<sigh>
Boil a kettle.
Use a proper china teapot (none of your metal rubbish)
Quarter fill the teapot with boiling water, swill carefully for a minute and discard (to "warm the pot" )
Using good, high quality leave (Assam, or Darjeeling - PG is not a type of tea) add one heaped teaspoon per CUP (not mug) and "one for the pot". You use a teaspoon. Hence
teaspoon
Fill the pot with the right quantity of water
Add a teacosy to keep the pot warm
Leave to stand for five minutes
Always add the milk from a jug (or a slice of lemon) first, them pour tea into the cup. This slowly increases the milk temperature. The correct expression as to who will pour is "shall I be mother?" as traditionally mother pours the tea. Two people should not pour as one will become pregnant ("two hands on the pot"). The tea is poured out through a fine tea strainer which prevents the leaves entering the cup. The strainer has its own bowl to sit in.
When enquiring about sugar "do you take sugar"..."yes please"...", the next question is "one lump or two"? Sugar comes in lumps and is added using sugar tongs, not a spoon.
A teaspoon is added to the saucer (never put in the cup) and the drinker stirs their own tea (clockwise).
When the first round of tea is poured, a jug of hot water is added to the pot and the cosy replaced.
Indian tea is traditionally drunk white, china tea black. When entertaining formally, both are offered ("Tea"..."yes please"..."China or Indian" etc.)
Sandwiches or cakes should be small enough to balance on the saucer.
the terms "mashing", "Stewing", "getting a brew on", "Brew oop chuck" and similar vernacular expressions have no place in the British tradition of tea.
That did not win us the empire!
And Spikey, as I have been forced to tell you on a previous occasion when advising colonials on the proprieties of imbibing, there is no place for the expression
"Me got a free monkey"
Now , please, pass the port
Red
