A Nice Cup of Tea

I found this great excerpt all about tea by George Orwell over at Cha bei teablog. He outlines his—count them—eleven Golden Rules of tea. It is great to see his (very English) perspective as it was written 61 years ago. My favorites include:

"China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it."

What about rich and successful? I can't settle for a mere morale boost!

"Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea."

How dare you imprison my tea!

"If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water."

I think Orwell was onto a million dollar idea with that hot sugar water drink.

"Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again."

Or how about obtaining some GOOD tea rather than trying to force your tastebuds to acclimate to rubbish?

Thank you for this Cha bei!