I love tea, especially English-style black tea with some cookies, cake, or pastries.

Tea party

It's important to use a cup or mug that you love so that the whole experience is a pleasant one. Here are a few of my favorite tea mugs.

How to make tea

The correct way to make tea is a controversial subject. Don't worry too much about it and drink it how you like it. For black tea, the water should be as hot as possible; most US restaurants do not have hot enough water for black tea, so I am almost always disappointed trying to order tea in a restaurant.

Using a tea bag

This is my go-to method for weekday mornings when I'm getting ready for work.

1. Boil water.
2. Put tea bag in cup and pour in boiling water.
3. Steep for 3.5 minutes, then remove the tea bag.
4. Add milk and drink.

In a tea pot

When I have someone else over for tea, or if I'm drinking a lot on the weekend, I make a pot with loose leaf tea.

1. Boil a lot of water
1. (optional) Rinse the teapot with hot water to warm it up.
2. Add to the pot 1 heaping teaspoon of tea for each cup you plan to drink, plus one for the pot.
3. Fill the pot with boiling water, and put any extra hot water in the tea cups to make them hot.
4. Cover teapot with a beautiful tea cozy and steep for 3.5 minutes.
5. Pour tea out into cups through a strainer, or not if you don't mind leaves in your cup and want to have your fortune read.

Milk in first?

While looking around the web, I noticed a lot of people have strong opinions about whether the milk or the tea should go into the cup first. Apparently you can even do milk-first with a tea bag, and pour the hot water onto the milk and tea bag. I tried it and it works okay, but I think the tea is less strong. If I'm drinking tea from a pot, I switch between tea first and milk first. Sometimes for a tea party, I even add sugar.

Reasons for milk first

• In the past, poor people had low quality porcelain that would shatter if the temperature changed too quickly, so they added the milk first and the hot tea slowly after. Adding the tea first was a sign that you were rich enough for expensive porcelain.
• The tea and milk get more thoroughly mixed when you pour tea into a smaller quantity of milk.
• The milk proteins will get denatured from adding milk to tea(?)

Reasons for tea first

• It's hard to tell how much milk to add to get it the color you like unless you add the milk second.
• With tea bags, the water won't be hot enough to draw out the flavor and caffeine.