[codeulike]

George Orwell has entered the chat

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

... one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, 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.

[thaumasiotes]

Right, because it's much harder to measure a specific amount of milk in isolation than to eyeball how much of it you've just added to something else.

If you were concerned about regulating the amount of milk you were adding, tea first wouldn't even be a possibility.

[SuperNinKenDo]

The line where he points out that you need to stir continuously is important. He's saying that by mixing the milk and tea reliably, you can eyeball the colour of the tea. Indeed, this helps you regulate the flavour over multiple cups as the tea may be stronger (and therefore darker) if you have not removed the tea leaves. Conversely humans are terrible at measuring volumes in isolation in a container thar may differ in size.

If you're concerned about regulating the tea (to water) to milk ratio, i.e., obtaining a reliable flavour), milk first wouldn't even be a possibility.

[thaumasiotes]

> Conversely humans are terrible at measuring volumes in isolation in a container tha[t] may differ in size.

Most people use their teacups more than once.

Even among people who don't, disposable cups, having been mass-produced, are all the same size.

[SuperNinKenDo]

People however don't tend to have perfectly uniform cups even in their own home, and whenever outside one's home, the chances are very low that somebody can make accurate adjustments for a new vessel due to our well documented inability to compare volumes across different vessels.

Further the milk first method cannot account for differences in tea strength across brewings.

If we take the amount of times/chances milk first could lead you astray vs. the amount of times tea first plus stirring as you pour could lead you astray, the former is oviously greater and more likely.

I saw somewhere here somebody talking about the different ways the milk sugars might caramelise with the two methods being a factor, and obviously the article suggests there is a difference between the two methods in terms of flavour, but in terms of reliability of flavour, the latter option is obviously more reliable.

I take my tea black and unsweetened anyway, unless I'm drinking Hong Kong style milk-tea that is... then all bets on my blood-sugar levels are off...

[markdown]

I assume you are being sarcastic.

Drinking vessels come in all different sizes, from dainty little tea cups to mugs that hold an entire litre.

Measuring the milk requires both measuring the steep time exactly, and using a separate measuring cup. This wastes time and adds unnecessary cleanup.

Stirring as you add milk to the tea allows you to tell exactly the right amount for that cup (and for how long the tea was steeped) based on the colour of the beverage.

[seoulmetro]

Measure is not being used as a literal verb. It's being used as an approximate measure. The same way we measure how much time we spend doing a task without a clock.

[markdown]

No it's not. Read again

> measure a specific amount of milk in isolation than to eyeball how much of it you've just added to something else

[seoulmetro]

Yes, it is. They are measuring the milk in isolation, which in this instance means to pour (and measure with your eyes) as it fills the empty container before the tea. Whereas you can't really measure how much the volume is changing (eyeballing) in isolation.

Think of it as the difference between measuring a liquid in a container and eyeballing a liquid in another liquid.

[TRiG_Ireland]

I measure the amount of milk by the colour it turns the tea. That's easy, and works the same for any size and shape of cup. Measuring how much milk you've poured into the bottom of a cup is much harder (especially when you want a small amount of milk, so it'll be a little puddle at the bottom of an opaque cup).