slice of lemon. Highly recommend everyone to try it. It's like iced tea but hot and better. Works better with a stronger brew since lemon neutralizes some of the tea flavour.

Ooh, that sounds nice.


At age eleven, I was very serious about tea. I considered it an art. I would always strive to improve my skills. My family had a nicely stocked tea cupboard, and I would spend a great deal of time sorting through it, and experimenting.

Instead of filling out the form blindly, they would do so with an agenda. They would already know what kind of tea they wanted, and would try to put in the answers most likely to achieve the desired result. I picked up on this. I was not happy.

I discontinued the program after a couple of months. I still like to make tea for people, but I am a bit less of a fascist about it.

I did this with back rubs and stuff! Luckily massage is a career. Perhaps you can get a career in tea?

[FinnLassie]

Bleh, that stuff always tasted nasty to me. I am always willing to try new things, and yes, in my standard teabag cup, plenty of milk and sugar for me thanks.

What is it about the milk? Isn't tea supposed to be good as it is? :smallconfused:


Chamomile isn't a drug, so muh as it's taste and aroma are supposed to be relaxing. They won't do much if you don't let it placebo you. I always found the fifteen minutes of making a cup of chamomile the most relaxing part.


Oh, never thought of it as one. It just bugs me how people tell me to have a cuppa camomille when in reality it doesn't do a thing.

[SiuiS]

What is it about the milk? Isn't tea supposed to be good as it is? :smallconfused:


Some people think so. Some people feel the same way about coffee, too. It's all in the upbringing. I think the origins o putting milk in tea lie with British folk and their china; scalding water in a porcelain cup can cause uneven heating and break it, so they put a spot of milk in first to regulate the temperature. The tradition continued despite china not being a thing so much anymore.

Personally, tea is a sipping drink for me that either tastes good on its own or not at all. Hot tea, at least. But that's in stark contrast to how I like my coffee, which is mostly as a flavor additive to my honey milk. I only remembered I like tea plain because my teeth can't handle coffee anymore, and my body tries a fit without at least 50mg of caffeine every 18 hours.



Oh, never thought of it as one. It just bugs me how people tell me to have a cuppa camomille when in reality it doesn't do a thing.

People still think you get colds from being cold. Bet to just scoff and move on, luv.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

I'd always heard it was making a barrier so that the tea didn't stain the cups, rather than break them, but I never really looked into it. I'll drink some teas with milk and, more rarely, sugar, but it really depends on the type. I don't care for coffee with milk or cream, though, and I outright refuse to drink it with sugar.

[Nai_Calus]

Tea should be drunk without additives and made from loose whole-leaf tea. If I see you put sugar or milk in oolong I will cry.

Flavored teas are even more sad-making. Why would you ruin perfectly good tea?

[Aedilred]

What is it about the milk? Isn't tea supposed to be good as it is? :smallconfused:
You... don't put milk in tea? *backs away slowly*

To be fair, I did go through a phase of drinking black tea, in a marvellous example of cutting my nose off to spite my face. My workplace had a canteen which sold "tea" (in reality, a teabag in a polystyrene cup) - and provided free hot water and milk for making up the tea yourself. The tea was outrageously overpriced - something like 70-80p per cup, so I thought I could do rather better by buying my own teabags at home and bringing in a mug. (Over the course of a box of teabags this ended up saving me about £50). This all went swimmingly for a while and nobody seemed to mind, but the free milk was abused by people using it for cereal, so eventually they stopped providing it. Instead, they'd give you a sachet of UHT milk when you bought tea from the canteen.

Now, I have a lifelong and intense hatred for UHT milk and also resented that they'd removed the free milk. While the UHT wasn't hard to get hold of even if you didn't buy the tea, I refused to do it out of some sort of meaningless protest and just started drinking black tea.

I got used to black tea eventually, but it was very bitter, and tasted rather more "grassy" than usual - I'd still have some milk in it out of preference. I find that even a drop of milk radically changes the flavour and makes it much more palatable and rounded. Funnily enough, though, it's exactly the reverse with coffee, and I think that milk ruins the flavour.

I wouldn't put milk in all tea - not green tea, nor Earl Grey, nor a number of other varieties. But "standard" black English-style tea, the milk is pretty much compulsory. Not sugar, though.

[SiuiS]

I'd always heard it was making a barrier so that the tea didn't stain the cups, rather than break them, but I never really looked into it. I'll drink some teas with milk and, more rarely, sugar, but it really depends on the type. I don't care for coffee with milk or cream, though, and I outright refuse to drink it with sugar.

It's possible. My understanding of milk comes from disparate sources: I remembere an outrageously small teacup breaking under a stream of sexy-hot tea, I remember a stereotypical british man in a pith hat in south africa talking about milk in tea being civilized, and I remember Sean Connery talking about making soup with milk. I have no idea how much of that is mixed around.


Tea should be drunk without additives and made from loose whole-leaf tea. If I see you put sugar or milk in oolong I will cry.

Flavored teas are even more sad-making. Why would you ruin perfectly good tea?

Well, tea cannot really be judged on it's own. It isn't the actual liquid, but the worth of consumption, that has value. If to a person the tea is palatable with additives, and not palatable without, then it isn't ruining it.

Flavored tea, you've actually got it backwards. Flavored teas are usually adding tea to a different drink, not the other way around. In which case, raspberry lemonade may be good, but wouldn't it be better if it also had the refreshing properties of tea? :smallwink:

The best tea I've ever had came out of a glass bottle, actually. It's a recent product here in the US, whose name I have forgotten but they come in almost mason jar botles. It was honey and lemon and my goodness gracious, I was anti-tea until I had some of that divine steepage.
The honey ginger flavor tasted like burning, though. >P

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Huh. I grew up with most of my tea having a lot of milk in it. The milk would often be heated on the stove. More like a latte, really.

Now I have a milk frother, and because of the fact, most of my tea is around one third milk. I don't put milk in teas that are meant to be clear, like mint, though.

[FinnLassie]

Maybe it's just me, but it didn't even cross my mind to have black tea with milk. :smallconfused:

Also, what's this about lemon in tea?! (apart from the obvious lemon & ginger stuff) Seriously guys, you're making me feel like I've been raised in a barrel. :smalltongue:


Now I feel like getting my hands to some proper green tea, hrmhm.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Maybe it's just me, but it didn't even cross my mind to have black tea with milk. :smallconfused:

Also, what's this about lemon in tea?! (apart from the obvious lemon & ginger stuff) Seriously guys, you're making me feel like I've been raised in a barrel. :smalltongue:


Now I feel like getting my hands to some proper green tea, hrmhm.

Lemon is typically associated with iced tea in the United States, though some people take their hot tea with lemon, as well, I'd imagine; hot tea simply isn't as common over here, so I have less conception of the "typical" American hot tea. Russian tea is typically served with sugar and lemon or, I think somewhat less commonly, jam. The lemon can really help bring out flavor and makes tea an even better sore throat remedy, I'd highly recommend it in a lot of teas.

[Traab]

Lemon is typically associated with iced tea in the United States, though some people take their hot tea with lemon, as well, I'd imagine; hot tea simply isn't as common over here, so I have less conception of the "typical" American hot tea. Russian tea is typically served with sugar and lemon or, I think somewhat less commonly, jam. The lemon can really help bring out flavor and makes tea an even better sore throat remedy, I'd highly recommend it in a lot of teas.

I just recently had my first cup of hot lemon tea. It was actually really good. It might have had a little sugar in it, but no milk. I dont autoadd milk to every tea drink I have, I just use the standard Lipton brand tea bags in general and add milk and sugar to that. Its good stuff. Of course, I am a little odd myself, as when I make tea, I generally make it into a pitcher sized thermos and drink that all day. 5-6 cups of tea, kept hot for hours and hours and always ready to sip on demand. mmmmm.

When it comes to the flavored teas, I generally dont add milk, as the entire point is to taste the flavors of the tea. But then again, I dont have flavored tea much. The most exotic tea I will often drink is Tazos "Awake" tea. So I am pretty vanilla. lol When it comes to iced tea I freaking HATE the tea bag made stuff. Ugh. I go for those crappy hyper sugared powdered ice tea mixes with lemon. Its cheap, easy, I get a little ice tea, then go back to drinking something tastier.

[Tvtyrant]

I drink 1-2 pots of tea a day. I drink black tea mostly, and I am not fond of tea or any drink when it is hot. I use milk on the first cup to cool it down, and then take it straight as the cups get cooler.

I also only put sugar in the first cup or two, as it blends better when the tea is hot.

[Don Julio Anejo]

The most exotic tea I will often drink is Tazos "Awake" tea. So I am pretty vanilla. lol When it comes to iced tea I freaking HATE the tea bag made stuff. Ugh. I go for those crappy hyper sugared powdered ice tea mixes with lemon. Its cheap, easy, I get a little ice tea, then go back to drinking something tastier.
Most exotic tea (a few varieties excepted like rooibos (sp?), which is just a different type of black tea) is just bad hipster bait for people who don't know any better so you're not missing out. If a tea has a million different flavours, its no longer proper tea (whether that's important to someone or not), and it also begins to taste worse; the only area you're winning is the smell.

[Aedilred]

I agree with you about green tea but Earl Grey is more of a grey area (I didn't even mean to make that pun when I wrote it). I think it's equally palatable with milk or lemon.
A tiny splash of milk in Earl Grey is ok if necessary, but I find the flavour of the tea is so delicate that too much milk destroys it. It also turns it a rather unappetising colour; overall I prefer it with lemon. I don't tend to drink EG much, though, so when I do it's usually served by people who treat it as "any other tea" and slosh in far too much milk. I tend to think that people are over-generous with milk in tea generally, though.

This conversation reminds me that I should really get a better teapot. The one I have is rubbish, and the lid's broken so I have to use a ramekin. Most of the time I just end up using single-cup teabags which isn't really the same...

[Vizzerdrix]

Sun brewed ice tea is quite tasty.

As for hot tea, black with lots of sugar, sometimes a bit of mint in it if I'm sick.

[Gravitron5000]

I just recently had my first cup of hot lemon tea. It was actually really good. It might have had a little sugar in it, but no milk.

Don't put both milk and lemon in your tea, unless you want your milk clotting in it. Chunky tea is unpleasant.

[Deepbluediver]

You, sir have my respect!

Them bloody yanks and canucks need to take their tea more seriously.

Sorry, we where busy learning how to cook the perfect hamburger. :smalltongue:

And pretty much everything else on this (http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2008/07/02/the-top-10-foods-only-america-could-have-invented/#) list.