The habit of
putting milk in tea reportedly started in France. Madame de Sévigné described
how Madame de la Sablière launched the fashion:
Madame de Ia Sahlière took her
tea with milk, as she told me the other day, because it was to her taste.
Much of the
tea produced in India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya is manufactured to be drunk with
the addition of milk. Milk complements a malty Assam or
full-bodied Sri Lankan black tea, but cream can sometimes mask the taste of quality black teas. It's too heavy.
This settled,
let’s launch right into a hotly debated issue in tea etiquette: Are you a M.I.F. (milk in first) or are you a
M.I.L. (milk in last) tea drinker?
Milk is
poured after the tea. You may have heard or read that milk precedes the tea
into the cup but this is not the case. You do not put milk in before tea
because then you cannot judge the strength of the tea by its color and aroma. A
dark Assam might taster better with more milk than a lighter Darjeeling tea.
Where did
this old milk-first tale come from? Samuel Twining has theorized that milk
first prevented early china from cracking in reaction to boiling water. That
theory appears rather shaky today since boiling water is not poured directly
into the cup.
By now, it goes without saying that milk should not be added to white, green, or oolong teas.
 |
| Downstairs at Downton Abbey |
Good reasons to add milk after the tea is poured into the cup
I'm sure Carson the butler would advise the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey to put milk in second. After all, the butler in
the popular BBC television program Upstairs,
Downstairs kindly gave the following advice to the household servants who
were arguing about the virtues of milk before or after the tea is poured:
Those of us downstairs put the milk in first, while those upstairs put the
milk in last.
Moyra Bremner
author of Enquire Within Upon Modern
Etiquette and Successful Behaviour,
says,
Milk, strictly speaking, goes in after the tea.
According to
the English writer Evelyn Waugh,
All nannies and many governesses…put the milk
in first.
And, by the
way, Queen Elizabeth II adds the milk last.
Which teas
work best with milk?
Here are a few classic selections from The Tea Maestro -
 |
| Tea & Etiquette, Johnson & Richardson |
Read more Tea & Etiquette suggestions and stories by Dorothea Johnson and Bruce Richardson
Posts
:-) Always a fun debate!
ReplyDeleteIf I'm pouring from a teapot, it's milk first. If I'm making just a single cuppa with a bag, I add the milk after. This is how my Scottish husband taught me to make it. Practice helps you judge how much milk to add first, worst case scenario you add a little after if needed. I like the tea hitting the milk in the cup making it a bit frothy. But like you said this is an age old debate and everyone has a different opinion.
ReplyDeleteEven if there were not "etiquette" of a sort for putting milk in last, the drifty little clouds curling up for a moment before the stir would be reason enough.
ReplyDeleterachel
I do try to comment, and sometimes give up because the numbers are so difficult to read.