Tea... an important issue

There used to be a shop / cafe called Teasmith in Spitalfields where I tired oolong and puer tea for the first time. It shut some time ago.

Is there anything similar in London's famous London?

The best place I found is is the ground floor of Fortnums. Not a cafe admittedly but a pretty good range and if you're used to paying £8 for a bag of coffee it's fairly cheap by comparison

Tetley, lightly infused, nothing added.

And for me, what is just as important as tea is, when the occasion presents itself, something to go with that tea.
And, as if life wasn't stressful enough (house sale + move - 18 months and counting) I can't find anywhere that sells chocolate rich tea biscuits.

What kind of jumped up PRICK eats CHOCOLATE rich tea biscuits?

I'm in a rage.

Decaffeinated tea for you today sonny.

Just found a pack of chocolate rich teas in the cupboard. An existential crisis beckons.

Stick one in a cuppa and tell us what happens first, does the chocolate melt or the biscuit dissolve?

Me. Cos I like dem.

The whole point of a rich tea biscuit is to feel like it is a puritanical experience to eat them.

Its like gift wrapping a brick before throwing it through somebody's window!

@mashton

Just made my first cuppa of the day.

Fresh water in kettle.
Tea bag held high on spoon.
Milk in last.

It's a corker.

Taken with a fried egg on marmited multiseed toast.

Perfection.

Can I just get a clarification on this method (the tea rather than the toast). You pour the water through the teabag but once the mug is at the required level do you then drop the bag into the cup? I mean does the bag sit in the water or are you only passing the water through like one of those drip-drip-drip coffee machines?

https://www.iso.org/standard/8250.html

I'll just leave this here..

The whole point of a rich tea biscuit is to feel like it is a puritanical experience to eat them.

That's only the supermarket own brands, McV's are definitely a luxury product.

Oh, and I love a choccy rich tea by the way.

That is to get a uniform result for comparison, not a blueprint for the perfect cuppa.

Yeah, true. But it always amuses me that there is one and that it was originally (and naturally) a British Standard.

I miss Teasmith.

Buy from Curious Tea.

The owner puts as much care and attention into stock selection as John at Teasmith ever did, and often makes fairly insightful recommendations (and privides samples) based in your purchasing.

There used to be a chap at Borough Market tgat prepared and poured tea also - much smaller stock selection, but all good, nonetheless.

I'd suggest Curious Tea again, over and above Fortnums. It's better quality, and way better price.

Algerian coffee store looks to have a good selection of teas. I’ve never bought any from there but if it’s as good as the coffee, it’ll be good stuff.

I've ordered from here before and it was good:

https://www.postcardteas.com/site/

Lots of fruiting happening here, so have been making loads of peach iced tea with any fruit that fail the ugly test. No idea what I've been doing all my life without it. Easy, smells delicious when making the syrup. 3 peaches and a handful of old strawberries made about 2 gallons yesterday. Quite a lot of sugar which I'll experiment with replacing but poured over ice it's a dream. Not sure how long it'd keep either so I'll look into somehow freezing the syrup into portions or something. Ooh, fermenting could be fun. Like kombucha or something.

Got to buy a field and get an orchard going. That's my retirement plan. How long would it take to go from saplings to 20ft trees? 10-20 years? I know you can speed it up with scions (though not really sure what the process is).

Can I just get a clarification on this method ... ?

Sorry I missed this.

If you are confident that you did the pour slowly enough, with enough height to get good aeration, you can forego putting the bag in the cup after through-pouring.

You may need some practice before getting to that godlike skill level.

Nice disclaimer, every time he makes one and thinks it’s a mug of weak piss, it’s his own fault for never achieving godlike skill and not the fault of the highly questionable method.

Have you tried it yet?

I’m happy dropping a tea bag in a mug with a splash of milk, putting a lid on and leaving it until the desired shade of orange is achieved.

Anyone tried that Biscuit tea yet? Weirdly it's kinda OK. Smells way more like biscuits than it tastes