On Sun, 11 Aug 2013 10:49:56 +0100, "Ophelia"
> wrote:

>
>
>"Brooklyn1" > wrote in message
.. .
>> On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 11:07:29 -0400, jmcquown >
>> wrote:
>>
>>>On 8/10/2013 10:00 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 08:00:05 -0500, "Pete C." >
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How much tea do you drink each morning? My microwave heats my coffee
>>>>> water in 1:35. Those electric kettles are great if you need a large
>>>>> amount of hot water for tea for a group, or for various cooking needs,
>>>>> but aren't real efficient for a cup or two.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe it is just me, but the microwaved water seems to affect the
>>>> taste of the tea, but I cannot imagine why it would. Maybe because
>>>> the teas is put into the heated water instead of the water poured over
>>>> the tea.
>>>>
>>>Simple solution for that: pour the microwave heated water over the tea.
>>
>> Microwaved water is heated but rarely (except by pure luck) brought
>> exactly to the boil... not unless one futzes with resetting the timer
>> and futzes with a thermometer. I don't brew tea often but when I do I
>> boil at least twice as much water as will fill the cup(s), the cup(s)
>> is/are first filled with boiling water to heat the cup, that water is
>> dumped out and freshly boiled water is used to brew tea... any tea
>> drinker knows that the cup(s) or teapot is first heated before tea is
>> actually brewed. Brewing tea in a cold vessel will not produce a
>> proper tea. Naturally those who are satisfied with pish vasser it
>> matters not how one prepares tea... at most all restaurants the best
>> one can hope for is tepid tea... order tea and they bring a cup of
>> tepid water with a cheapo teabag on the side.
>
>Blimey! Someone who knows how to make a proper pot of tea)

I have a vast teapot collection, many kinds of tea in vast quantity,
all sorts of tea cozys and other tea paraphenalia... however I rarely
indulge in "pond water" myself, but many of my guests are from the UK
and from Belize (British Honduras), and I do much of the brewing. My
parents also sipped a lot of tea, brewed in a samovar and drunk from a
tall glass, they were from Latvia. And I have relatives in Argentina,
they drink a brewed beverage", it's not tea, it's some kind of brewed
leaves that're mildly narcotic, they sip it constantly through a
silver straw-like device that has a perforated bulb at the end. Here,
if you think the Japanese tea ceremony is complicated... click on the
mate beverage link at the top of the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)