Tea in a pot with a teacosy anyone? (lighthearted thread)

My MIL often uses a teapot with a cosy and there’s something very comforting about having tea that way.

OTOH she has also bought one of those one cup boiler things which are not so nice.

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/201910/medium-282969-d3d7b72f-c3bf-43c6-a51c-f17ab834c77e.jpeg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/201910/medium-288483-7ef3e283-a1a3-4799-a523-503053008765.jpeg%3C/span%3E

We have a metal teapot, with a built in strainer, and have tea in a teapot always, unless it's just me and I fancy a Red Bush, which I make in a mug.
Our teapot is covered in a tea cosy, that, like 'Marydoll*, I made a cover for, albeit a loose cover.
The other tea pot is a china one, and I recently knitted a cosy for that, but it mostly lived in the cupboard.
Comes out for guests.

I follow the George Orwell School of Tea Brewing. I disagree on point six in that freshly drawn & freshly boiling water does make a difference to the taste. www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm

I drink only redbush tea and have never seen a loose leaf version, but my lovely Spode Copeland ‘Italian’ teapot, the only one I possess, is only ever pressed into service when my DiL - a big tea drinker - is here and she likes loose leaf Earl Grey. I don’t have a tea cosy though. Perhaps I should unravel the problematic jumper I started to knit two years ago and use the wool to make one ?!

Not an old fogey giulia

My son has just had his 42nd birthday and was very pleased to receive a teapot, loose tea and a bread maker!

Always use loose tea leaves and always have . I will not ruin your lunch by saying what small brown soggy teabags remind me of.

I buy loose tea in Waitrose. They have four or five (if not more) one country blends.

When I a somewhere with no composting facilities. I just pour all excess tea/water out of the pot and then shake the leaves into the rubbish tin and only swill the odd tealeves left in the pot down the drain. Far from clearing waste pipes, tea leaves can block the U trap of the water flow is not strong enough to wash them all round the bend of the trap.

I use loose leaf, I’ve got an insulated tea pot, my posh sister had one which I admired, it was expensive, my daughter bought it me for Christmas one year, it has a removable strainer so once the tea has brewed you can remove the strainer and leaves, it stays hot for ages, long enough for a second and third cup.

The tea leaves go in the food waste caddy.

I was recently given a kg of loose tea brought from Assam by a retired tea planter. I opened it, when I'd run out of teabags and find it makes a world of difference!

It's delicious. I hope I can get more.
I have a handmade ceramic teapot with built in strainer and don't bother with a cosy.

I shall strike a blow for the use of teabags and mugs here!
They are very useful, quick and easy, and if you use china mugs rather than pottery types, they retain the heat well.
I once heard a tea taster on radio four say that making a cuppa in a china mug, and leaving it to brew for approx 2 mins then squeezing the teabag on the side of the mug with a teaspoon before taking it out is almost as good as brewed tea in a teapot, and avoids the ‘stewed’ tea taste that using a teapot often brings.
I only drink Earl Grey tea, and now and then do use a loose leaf tea bought from a shop in Broadway, which being more expensive I do use a small teapot, but that’s only a couple of times a week usually.

I know you may be appalled, but when I am on my own I just put a large teaspoon of tea leaves into the tea strainer. Then pour boiling water through into my mug. I leave the wet leaves in the strainer and re-use about three times during the day.

For visitors I get out my teapot and knitted tea cosy.

Tea bags in a pot and a cup and saucer here. I find getting rid of tealeaves a pain.

wildswan.....ah, a fellow Yorkshirewoman.

I always make a pot of tea in a tea pot and use a tea cosy even when it is just for me. I always warm the tea pot too before putting measuring out 2 teaspoons of Breakfast tea. I have a fine tea strainer I use to pour through. I love being able to have a second and a third cup of tea. In afternoons I use bone china tea pot and tea set too. If I go anywhere and people offer me a mug and a tea bag I am really not impressed and end up having coffee. My kids laugh and say I am like the Queen. If anyone comes to tea I bring out my silver sugar tongs too. I don't have sugar.

Wildswan my father used to make his morning tea by putting tea leaves into a “pint pot” and pouring boiling water over them, then adding sugar and milk. Never strained them. He also used to take “mashings” (leaf tea and sugar) to work in a paper bag. It was common practice among blue collar workers around here back in the day.
We had an American friend whose wife would pour any excess tea out of the tea pot into a large jar they kept in the fridge. When it was full, her husband would add honey and slices of lemon and drink it! I had some. It was delicious.

mangalam loose leaf tea in the morning, adams peake ceylon in the afternoon. Using ingenui tea maker, keeps it very hot. Two of the best china mugs of tea I ever drank, worth every penny and only for me, all mine

Does anybody remember those (plastic) wall mounted loose tea dispensers from the early 70’s? Mum had one. They came in a range of colours! Can’t recollect what they were called.

‘Caddy-Matic’. !!

teabags here in a teapot on a t-pot stand that was my husbands Gran's and covered with a cosy.I buy a new one at a local market every couple of years from a very small company called Tempest in a teacup.

My padded tea cosy was bought for me years ago by my mother from the Sandringham Castle Gift Shop.

I remember her saying to me, tongue in cheek, that the Queen hadn't actually made it herself!

The inside is covered with teastains that don't wash out but I will never change it as the design on the material is so pretty and because it reminds me still of my mother.

I’d forgotten that I have an Ingenuitea. I’ve just got it out and made a really good mug of tea!

Urmstongran

We had one of those as well, ours was cream and red, and a very tinny teapot.

Tea bags- Kericho Gold bought on line. China teapot and a bone china cup AND saucer. Visitors all say tea tastes better if made in a teapot.

I've been pondering this teapot vs bag & mug. I think it's more than the tea being properly brewed. It's about making the space for a calming ritual rather than tea-on-the-go-don't-stop-and-make- time-for-a-breather.

Londongranny

I agree, it’s something my husband and I have done since our very first days together, we always eat breakfast at the table with a pot of tea, we’re early risers, so never in a rush, and he certainly does make a very good cup of tea.

Love the George Orwell link Londongranny.