Start With the Water, Not the Leaf

Most disappointing cups of tea in Britain are not ruined by the leaf. They are ruined by the water. Draw fresh water from the cold tap each time you brew, and boil it only once. Water that has been through the kettle two or three times has lost much of its dissolved oxygen, and it tastes flat and faintly metallic. That flatness carries straight through into the cup, leaving you with something that tastes like tea without ever quite becoming it.

Water hardness matters too. In hard-water areas — much of London, the Home Counties, East Anglia — the calcium and magnesium in the supply bind with the tannins and flavonoids in the leaf, dulling the brightness and leaving a film on the surface. If your kettle furs up, your tea is probably suffering as well. Filtering the water, or keeping a bottle of soft water back for a special pot, makes a noticeable difference. A pinch of bicarbonate of soda in the pot helps too, though it is easy to overdo.

Temperature: The Detail Most People Skip

A rolling boil is right for most black blends, but "just boiled" is not the same as "boiled for two minutes". Take the kettle off the heat as soon as it clicks, and pour. For delicate black teas — a first flush Darjeeling, for instance — let the kettle stand for a minute, or pour the water into a cool mug first and then into the pot.

• Black blends and Assam: 95–100°C, straight off the boil.
• Darjeeling and lighter blacks: 90–95°C.
• Oolong: 85–90°C.
• Green tea: 75–80°C. Boiling water scalds it and turns it bitter.
• White tea: 80–85°C.
• Herbal, fruit and rooibos: 100°C, and they need the heat.

No thermometer? Boil the kettle, then pour the water into a cold mug or jug and let it stand for a minute for green tea, thirty seconds for oolong. It is not precise, but it is far better than scalding the leaf.

How Much Leaf, and How Long

Weigh it once and you will never guess again. For a 200ml mug, that is roughly 2g of loose black leaf — about one heaped teaspoon for most broken grades, a little more for large whole leaves, which are bulkier and slower to infuse. A teapot follows the old rule: one teaspoon per person, plus one for the pot. A tea bag is usually blended for speed, so it infuses faster and often needs less time rather than more.

Room to move matters as much as quantity. A small perforated ball crammed with leaf steeps unevenly; a basket infuser that lets the leaves unfurl gives a rounder, fuller cup.

Timing, for a 200ml mug:

• Black blends: 3–4 minutes for a balanced cup, 5 for a strong one. Beyond that, tannins take over and the tea turns drying and astringent.
• Green tea: 1–2 minutes. Longer is reliably bitter.
• Oolong: 2–3 minutes.
• White tea: 2–3 minutes.
• Herbal and rooibos: 5–7 minutes, with a lid on the pot to keep the volatile oils in.

Lift the bag or leaf out when the time is up. Squeezing the bag adds colour and body, but also a good deal of tannin — fine if you like a bracing cup, less so if you don't. Whole-leaf teas, unlike bags, will happily take a second and third infusion; add thirty seconds each time.

Milk, Sugar and the Order of Things

Warm the mug or pot first with a splash of hot water, tip it away, then brew. A cold vessel drags the temperature down by ten degrees or more before the leaf has done its work, and no tea cosy will rescue it afterwards.

The milk-in-first argument is older than most people realise. Thin porcelain used to crack when boiling water hit it, so milk went in first as a cushion; and in hard-water areas, milk poured in first still tempers the tannins a little, giving a softer cup. Pour it in afterwards if you prefer — you can see the colour of the brew and judge accordingly, which is the more reliable method. Semi-skimmed remains the British default: enough fat to round off the tannin without smothering the leaf.

Keep milk away from green, white, oolong and most Darjeelings. A slice of lemon suits a light Ceylon or a green tea; nothing at all suits a good first flush. Sugar dissolves best while the tea is still hot, so stir it in before the milk goes anywhere near the cup.

A Cup for Every Hour

Breakfast wants a robust Assam-based blend, brewed four to five minutes, taken in a big mug with a modest splash of milk. Mid-morning, a second flush Darjeeling or a bright Ceylon, no milk, in a smaller cup — something to wake the palate rather than fill the stomach. Mid-afternoon calls for Earl Grey, or a smoky lapsang if you like your tea to taste of bonfires, ideally alongside a slice of fruit cake. After a heavy meal, a strong cup or a small pot of pu-erh settles things nicely.

Evening brewing is its own discipline. Decaffeinated black tea, rooibos, peppermint or chamomile, brewed at a full 100°C for five minutes or more, with a lid on to trap the aroma. For a restaurant-style service at home, do what good kitchens do: warm the pot, use loose leaf, set a timer, and pour through a strainer into warmed cups. It costs almost nothing and turns an ordinary Tuesday evening into something worth sitting down for.