the perfect cup of tea

I heard on the radio the other day they had once again come up with the perfect cup of tea. And it got me thinking of an article I wrote afew weeks back for an application for a blogger job.

How to make the perfect cup of tea

Every once and a while on a slow news day I’ll read in the metro or hear on the radio that scientists have proven the method to making the perfect beloved beverage or meal. It’s as if  scientists have given up on cancer altogether and said “To hell with it lets find out exactly how hot the beans on beans on toast should be?!’. But the most recent I have heard is how exactly to make the perfect cup of tea. To do so you must put the tea bag in first and then boil the water and pour, then let the bag sit for exactly two minutes without you poking or prodding at it with a spoon. But before I could hear what exact temperature the milk should be or exactly how many grains of sugar should be used I thought to myself, How can they decide what the best way is when everybody likes it different?

Everybody claims that there mum or there granny makes the best cup of tea in the world, so with this information unless your grannies a reward winning scientist you must be lieing!. But in my opinion the title of best cup of tea is an impossible fact to prove because of the wide variety of ways people like there tea. For example for people in my extended family alone I can recall making a host of variations of tea. My mother swears by her Earl grey with milk and two sugars although a tea which would traditionally be served with a slice of lemon, my aunty Sybil takes her tea with an eccentric five sugars, whereas my aunt Vivienne takes a drop of tea in her milk. In contrast to her daughter Brigid - Ann who very precisely asks for “half a tea spoon of milk’.

But in the not so distant future might the tea we all know and love become a thing of the past?. More teas are available to us than ever before each claiming to be tastier and better for our digestive systems than the last. We’ve got Cammermile tea ,peppermint tea ,green tea,wild berries tea, lemon and ginger tea and the list goes on, who knows what wild and wonderful tea flavours could await us in the future? Cola tea?chocolate tea?. Maybe even coffee flavoured tea!. As we become more Americanised by the day could the new starbucks generation switch from an old fashioned cup of earl grey to a tall low fat mocha chino for good? Surely not.

The Irish loyalty for our beloved cup of tea is what drives us to want to know the formula for the perfect one. Because for generations in this country we’ve greeted every scenario that has come our way with ‘a cup o tea’ as it’s called it in Juno and the Paycock. When awful news of a death or accident is heard, the kettle is always put on, when news is heard of an engagement or promotion the kettle goes on, and whenever somebody calls no matter who the caller, the kettle is put on!.  You could almost say the answer to all of life’s problems is the perfect cup of tea!.

 hope you enjoyed it!

Sam