How to Make Perfect Workshop Tea

Hello, my name is Danny Hopkins and I'm editor of Practical Classics magazine and I'm here in the Practical Classics workshop today to talk about tea. How to make the perfect cup of workshop tea. I've got with me, Matt Tomkins, he's our project manager. Now, Matt, you've been drinking tea for how long? Oh, fair few years now. Fair few year, so at least seven or eight years. I've been actually making tea for around 35 years. So, I think I'm pretty qualified to teach this course. Matt, I need you to taste the tea at the end of this particular course. Sure. So, if you want to go off to the decontamination chamber. What I want to do with you, is take you over to the tea station to take you through the various processes and methods involved in making the perfect cup of workshop tea. Right. So, here we are at the Practical Classics tea station. Before we start, it's worth mentioning that we're gonna be just working on basic bag making tea. We're not gonna be talking about teapots, loose leaf tea, that kind of thing. That's gonna be covered in a later class. That's gonna be covered in intermediate tea-making. What we are going to cover here, is simple bag-making tea for the workshop. And to do that, we've got four mugs. I'll explain why we've got four mugs a bit later. And before I do that, I'm gonna take you through the basic kit. So, in the Practical Classics workshop, we've got our kettle, which is a Morphy Richards 2120. Loads of other kettles available. Not really got any preference, but electric on its little plinth there. We have digestives. We've got, at the moment, McVitie Chocolate digestives. Other digestives are available, chocolate or not. Semi-skim milk. Don't know why we use semi-skim milk. I think it's because it's the most common milk you can buy in the shops these days. I actually like full-fat milk. It gives the tea more body, I think. But, anyway, semi-skim milk, somebody else bought that. We've got the workshop teaspoon. Never been washed, obviously. Lose all its character if you did. And, of course, the actual workshop station itself. It's not ever really been cleaned. Again, it's more of a badge of honor to make your tea in a, kind of, sort of, healthy, dirty environment. Builds up immunity, that kind of thing. Our cups, we've got four cups. These, again, have been kind of loosely swilled out. They're still a bit stained on the inside. You don't want to spend too much time washing tea cups because, you know, it takes away from drinking time. Over here, we've got our tea bags. This is our PG tips. We've got the triangular bags here. Again, lots of arguments about triangular bags. I prefer a flat bag myself, but again, you know, it's a bit of a gimmick, but we don't really mind. Sugar, a lot of this has, kind of, solidified. We've put wet spoons in and you can use those solid bits as lumps, actually quite useful. And, also we've got some Canderel sweetener. Really? So, without further ado, I think the next thing we need to do is get some water in the kettle. I'll just ask Matt to come in. Matt, would you go and put some water in that, please? Thank you. We'll just wait a little, water getter. You took your time. Right, okay, so we got water in the kettle now. I'll stick that on the plinth. And, exciting moment, I'm gonna flip the switch. There we go. And as you can see, the light's now come on. That means that the electricity is flowing into the filament in the kettle and the water is being heated. Probably take about two or three minutes. While that's happening, I'm going to explain to you why we've got four mugs here, not just one. Okay, so, what we're gonna do, is we're gonna do some different methods of tea making 'cause there's a lot of argument about tea making. We're gonna do, two of the cups are gonna be milk first. Two of the cups are gonna be water first. And out of those two, one each is gonna be done with the bag squeeze method and the other one we're gonna allow the teabag to actually brew. Okay, so then we're gonna do one squeeze, one brew, one milk first, one water first. Okay? That's simply the way we're gonna do it. So, we're gonna get the milk here. Skim milk, little bit in the bottom of two of them. Again, some people say that the milk first method is the best one because what it does, it takes the tannin out of the tea bag before the hot water goes in. It means you don't get that little film on the surface. Not quite sure that's true, but still probably some science behind that. And the other two, of course, you notice we've not got any milk in because we're gonna be putting the water in first with them. Now, the ceremonial moment of truth. The placing of the bag into the mug. I'm just gonna do one bag each. Again, I do know some people prefer two bags but, I dunno, the double bag method, for me, it's just overkill. You don't need that much tea. And actually, if you make it properly you really don't need that much tea. So, we've now got a bag in each mug. Two of the mugs have got milk in already. Two of the mugs haven't got milk in. We've got our spoon, ready to squeeze. And, again, really useful for squeezing, spoons, because, I'm gonna do this before we get the water in, you notice the spoon's got a curved back and the inside of the mug is curved. That means you can actually squeeze the bag against the inside of the mug and it's a perfect fit. So it's really, get really good closure around the whole bag surface area with the back of the spoon. Some people do it with the front of the spoon but you don't have the same kind of squeezing effect but you do get more water circulation. Again, I just think that's foolish. Using the back of the spoon is, is where it's at for me. And I'll be demonstrating that in just a second when the kettle's boiled. As you can hear, you know the kettle's on, 'cause you can hear it. It does get louder as the boiling point gets closer. What you can hear is not actually the filament making a noise, it's actually the water making a noise as it, kind of, bubbles around inside the kettle. Get a sense of anticipation, people you're making the tea for, often quite an emotional time. Sometimes you feel like the kettle itself is about to boil and it's really not doing it yet. I think we're getting close now though. Oh, there it goes! There it goes, right, brilliant. Okay, so, kettle's boiled, nice and hot. We're gonna pour it in to the water first mugs first. Again, I like to pour from a little way above the mug. It just has a bit more impact, a little bit more sense of danger. And here we are, the other two with the milk first. Water has been deployed. Spoon. This is the most dangerous part of the operation. So, do be careful. That's very hot water in there. You've got to be extremely careful while squeezing the bag. I squeeze towards myself 'cause it makes me do it more carefully, but, you can squeeze away. So, I'm squeezing towards, just doing it first. Just getting the first round of squeezing away. Those two mugs over there, one with milk in and one without, they're brewing. Okay? So, we gonna ignore them for a while. This one here, I might have slightly over-filled this one with milk but I'm squeezing away. And actually, one of the satisfying things about the milk first method is that when you squeeze the bag, you can see the tea, the tannins, coming out of the bag, it slowly darkens, it's a really, it's quite a satisfying process. You don't get that with the water method. So, I'm just squeezing the back of that. Okay, once you're done the squeeze just pull it away from the edge of the cup. Let it circulate around the center. Back to the first one. Again, you really do see the liquid darkening quite quickly when you use the squeeze method. And again, there is a speed benefit with it. It has to be said, if you're working in a busy environment, if you've got the guys in the workshop waiting for their tea, the squeeze method's probably the best one to use. Okay, now I think I'm getting close to completion. Particularly on the water method here because it seems to be getting into the right color. Notice on the other two, not a lot of change in the milk one. Still looks like milk. The water one, slowly getting darker, but nothing dramatic. These guys, wow, they're ready. Okay, I'm just gonna dump the bags on the side. Tradition, dump the bag on the side, means the other guys can clear it up, because you're making the tea. Fair enough, isn't it really? Okay, so, we're gonna put a little bit of milk into the first one, the one with the water. When Matt comes back in, gonna ask him to taste. Of course, Matt being a youngster, takes eight sugars. So, gonna have to... Again, I'm not a sugar person so I'm not gonna have any. But, Matt is gonna be tasting so I'm just gonna do. And, another one. Always get the number right because Matt will notice. He's got a very sweet tooth. There we are. There, okay. So, those two are ready for Matt to taste. I'm not gonna ask him to come in quite yet. I just need to move them over here to the tasting area. So, there's one there. That one, that I've just taken, that's the water first. This one is the milk first, okay? So, get Matt to come back in to taste the first two. So, milk first, which is closest to you. Right. See how it tastes. It's quite sweet. It's quite sweet, but I know you like that. Don't make a decision yet. I think we need to make a decision right at the end but just savor that moment. This is the water first one, okay? It's got a good nose, I know that. I know that much, water first, it always has a good nose, but that might be because of the extra tannins that are released. It could be. Right, well, I'll leave you to the others. So, we're now waiting for the teabags in the other two to brew. Now, the question with when you're brewing, when you're using the brewing method is, do you stir or don't you stir? And I am a stirrer. I'm going to get this, I'm gonna deploy the spoon again. No squeeze. I'm going to make sure I don't squeeze. I am just simply gonna stir. And as soon as I stir, you can see the tannins being released here. Both of them are now ready to drink. I think the brew method has done its job. Again, dump the bags on the side. Bit of milk in there. Again, it's a slightly different color. It doesn't look quite as intense, quite as gray. There's a more floral, more rouge color in a brewed one again. Just, that and that, there we go. Right, give it a quick stir. Matt's popping back now. Okay, Matt, so this is the brewed tea. So, that one there, milk first, that you're drinking. It's a little lighter than the other one. It's a bit lighter, isn't it? Okay? Enjoying that? Mm-hmm. And now the- Let me just compare, this was the milk in first here? That's the milk in first one with the squeeze method rather than the brew. I want to dig into you here. I mean, squeeze or brew? I'm gonna say squeeze. There's more tea flavor. Really? Okay. I always find the brew method is a more subtle flavor. It's something which you wouldn't want with a big meal, for instance. No, this one's... So, for the- Mm, definitely more depth of flavor, more nuances coming through in this one, definitely. More of a tea hit. Yes. Okay, so, over there, that's the water method. Over there, this is... How you feeling about that one? I prefer it to that one. Okay. It's still not quite the depth of tea flavor. Yup. This is the water method, wasn't it? With the squeeze. Yeah. No, sorry, that's the water method with the brew, that one. So, brew, water. This is brew, water. Yeah. And that's, brew milk. Hmm. I'm gonna go back to this one again and say this one's got the depth of flavor, it's got the color, it's got the sweetness I like. Yeah, this one, comes out on top for me. So, water squeezed. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. The water squeeze method has won the workshop tea challenge. But, of course, you can use any one you like. And I think the best thing to do is to experiment with what you do yourself. Use different bags, use different methods and come up with a known personal favorite. Then try and, basically, force it on all your friends. That's what I do. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for watching. If you want to go back to the main menu you'll be able to click on any of the classes that you like. And thank you very much for watching us make workshop tea.