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Ask Alfred

After the ice was broken on National Hot Tea Day, one has been gratified to receive additional questions on a variety of subjects.  One will be pleased to answer as time permits, beginning naturally where one left off on the subject of afternoon tea.

 

Dear Pennyworth: Thank you for your most informative replies to questions on the proper mode of preparing and serving tea. May I ask another one? In the course of my youth, I was introduced to the practice of adding a little cream to my strong black tea. Over the following years I found that this practice was somewhat less common than the use of milk. Is there any reason that one dairy product should be preferred over the other?

 

What a superb question.  Cream is a perfectly acceptable addition to strong black tea, preferred by many for the richer and more velvety mouthfeel it brings to the beverage.   In his excellent reference work The Afternoon Tea Book, Michael Smith, the food historian who served as consultant on Upstairs, Downstairs and similar productions, consistently refers to the addition of “milk or cream” in those words as if they are one and the same: namely the alternative to lemon. He never once compares them to each other, intimating that it is entirely a matter of personal preference.  From my own experience, I can tell you that I had a great aunt who was committed to the extra weight and texture of cream, while my mother abhorred the heaviness and would take her tea plain if there was only cream offered.  It is, therefore, entirely a matter of personal taste with neither being judged superior by connoisseurs.

Milk poured into a cup of tea. Tea is properly poured first among people of quality, milk last.

Before we move on from the subject, I will add that the Internet is awash in misinformation about when milk (or cream) is added.  Tea is properly poured first, then the milk added, using the color to help one gauge the proper amount for that particular brew.   Among those who attach far too much importance to such things (aka snobs), to refer to a ‘milk first’ person or MIF is to indicate someone out of their element who is putting on airs and getting it wrong – rather like an extended pinkie. 

 

While it is the height of ill-breeding to make judgments on another person based on such habits, the history of this grand misunderstanding is rather interesting.  In the earliest days of tea drinking in England, the same mugs were used as for drinking ale.  That is, they were silver, pewter, or heavy earthenware.   When the English first saw the delicate porcelain tea bowls the early ship’s officers brought from China, they didn’t believe it could withstand the shock of boiling water and so they poured in a little milk first.  Very soon, however, bone china was familiar in all the fine houses and its heat resistant nature was well known.  No one who knew what they were about thought it needed to be protected in such a way.  Only governesses added milk first. There is of course no converting a MIF to a MIL, as the St. James Tea Room has observed "they have their reasons."  But for those wishing to adhere to the practices of the great houses, milk is added last. 

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