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"A Nice Cup of Tea" is an essay by English author
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
, first published in the ''
London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' on 12 January 1946. It is a discussion of the craft of making a cup of
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...
, including the line: "Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden."
["How to make a perfect cuppa"](_blank)
BBC. Retrieved 30 December 2014
Orwell wrote that "tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country and causes violent disputes over how it should be made", and his rules cover such matters as the best shape for a
teacup
A teacup is a cup for drinking tea. It may be with a handle (grip), handle, generally a small one that may be grasped with the thumb and one or two fingers. It is typically made of a ceramic material. It is usually part of a set, composed of a ...
, the advisability of using water that is still
boiling, and his preference for very strong tea.
He also considers what he calls "one of the most controversial points of all" – whether to put tea in the cup first and add the milk after, or the other way around, acknowledging, "indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject".
[George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). "The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism, 1946". p. 34. Secker & Warburg] Orwell says tea should be poured first because "one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round".
"How to make a perfect cuppa: put milk in first"
The Guardian. Retrieved 30 December 2014 "I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable", he writes.
See also
*Bibliography of George Orwell
The bibliography of George Orwell includes journalism, essays, novels, and non-fiction books written by the British writer Eric Blair (1903–1950), either under his own name or, more usually, under his pen name George Orwell. Orwell was a pro ...
*ISO 3103
ISO 3103 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (commonly referred to as ISO), specifying a standardized method for brewing tea, possibly sampled by the standardized methods described in ISO 1839. It was orig ...
*Tea classics
Tea as a beverage was first consumed in China and the earliest extant mention of tea in literature is the ''Classic of Poetry'', although the ideogram used (Tu, 荼) in these texts can also designate a variety of plants, such as sowthistle a ...
*Tea in the United Kingdom
Since the 18th century, the United Kingdom has been one of the world's largest tea consumers, with an average annual per capita supply of . Originally an upper-class drink in Europe, tea gradually spread through all classes, eventually becomi ...
References
External links
A Nice Cup of Tea: original essay published by The Orwell Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nice Cup of Tea, A
Essays by George Orwell
1946 essays
Tea culture
Works originally published in the London Evening Standard
Tea in the United Kingdom