A proper pot of tea

I heard an item on the radio this morning about an article in a newspaper about making a pot of tea. According to the article only a china or ceramic pot would do, which should be warmed, the tea should be weighed, the pot filled to within so many centimetres of the top (wouldn’t that mean you would have to have different sized pots for different quantities of tea? We just fill ors according to how big a drink we want.) then te tea should be left to stand for six minutes… Then, and this may seem like heresy to some, the milk should be poured into the cup first and then the tea poured onto it.

I’m not going to mention the mif versus tif debate (milk in first or tea in first) but it does seem that this doesn’t account for taste; supposing you like very weak tea, supposing you like it very strong? What about regional variations because of the sort of water you have? My dad always reckoned that you get a better flavour tea if you have hard water (from an area with a lot of limestone and other minerals, as opposed to an area where the water hasn’t passed through this type of rock)

We use leaf tea, with plenty of Darjeeling in the blend and we add a teabag of ginger tea, use a glass teapot, put enough boiling water in for two mugs, wait for as long as we wait, pour, add milk, drink… But that’s just us!