Blaugust 22, 2016: How To Make Tea - Catch-up!

How to make a cup of tea, Mark-style

1. Fill your clean glass kettle with water and set it going. A clean metal kettle is also acceptable. Plastic kettles are awful, and you should feel bad.
2. Get the laser-cut steel infuser out of the tea pot, and discard the tea leaves from yesterday. Usually into a pot plant or the garden somewhere. Rinse out any stubborn bits.
3. Rinse out the ceramic pot with hot water, removing any dregs and heating the pot.
4. Pop the infuser back in the pot, and place within it one teaspoon of your chosen tea from Lupicia.
5. As soon as the water hits boiling, pour it in. Even if it is a green tea. Yes. Unless the label says otherwise. Which it doesn't. Lupicia know their shit. (Yeah tea that requires cooler water does exist but you probably don't have any.)
6. Place the lid and tea-cosy on your teapot. Ideally your tea-cosy should look like a strawberry, and be a treasured gift from a dear old friend. If not, well, make do with an old towel or something.
7. Use any leftover boiling water in the kettle to rinse out your cup. It probably had dregs in it from yesterday too.
8. Take your teapot and cup to the place you want to enjoy your tea, and wait patiently for a minute or three. Take the time to queue up some classical music. May I suggest the Pas De Deux from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite? Or perhaps "Au Fond du Temple Saint" from Les pêcheurs de perles? Ahhh, Bizet.
9. Pour your cup of tea. Savour the sound, the warmth, the steam, the smell.
10. Cool your jets (also your tea). Unless you want to burn your tongue.
11. Drink your cup of tea. Savour it. You are in no rush.
12. Pour another cup. You will note that the tea has continued to infuse while you drank the first cup. This is fine, as you are a civilised person who uses high quality tea that doesn't go gross and astringent. You are also using only a small amount of leaf. This means you will get a progression of flavour, from a softer first cup to a fuller flavour at the last.
13. Repeat steps nine to twelve, until you have consumed all tea in the pot. Usually about five cups. You need a partner so you don't have to drink the whole pot alone, you loser.