Tea

How to make the perfect cup of tea (German style).

It may surprise you to know that although the English are famous for their tea, it is the Germans who have perfected the art of serving it in the right way. In Germany you will often come across delightful tea shops, which sell a wide variety of leaf tea in beautiful packaging. My German friends have even bought a kettle that will heat water to specific degrees Celsius. It is certainly possible to shock tea leaves by using water that is too hot and therefore compromise the flavour.

To make your perfect pot of tea you will need to lay your hands on what I call “tea socks” – or large paper tea filters (available throughout Germany, from eteaket and also at the T-bar in Australia). Heat the pot by swishing some boiling water around inside then pouring it out. Take your tea filter and fill it with a teaspoon of leaf tea for each person plus one for the pot. Add the hot water (slightly short of boiling if possible) and leave the pot with the tea filter in it for 3-5 minutes depending on the tea. Remove the tea filter and discard (tea filters ought to decompose well in compost and are usually made from recycled paper). Your tea is now ready to serve and will not stew as so often happens in England giving it a bitter taste. Adding more hot water to old tea leaves once they have stewed doesn’t improve the taste and cleaning a tea pot of leaves is a horrible and messy job. Why the English, creators of the world’s biggest tea producing Empire, never mastered this way of making tea is beyond me but I digress.

Serve your tea, adding milk after the tea has been poured and not before (it was only ever added before to protect poor quality china from cracking with the sudden heat – aristocracy added milk last to flaunt their more expensive bone china). Enjoy with friends and a scone if at all possible.