Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Rob Byatt |
Dear Nicey,
We get Yorkshire tea, teabags nowadays. Its states on the front of their packets that one teabag makes two mugs of tea. I can confirm this. I too used to be an extravagant one bag per cup man. I didn't believe one bag properly stretched to two cups. Now it seems Yorkshire tea have specifically
designed their bags to make two mugs. Or it could be that their tea bags were extra strong in the first place (which seems more likely come to think of it) and the two mugs per bag boast is a cunning marketing ploy. Trust those yorkshire types to be careful with their tea.
Rob
Newcastle |
Nicey replies: Well it just so happens in our 'Summer lets try some different tea bags' oddessy, that the Wife opened up our pack of Yorkshire Tea Bags this morning, sent to us by Taylors for evaluation. I did notice that they looked fairly large. I'll try my new cramming one onto a spoon and nodding sagely test in a little while. Also from Yorkshire, Bothams sent us some of their very nice Resolution tea bags which worked well and they easily made two mugs.
BTW We were up in Newcastle a little under 2 weeks ago, thats an awful lot of bridges you have there.
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Nick Q |
Dear Nicey
Just to add to the debate, I was under the impresssion that almost all teabags produced these days were designed for the mug. The teabag manufacturing companies have resigned themselves to this fact, despite whatever "serving suggestion" may adorn the packaging. This is how most tea is made these days. The tea in teabags is "designed" to release it's colour and flavour as quickly as possible so the mug drinker knows the bag has done it's work, can hoist out the bag after a few seconds, burn his/her fingers, make a mess on the top of the flip-top bin and be off on their merry way. Release of colour and flavour in a few seconds is of less importance to the more up-market brands (Twinings etc.) as they expect more of their bags to be used in pots, hence the rather disappointing mug performance of the more costly bag.
I, of course, speak from a position of absolutely no authority on this matter.
By the way, I agree with Katie, my personal preference is one bag per cup.
Nick
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Jim Fussell |
Nicey,
I'd like to stick up for Katie a little. I am a one bag per cup man, not because I am a man of infinite tea resources, but due to the fact that surely the second cup made will be of superior strength and quality. Also, I have always heard the theory when making a pot of tea, that x+1 bags should be used. Where x is the number of cups required. This is even more excessive than the one bag per cup method employed by Katie.
One thing I can't disagree with however is the main ethos in all tea making matters. Make it how you like it. In fact I think I will...right now. Excuse me.
Jim.
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Nicey replies: Jim,
I hear what you are saying but I think its one 'spoon' each plus one for the pot. As I said teabags tend to be a bit generous so I think that equation may not hold true except for people who have big teapots and like strong tea. In a very scientific test I've just scrunched a Pyramid bag onto a teaspoon and it looks like a heaped spoonful. Perhaps other people could estimate the contents of other bags?
I would say that because the flavour of the tea leached from the leaves changes as the tea brews due to higher molecular weight tannins being released, then the second cup can taste different if both are not made in quick succession. Again as with all tea matters personal taste is every thing here, but for the Wife and I the teabag is only in the mug of boiling water for a matter of a few seconds to get it to how we like it nice and refreshing. |
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Katie Drummond |
I am disappointed that the judgement has gone against me, but I did hold you up as the ultimate arbiter, and so I must bow my head and accept your decision.
But I don't want any of you thinking that I'm about to start recycling teabags. My pride may be dented but my standards are as high as ever.
Keep on composting!
Katie |
Nicey replies: You make it how you like it Katie. Hoorah! for and your decadent one bag mugs.
Mind you, when an imminent tea bag famine approaches as can happen from time to time in offices, for instance when the person who sorts out tea bags etc leaves or is made redundant, then doubling up on tea bags becomes a important survival technique. |
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Katie Drummond |
Dear Nicey
Controversy rages in our office and we need you (and your readers) to arbitrate.
I just went into the kitchen where my otherwise esteemed colleague Jane Leonard (I'm sorry, but she needs naming and shaming) was making three cups of tea.
I caught her in the act of fishing two teabags out of one of the mugs and asked what was going on. It transpired that in order not to 'waste' tea she had used one teabag each in two of the mugs, then transferred both the USED bags into the third cup.
Clearly this is some kind of wartime economy measure gone mad (and anachronistic given Jane's youth). But on the basis that the box of 240 bags of Waitrose 'Premium Gold' tea (highly recommended, by the way, as an all-round crowd-pleasing blend of Kenyan and other African teas) costs £3.75, each teabag is worth less than 2p. My innate horror of a cup of tea made from recycled teabags meant I couldn't bring myself to try the offending brew (we gave it to the accountant), but my suspicion is that the supposed saving is JUST NOT WORTH IT. Jane on the other hand mainatins that this is 'normal' practice, and grossly extravagant to do anything else.
What do you think, Nicey?
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Nicey replies: Katie,
Tea bags are designed for pots, not mugs unless they are the one cup variety with the string thing. What this means is that each tea bag is more than capable of producing two cups of tea, as this is a civilised amount of tea to brew for a a single person who may require a second cup. The upshot of this is that you can, and indeed the Wife and I do, make two perfectly good mugs of tea with one bag.
When thinking of tea economy I'm always reminded of Donald Plesence in the Great Escape who had used his tea leaves for about the thirtieth time.
So in short I'm with Jane on this one, of course you have to be using proper sensible tea in the first place. |
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