There’s nothing more quintessentially British than a cup of tea.
We never went to war without a good cuppa, they built the empire on the stuff and it’s the only thing that adequately fills the advert break on Coronation Street.
Folk from these Isles have been enjoying a good cup of English cha since the dawn of time…well, for at least 358 years anyway, according to Friday’s Google Doodle.
So you’d imagine, after nearly four centuries of practice, we’d be pretty sharp at knocking together a shit-hot cup of tea.
You’d be dead wrong. Despite 76 per cent of us drinking it daily and Britons drinking around 60.2 BILLION cups of the stuff every year, the majority of us are still managing to cock it up.
Tea experts from University College London say a worrying amount of brews made in Britain are inadequate or just plain wrong.
The British Science Association conducted some research into the problem of shit cuppas among 1,000 Brits and found some frankly alarming results.
It doesn’t boil down to the age old debate about whether you put your milk in first or wait until the hot water goes in, it’s far, far worse than that.
The study found that 80 per cent of us are not letting the tea brew for anywhere near long enough and it’s leading to tasteless, beige bilge masquerading as proper tea.
Mark Miodownik, Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, said: “This may be controversial, but the British do not understand how to make tea! Or at least they’re not doing it properly.
“And it’s because they don’t understand the variables. Expediency is causing us to throw chemistry out of the window; we’re not allowing our tea to brew for long enough, to release the flavours properly.”
Scientists say the correct amount of time to let your tea bag brew to get all the flavours out is between two and five minutes…but only 16 per cent of people were getting it right.
Oh, and if you’re asking, science says you should put milk in after the water. If you add it before, you’re definitely some kind of sociopath that should be locked up.
