NORTHERN PLANNER

Sometimes you do take the easy route, take the short cut. Who will know? It will turn out okay, so what’s the point? But sometimes it’s worth doing it right.

Like when you make tea, quick boil of the kettle, swill the bag in the mug with water, dash of milk. Done. Easy. So much quicker.

But that shows little respect for the people you’re making it for, and for yourself for that matter. It’s the world of McDonalds for breakfast, ready meals and those funny belts that send pulses in your stomach – instead of a good walk.

This is how I drink tea at work. A couple of extra minutes to transform a functional act that you don’t really think about into a warm act of love.

Ethnographic studies show that coffee is high powered meetings, sophistication and speed. Tea is about warmth, care, companionship and simplicity.

Making proper tea requires a few key steps. This is how my sorely missed Grandma taught me to do it:

1. Make sure you have decent quality teabags. Ideally Yorkshire Tea.
2. Boil the kettle with freshly drawn water.
3. You must use a pot – warmed by leaving hot water to stand in it while the kettle boils.
4. One tea bag per cup with one extra.
5. Pour the water in the pot while boiling (having removed the warming water obviously).
6. Do NOT stir yet. Leave for five minutes.
7. While you’re waiting, warm the cups with some left over boiling water. Empty 1 minute before the tea has brewed, put in the milk. This will warm the milk a bit.
8. Just before you put in the tea, give it a stir.
9. Finished.

Rituals make us who we are. This is one worth keeping. You can really taste the difference and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.

By the way, you can tell when tea has been made in a pot by the little bubbles in the side of a cup. I often wonder why this never gets talked about more.

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