Storm in a tea cup

George Hobica

Afternoon tea in London - whether at a posh hotel such as the Ritz or the Savoy or in a department store like Harrods or Fortnum & Mason - is a special occasion treat.

The freshly baked scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, the dainty crustless sandwiches, the cakes and pastries are so popular at some venues that you'll need to book well in advance.

But what about the tea itself?

Claire Ptak, a Californian now living in London where she writes cookbooks and owns a cake shop, has this to say about afternoon tea at one of London's luxury hotels: "I will always associate England with tea. The Ritz is a magical experience, having all these little things brought to you. The tea itself is not the most 'flavor-forward.'"

Amen to that. Most people who brew tea, whether at home or as part of their job, don't know how to extract full flavor from tea leaves.

Indeed, tea has been neglected compared to other popular beverages. We have craft beer, craft coffee and craft cocktails - but where's the craft tea?

The good news: several London hotels that serve afternoon tea recognized that their tea did not match the quality of the scones and fancy sandwiches and decided to do something about it.

Recently, I went back to London and ordered a pot of tea at my hotel, the new 199-room BoTree in the Marlyebone neighborhood.

The only thing that arrived at my table was a perfectly brewed pot of tea, with the brewing already stopped in the pantry. No tea leaves in sight, no straining.

I went back to the pantry and saw a barista making pots of tea, timing each brew precisely to two minutes. He made the tea in one pot and transferred the brew into a second one, the one that arrived at table.

That's how you make a decent cup of tea.

But it's not the whole story.

To find out more, I visited several London hotels I had heard were improving their tea service. I spoke to staff and to their tea purveyors.

One hotel with good tea, the boutique Milestone in Kensington, referred me to their tea guy, Dananjaya Silva, who is 36 and the third-generation proprietor of Ceylon- and London-based PMD Tea.

"Tea is king," he told me when we met, "but water is god. A cup of our tea served in Edinburgh will not taste the same in London, all else being equal. That's because London water is very hard while Edinburgh's is softer. The softer the water, the better the tea."

First tip: use soft water or filter it

If your tap water has a lot of chlorine or minerals such as calcium, or just isn't that great, use a neutral-tasting bottled water or filter it.

Many London hotels that care about tea, I learned from my tastings, brew it with good spring water. At London's Conrad St James, which sources tea from London's Lalani and Company, they use Aqua Panna from Italy; at the Rubens across from Buckingham Palace Gardens, its Belu water from Wales.

Before I go on, let me make it clear that we are talking about making only black tea here, not green, blue or herbal. Different rules apply for those.

Second tip: do not boil the water

Claridge's and several other top London hotels, I soon discovered, get their tea from London's Rare Tea Company, so I reached out to founder and tea expert Henrietta Lovell, who told me: "Whatever water you choose, do not boil tea water. Heat it to just boiling, around 95 degrees Celsius."

That's because boiling removes oxygen and oxygen is part of what makes water taste good. As Lovell explained: "Ever wonder what those bubbles are when you boil water? It's oxygen escaping."

Third tip: time the brewing to the minute.

Lovell advises that most of the best flavor from black tea is extracted in the first 90 seconds, and one should never let the leaves steep for more than three minutes.

"After that you get bitter tannins, although if you're adding milk it's okay to brew up a bit longer." Set a timer because it's easy to get distracted while you wait.

Just before the Covid shutdowns, the famous Savoy Hotel sent staff to "tea school," a four-hour training program offered by its tea merchant, Jing Tea, and committed to delivering tea with all brewing finished in the pantry rather than at the table. Manager Thomas Wickens told me that overbrewing tea "is not acceptable. It's like serving a burnt steak. It's insulting to the palate."

Today, however, the Savoy has gone back to the traditional way. I imagine that it's more labor-intensive to have staff time the brewing rather than leaving it to guests to monitor. Wickens is no longer with the hotel.

Fourth tip: measure the tea leaves and water

I also learned that the ideal ratio of black tea to volume of water is about 2 to 3 grams of tea, basically a level teaspoon, to about 150 to 160 ml of water.

Because the leaf size can vary between types of tea, true believers use a scale to weigh the leaves. At the Rubens, they bring out a small scale with calibration weights and weigh the tea in front of you.

Fifth tip: the type of teapot and cup matters

Cast iron? Silver-plate? Bone china? At the Conrad, where servers are encouraged to do a taste test before delivering the finished product, only glass tea pots (from Bodum) are now used. "Silver might look posh, but the metal might react with the tea's flavor," said manager Luigi Volpe. "Plus glass shows the tea's color."

Silva advises against using a teapot with a built-in mesh strainer. Tea wants to be free, he insists, so he recommends putting the leaves directly in the pot and stirring when adding water and then just before pouring.

Some experts even think the cup you drink from matters. According to Mariage Freres, a Paris-based tea merchant with an outpost in London's Covent Garden, in the eighth century the celebrated Chinese poet Lu Yu wrote that to enjoy really delicious tea a porcelain cup should be used, preferably beside a lily pond in the company of desirable women or gentlemen.

Tastes do vary, but just as a fine wine may not live up to its full potential when drunk from a mug, the same can be said of fine teas.

Sixth tip: let's not forget the tea leaves

Start with good-quality loose leaf tea, not "industrial" tea bags, from a reputable source. Store it in a cool, dry place in a sealed container.

At the Savoy, leaves are kept in the fridge.

"Tea is one of the mainstays of civilization and the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes," wrote George Orwell in his essay, A Nice Cup of Tea. The author of 1984 and Animal Farm exaggerates, but clearly there is a right way and lots of wrong ways to make good tea. I took what I learned in London and put it into practice. Finally, a good cup of tea at home. I'd been missing so much.

How to make black tea

1) Heat water to about 95 C, preferably a soft pH neutral water like Evian. You can also filter tap water. Use a kitchen thermometer, a temperature-adjustable electric tea kettle or just boil to where the water starts to simmer.

2) Add one teaspoon of tea for every 150 ml of water into a preheated pot.

3) Set a timer. Experiment with the brewing time; anywhere from 90 seconds to 3 minutes will do.

4. Strain don't contain. Do not use a tea ball or other mesh device to hold the leaves. Give them a stir. Strain the tea into cups or another vessel to stop the brewing. But definitely stop the brewing process at three minutes unless you prefer tannins or are using milk and sugar, which can counteract any bitterness.

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