george orwell essay on making tea

ARYAN'S BLOG

From beyond the rainbow somewhere, how to make the perfect cup of tea: george orwell’s 11 golden rules., “one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. all true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes.”.

After the recently examined history of how coffee changed the world , the most democratic thing to do would be to offer those of us who prefer tea a comparable treat — and what would be more appropriate than a reading of George Orwell’ s his secret to the perfect cup of tea? The passage, which discusses “one of the most controversial parts of all” — the matter of the milk — is part of his altogether fantastic 1945 essay “A Nice Cup of Tea,” originally published in the Evening Standard on January 12, 1946, and later included in the indispensable 1968 anthology George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, Vol 3 ( public library ). Excerpted below, it presents Orwell’s eleven “golden” rules for the ultimate tea experience.

UPDATE: There seems to be a bit of confusion about the recording: To clarify, it is a reading of Orwell, not by Orwell, from an old documentary. The voice is that of actor Chris Langham. No recording of Orwell’s voice is known to exist.

Listen to the audio. URL: https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/george-orwell-tea

If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes. When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden: First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea. Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britannia ware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad. Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water. Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners. Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly. Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference. Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle. Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it. Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste. Tenthly, 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. Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water. Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again. These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tea leaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one’s ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

The same year, Orwell published one of his most celebrated and enduring essays, titled “Why I Write” and exploring the four universal motives for creation. It appears on this essential reading list of famous writers’ wisdom on writing .

Orwell on tea: 11 golden rules

This indirectly via Christopher Hitchens. Somewhat idiosyncratic, as any good guide to teamaking must be; you won’t go badly wrong following Orwell’s advice.

A Nice Cup of Tea

By George Orwell

Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.

If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays â€” it is economical, and one can drink it without milk â€” but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities â€” that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes â€” a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup â€” that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
Tenthly, 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.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one’s ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

(taken from The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell , Volume 3, 1943-45, Penguin ISBN, 0-14-00-3153-7)

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George Orwell's 11 Tips for Proper Tea Making

Public Domain // Mendhak // CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic (Wikimedia Commons)

More than 70 years ago, in the January 12, 1946, edition of the Evening Standard , George Orwell wrote up 11 tips for making and consuming tea. Published under the title "A Nice Cup of Tea ," Orwell noted that "at least four [points] are acutely controversial." That's a bold claim!

So what does it take to make an Orwellian cup of tea? Read on.

A NICE CUP OF TEA BY GEORGE ORWELL

If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes. When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays—it is economical, and one can drink it without milk—but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities—that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

(Ed. note: a hob is a stove burner in this context. Depends a bit on what sort of pot you're using whether it's safe to put it on the burner!)

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes—a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup—that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, 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.

LASTLY (SADLY NOT ELEVENTHLY)

Lastly, tea—unless one is drinking it in the Russian style—should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water. Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

Orwell concludes:

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

Let the arguing commence, tea lovers!

MyLinh Shattan

A nice cup of tea – george orwell on the “mainstay of civilisation”.

My world is falling apart from the inside out, and I mean that literally. I knocked over my Replogle globe which unhinged at the North Pole, my Whirlpool dryer died, leaving a tide of laundry in its wake, and a thirty year old oak dropped dead across the driveway last night. If this weren’t enough, the tragicomic presidential bid for election and the sad news of Harper Lee’s death, might just find me unhinged at the poles myself. Lee was not much for public attention, but to know an author is to read her, so if you wish to remember her, check out her “new” book, Go Set A Watchman . Her passing coincided with the end of Lunar New Year festivities, and following this circuitous paragraph, maybe it offers an anecdote for the times. Many celebrated the holiday with a cup of tea. Given the paucity of civilised topics, a discussion on tea might just be the restorative and, as Orwell suggested, optimistic course we need.

Some weeks ago, I read George Orwell’s essay, A Nice Cup of Tea . Written in 1946 for the London Evening Standard; the essay makes it into Wikipedia, the penultimate recognition, a modern Encyclopedia Britannica, which has at least two things in common with tea today. First, the availability of tea is encyclopedic with its black, oolong, white, and green varieties; second, the making of tea has historically British (Britannica) influences. Note the spelling of the word civilised with the British S over the American Z. A discussion of tea seems right. Brilliant, actually.

A lot has happened in the intervening 70 years since Orwell wrote this. And a lot is the same, so there are truths and advice worth bearing out. Orwell and his British high-mindedness reflect the empire, as well as class in that society, one which still boasts a monarchy today. He explains that “a nice cup of tea invariably means Indian tea,” or Ceylonese tea (Sri Lanka).

It’s his first rule, by the way, of the 11 rules, “every one of which [he] regards as golden.” Use the NICE tea, the Indian or Ceylonese. The teapot should be china and warmed beforehand by “placing it on the hob.” Today hob refers to the heated rings on a stove surface. Orwell tells you how much tea to use and even relates it to rationing, because it is important that the tea be strong. It was 1946; people the world over understood the term rationing .

The tea must be put ‘straight into the pot” and never in strainers or “muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea.” Orwellian words like IMPRISON creep into the essay, and I have guilt about my own tea chest, its separate cells so wide and long, the bags closing in on the leaves.He explains the “most controversial point of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject.” Here it is: to put the milk in before the tea, or after. He concedes that the “milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments,” but he argues that putting the tea in first and then “stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk.”

Here’s the kicker, at least for this tea drinker. Tea “should be drunk without sugar.” UGH. I’d made it all the way to rule 11 to learn this: NO SUGAR!

Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar: you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

He doesn’t stop there, exerting his writerly privilege to go on about such misguided souls.

Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight, and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

OK George. So, I gave it a go.

Though I didn’t drink tea daily, I did drink at least 14 cups of de-sugared tea, an equal amount of cups for the 14 days or fortnight in his challenge. We’ve come a long way since Indian and Ceylon. I indulged in Chinese and Persian and herbal, which is often not made from tea leaves.

THE TEA TRIALS – WHAT I LEARNED

Black tea takes getting used to without sugar. I use milk and pour it in AFTER. To be fair, I have not poured it in first. More milk is needed the stronger the tea
For black tea with any type of infusion or fragrance, I skip the milk.
Loose leaves don’t seem to make much difference. The leaves go to the bottom. That said, I’ve developed a preference for liberating the leaves! and put them in the cup straight away a la Orwell
Herbal teas and black teas with infusions/fragrances are nice without sugar
I pour bubbling hot, boiling water directly onto the loose leaves; seems to wake them up. I also give the cup a good stir. Thank you Mr. Orwell.

It’s easy to tell the NICE tea, because the cheap stuff is not drinkable without sugar and sweeteners. Health trends include sugar detox and cleansing, so that was in the back of my mind during these sugar-free trials. I use a bit of sugar or honey on occasion, though not often.

Tea is the most consumed manufactured drink in the world, including coffee, alcohol, chocolate, and sodas combined. ( Wiki)

So if your world seems to be falling apart, maybe a NICE spot of tea is in order. Orwell dubbed it the mainstay of civilisation in England, Eire, Australia and New Zealand. I have been persuaded to agree on occasion, that it might even help you feel ‘wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it.’

TEAS SAMPLED

Harney & Sons – Paris, English Breakfast

Golden Monkey Black Tea – fine black from Fujian Province

Persian Tea

Rooiboos Chai Mate

Scottish Breakfast

Jasmine & Green

** Essay follows

A Nice Cup of Tea

By George Orwell

Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly. Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, 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.

Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

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The Best George Orwell Essays Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

George Orwell (1903-50) is known around the world for his satirical novella Animal Farm and his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four , but he was arguably at his best in the essay form. Below, we’ve selected and introduced ten of Orwell’s best essays for the interested newcomer to his non-fiction, but there are many more we could have added. What do you think is George Orwell’s greatest essay?

1. ‘ Why I Write ’.

This 1946 essay is notable for at least two reasons: one, it gives us a neat little autobiography detailing Orwell’s development as a writer; and two, it includes four ‘motives for writing’ which break down as egoism (wanting to seem clever), aesthetic enthusiasm (taking delight in the sounds of words etc.), the historical impulse (wanting to record things for posterity), and the political purpose (wanting to ‘push the world in a certain direction’).

2. ‘ Politics and the English Language ’.

The English language is ‘in a bad way’, Orwell argues in this famous essay from 1946. As its title suggests, Orwell identifies a link between the (degraded) English language of his time and the degraded political situation: Orwell sees modern political discourse as being less a matter of words chosen for their clear meanings than a series of stock phrases slung together.

Orwell concludes with six rules or guidelines for political writers and essayists, which include: never use a long word when a short one will do, or a specialist or foreign term when a simpler English one should suffice.

We have analysed this classic essay here .

3. ‘ Shooting an Elephant ’.

This is an early Orwell essay, from 1936. In it, he recalls his (possibly fictionalised) experiences as a police officer in Burma, when he had to shoot an elephant that had got out of hand. Orwell extrapolates from this one event, seeing it as a microcosm of imperialism, wherein the coloniser loses his humanity and freedom through oppressing others.

We have analysed this essay here .

4. ‘ Decline of the English Murder ’.

In this 1946 essay, Orwell writes about the British fascination with murder, focusing in particular on the period of 1850-1925, which Orwell identifies as the golden age or ‘great period in murder’ in the media and literature. But what has happened to murder in the British newspapers?

Orwell claims that the Second World War has desensitised people to brutal acts of killing, but also that there is less style and art in modern murders. Oscar Wilde would no doubt agree with Orwell’s point of view!

5. ‘ Confessions of a Book Reviewer ’.

This 1946 essay makes book-reviewing as a profession or trade – something that seems so appealing and aspirational to many book-lovers – look like a life of drudgery. Why, Orwell asks, does virtually every book that’s published have to be reviewed? It would be best, he argues, to be more discriminating and devote more column inches to the most deserving of books.

6. ‘ A Hanging ’.

This is another Burmese recollection from Orwell, and a very early work, dating from 1931. Orwell describes a condemned criminal being executed by hanging, using this event as a way in to thinking about capital punishment and how, as Orwell put it elsewhere, a premeditated execution can seem more inhumane than a thousand murders.

We discuss this Orwell essay in more detail here .

7. ‘ The Lion and the Unicorn ’.

Subtitled ‘Socialism and the English Genius’, this is another essay Orwell wrote about Britain in the wake of the outbreak of the Second World War. Published in 1941, this essay takes its title from the heraldic symbols for England (the lion) and Scotland (the unicorn). Orwell argues that some sort of socialist revolution is needed to wrest Britain out of its outmoded ways and an overhaul of the British class system will help Britain to defeat the Nazis.

The long essay contains a section, ‘England Your England’, which is often reprinted as a standalone essay, written as the German bomber planes were whizzing overhead during the Blitz of 1941. This part of the essay is a critique of blind English patriotism during wartime and an attempt to pin down ‘English’ values at a time when England itself was under threat from Nazi invasion.

8. ‘ My Country Right or Left ’.

This 1940 essay shows what a complex and nuanced thinker Orwell was when it came to political labels such as ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’. Although Orwell was on the left, he also held patriotic (although not exactly fervently nationalistic) attitudes towards England which many of his comrades on the left found baffling.

As with ‘England Your England’ above, the wartime context is central to Orwell’s argument, and lends his discussion of the relationship between left-wing politics and patriotic values an urgency and immediacy.

9. ‘ Bookshop Memories ’.

As well as writing on politics and being a writer, Orwell also wrote perceptively about readers and book-buyers – as in this 1936 essay, published the same year as his novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying , which combined both bookshops and writers (the novel focuses on Gordon Comstock, an aspiring poet).

In ‘Bookshop Memories’, reflecting on his own time working as an assistant in a bookshop, Orwell divides those who haunt bookshops into various types: the snobs after a first edition, the Oriental students, and so on.

10. ‘ A Nice Cup of Tea ’.

Orwell didn’t just write about literature and politics. He also wrote about things like the perfect pub, and how to make the best cup of tea, for the London Evening Standard in the late 1940s. Here, in this essay from 1946, Orwell offers eleven ‘golden rules’ for making a tasty cuppa, arguing that people disagree vehemently how to make a perfect cup of tea because it is one of the ‘mainstays of civilisation’. Hear, hear.

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3 thoughts on “The Best George Orwell Essays Everyone Should Read”

Thanks, Orwell was a master at combining wisdom and readability. I also like his essay on Edward Lear, although some of his observations are very much of their time: https://edwardleartrail.wordpress.com/2018/10/16/george-orwell-on-edward-lear/

The Everyman edition of Orwell’s essays (1200 pages !) is my desert island book. I like Shooting the Elephant altho Julian Barnes seems to believe this is fictitious. Is this still a live debate ?

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The Orwell Foundation

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The Orwell Foundation is delighted to make available a selection of essays, articles, sketches, reviews and scripts written by Orwell.

This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Orwell Estate . All queries regarding rights should be addressed to the Estate’s representatives at A. M. Heath literary agency.

The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider making a donation to help us maintain these resources for readers everywhere.

Sketches For Burmese Days

1. John Flory – My Epitaph
2. Extract, Preliminary to Autobiography
3. Extract, the Autobiography of John Flory
4. An Incident in Rangoon
5. Extract, A Rebuke to the Author, John Flory

Essays and articles

A Day in the Life of a Tramp ( Le Progrès Civique , 1929)
A Hanging ( The Adelphi , 1931)
A Nice Cup of Tea ( Evening Standard , 1946)
Antisemitism in Britain ( Contemporary Jewish Record , 1945)
Arthur Koestler (written 1944)
British Cookery (unpublished, 1946)
Can Socialists be Happy? (as John Freeman, Tribune , 1943)
Common Lodging Houses ( New Statesman , 3 September 1932)
Confessions of a Book Reviewer ( Tribune , 1946)
“For what am I fighting?” ( New Statesman , 4 January 1941)
Freedom and Happiness – Review of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ( Tribune , 1946)
Freedom of the Park ( Tribune , 1945)
Future of a Ruined Germany ( The Observer , 1945)
Good Bad Books ( Tribune , 1945)
In Defence of English Cooking ( Evening Standard , 1945)
In Front of Your Nose ( Tribune , 1946)
Just Junk – But Who Could Resist It? ( Evening Standard , 1946)
My Country Right or Left ( Folios of New Writing , 1940)
Nonsense Poetry ( Tribune , 1945)
Notes on Nationalism ( Polemic , October 1945)
Pleasure Spots ( Tribune , January 1946)
Poetry and the microphone ( The New Saxon Pamphlet , 1945)
Politics and the English Language ( Horizon , 1946)
Politics vs. Literature: An examination of Gulliver’s Travels ( Polemic , 1946)
Reflections on Gandhi ( Partisan Review , 1949)
Rudyard Kipling ( Horizon , 1942)
Second Thoughts on James Burnham ( Polemic , 1946)
Shooting an Elephant ( New Writing , 1936)
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad ( Tribune , 1946)
Spilling the Spanish Beans ( New English Weekly , 29 July and 2 September 1937)
The Art of Donald McGill ( Horizon , 1941)
The Moon Under Water ( Evening Standard , 1946)
The Prevention of Literature ( Polemic , 1946)
The Proletarian Writer (BBC Home Service and The Listener , 1940)
The Spike ( Adelphi , 1931)
The Sporting Spirit ( Tribune , 1945)
Why I Write ( Gangrel , 1946)
You and the Atom Bomb ( Tribune , 1945)

Reviews by Orwell

Anonymous Review of Burmese Interlude by C. V. Warren ( The Listener , 1938)
Anonymous Review of Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis ( The Listener , 1938)
Review of The Pub and the People by Mass-Observation ( The Listener , 1943)

Letters and other material

BBC Archive: George Orwell
Free will (a one act drama, written 1920)
George Orwell to Steven Runciman (August 1920)
George Orwell to Victor Gollancz (9 May 1937)
George Orwell to Frederic Warburg (22 October 1948, Letters of Note)
‘Three parties that mattered’: extract from Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Voice – a magazine programme , episode 6 (BBC Indian Service, 1942)
Your Questions Answered: Wigan Pier (BBC Overseas Service)
The Freedom of the Press: proposed preface to Animal Farm (1945, first published 1972)
Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm (March 1947)

External links are being provided for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by The Orwell Foundation of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organisation or individual. The Foundation bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.

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‘A Nice Cup of Tea’: An Analysis of Tea Culture in the 1930s and 40s British Documentary Film

2014, Thomas J. Hertweck, ed. (2014) Food on Film: Bringing something new to the table. Rowman & Littlefield

George Orwell in his essay “A Nice Cup of Tea”, published in the London Evening Standard in January 1946, described tea as “one of the main stays of civilization in this country”, and this belief was confirmed by the British documentary filmmakers who produced many short films during the 1930s and 1940 depicting the act of tea drinking as a significant part of British culture. In the wartime films of Humphrey Jennings, for example, the cup of tea symbolizes the mythology of the ‘spirit of the Blitz’ by strengthening the concept of citizenship and bringing the community closer together during a time of chaos and uncertainty. Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, in their 2007 book Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War, recall a scene from Jennings’ 1943 masterpiece Fires Were Started when, after the team of firemen finish putting out a raging fire at the London docks, which has seen one of their colleagues tragically killed, “A mobile canteen arrives with the ‘nice cup of tea’, that distinctively British symbol of normality”. This particular scene signifies the importance of the ‘cup of tea’ in times of crisis (both personal and national) and emphasises the fact that tea consumption has always been a central part of daily life in Britain. Consequently, tea culture has become synonymous with British national identity. This chapter will provide a contextual analysis of the depiction of tea culture within the British documentary film from a socio-historical and cultural perspective establishing how tea drinking crossed boundaries of class and gender; taking ‘afternoon tea’ was no longer a leisure activity strictly reserved for the upper classes but a necessity for the working classes for whom the much need ‘tea break’ provided an opportunity for relaxation from the everyday toil of the factory, farm, coal mine and steel mill. Tea also played a vital role during the war, comforting families whose homes had been destroyed by enemy bombs and weary citizens emerging from long nights in inner-city air-raid shelters. Films such as Ruby Grierson’s Today We Live (1937) and They Also Serve (1940), Harry Watt’s North Sea (1938), Jack Lee and J B Holmes’ Ordinary People (1941) and Humphrey Jennings’ Spare Time (1939), Heart of Britain (1941), Fires Were Started (1943) and The Silent Village (1943) all comment on the cultural significance of tea as part of the British national experience while reinforcing the concept of British wartime community spirit. As the 20th century philosopher Bernard-Paul Heroux once claimed, “There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea”.

Related Papers

Lynn Hilditch

In his post-war essay “A Nice Cup of Tea” (1946), George Orwell described tea as “one of the main stays of civilization in this country” and suggested that tea had the ability to provide some kind of empowering national energy as well as having a very precise preparation and social purpose. During wartime, tea became a tool of perseverance in order to affirm British cultural identity during a period when it was very much under attack. While the process or ‘art’ of tea drinking as well as tea’s social history has been discussed many times, the cultural significance of that most traditionally British of hot beverages has habitually been taken for granted throughout film and visual culture. However, in numerous British documentary films of the 1930s and 1940s, the importance of tea drinking in British culture appears to have been magnified as an essential social pastime, particularly relevant in times of crisis and hardship. This paper will offer a contextual analysis of the depiction of tea culture within the British documentary film from a socio-historical and cultural perspective; taking ‘afternoon tea’ was no longer a leisure activity strictly reserved for the upper classes but a necessity for the working classes for whom the much need ‘tea break’ provided an opportunity for relaxation from the everyday toil of the factory, farm, coal mine and steel mill. Tea also played a vital role during the war, comforting families whose homes had been destroyed by enemy bombs and weary citizens emerging from long nights in inner-city air-raid shelters, thus reinforcing the somewhat propagandist concept of British wartime community spirit.

Tom Williams

From Churchill’s V-sign to the Spitfire, many of the most iconic representations of Britain are directly associated with the Second World War. One of the most popular and enduring national memories of the war is that of the quiet, determined resistance of the civilian population when facing adversity, often summed up as ‘Blitz spirit’ or ‘Dunkirk spirit’ and most recently manifested in the nostalgic rediscovery of wartime propaganda posters urging civilians to ‘keep calm and carry on’, an image now reproduced and sold on countless shopping bags, mugs and tea-towels. This paper examines how the image of the British as a nation of tea drinkers became inseparable from these broader ideas about the British national character during the Second World War. By examining a range of wartime propaganda including the film documentaries of Humphrey Jennings, the BBC radio broadcasts of J.B. Priestley and the official publications of the Ministry of Information this paper demonstrates how images of tea drinking were consciously used during the war as a symbol of the composure and determination of the British home front. It also explores how images of making and drinking tea became symbols of camaraderie, ingenuity and bravery within the British Army. Finally, it addresses the reception and reinterpretation of British tea drinking habits by the soldiers of the U.S. Army, including the often repeated American claim that the Allied advance from Normandy to the Rhine was held up at crucial moments by the British Army’s compulsive need to take regular tea breaks.

Time, Consumption and Everyday Life : Practice, Materiality and Culture

Olga Kravets

Alexander F Day

Empire of Tea is a beautifully written and illustrated cultural history of tea. While the title suggests a world focus, the book primarily looks at the introduction of tea into British society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, emphasizing the shifting ways that tea is understood, how it transforms British diets and culture and the cultural practices and politics around its trade, marketing and consumption. This focus on the cultural history of the eighteenth century in particular separates this book from the numerous other published histories of tea. As such, it spends less time on the broad structures of the tea trade than some may want, though it gives enough detail on tea production and trade to contextualize its cultural history. While extensively researched and detailed—based on a fine reading of British tea documents—the book is written in a manner that invites both an academic and general audience.

Canadian Journal of Irish Studies

Tricia Cusack

this article argues that tea drinking in nineteenth-century Ireland became interwoven with ideologies of gender and social class that resulted in the production of distinct “tea cultures.” these cultures were shaped within a discourse of moderation and excess, order and disruption, dividing along class and gender lines. the article focuses on how visual art and literature helped form and also contest such cultures. thus the Irish tea table was a primarily female space. For upper- and middle-class women, taking tea was associated with values of moderation, order, and respectability, although some, especially among the leisured class, resisted tea- table conformity. by contrast, women in the poorest classes, although increasingly dependent on tea, were deemed ignorant of its correct preparation, and accused of drinking it to excess resulting in ill health and family breakdown. Meanwhile, the Irish temperance movement assigned tea drinking among the poor an alternative meaning as a desirable dietary habit, replacing alcohol consumption.

Raissa Smarasista

A comparison of the different ways British films have portrayed the social conditions of specific times in history, particularly the 1940s-1960s in relation to the war and post-war era. This paper explores a number of specific films that reflect on broader themes such as the role of women, class, and work & consumer culture in British history.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

STELLA HOCKENHULL

Drishti: The Sight

Lakshmi Sukumar

Advertisements have become an everyday presence in our lives, proliferating through mass media and new media platforms. They are shaped out of a social logic reflecting the capitalist ideologies that define the consumerist society. The ads create semantic worlds to be deciphered by the potential consumers, who in turn are expected to develop a distinct taste for the commodity. Among the multitude of objects commodified and marketed through television advertisements, tea is an important item from the everyday cultural practice in India, the history of which can be traced back to the colonial times. The image economy enabled through television made it easier for the tea manufacturers to use ads to attribute brand values to their commodity. Along with enhancing the visual experience of the prospective consumers, these ads also enticed them towards building their self-images through the purchase of specific brands of a commodity. This paper intends to look into the practice of drinking tea as a part of our popular culture and its representations through a discursive reading of select advertisements of Taj Mahal Tea.

Tamara Ketabgian

Laurie E Barnes

This is a digital copy of the catalog for an exhibition organized for the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida with a contribution by Anne Bissonnette. The role played by tea in the upper echelons of society had a profound influence on the creation of art. This exhibition examines the global influence of this beverage by focusing on eight key cultures — China, Korea, Japan, Russia, Germany/Austria, France, the United Kingdom, and America. Works of art included in this exhibition span 1,200 years, beginning in the 800s. Each geographic section highlights important historical and artistic events, as artists and connoisseurs devoted themselves to the creation and selection of art in the service of tea. In each of the cultures, tea gatherings among the elite were occasions for the host or hostess to create a memorable experience that underscored some aspect of their erudition. In East Asia, the practice of drinking tea spread from Buddhist temples to the secular upper class. Initially, emperors, kings, and nobles prepared and drank tea in the same manner as monks. Over time, tea gatherings came to include entertainment, music, poetry writing, and other elements. In Japan, tea masters such as Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591) sought to return tea to its spiritual foundation and created what has evolved into the modern Japanese tea ceremony. In 1906, Okakura Kakuzo, author of the classic Book of Tea, used the words of British tea aficionado Sir Charles Lamb (1775-1834), who defined teaism as the “art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal.” Tea’s popularity in the West began with seventeenth-century importation via the maritime China trade and overland Tea Road, which stretched from China to Russia. The enormous impact of exotic, expensive tea and tea wares led to elaborate tea customs among the wealthy, where tea gatherings were elegant affairs.

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George Orwell’s rules for drinking tea

Who doesn’t like a nice cup of tea? Unless you are a tea hater and precisely the term “tea-hater” doesn’t exist due to graving fact that – “Tea is one of the most widely consumed drink around the world and there are many who can’t even imagine starting the day without a nice cup of tea.”

Making a proper cup of tea is not such a hard task unless you know the procedure of making it correctly. In different cultures there are very specific methods to make a cup of tea.

Like in other cultures there is some debate as to whether tea should be served with milk or lemon. Depending on where you live and what traditions and practices you follow, your cup of tea may vary greatly from that of your neighbor. But if you’re searching for the way to a divine cup of steaming tea, you should take the time to do it right – or at least close enough.

Today we are going to discuss one of the earliest methods of preparing a cup of tea, written by the famous English author “George Orwell”.

George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He was an author of a kind and his work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.

George Orwell’s eleven golden rules of making a cup of tea is actually an essay written by him which was first published in the London Evening Standard on 12 January 1946. It is a discussion of the craft of making a cup of >tea, including the line: “Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden.”

The guidelines given below may sound to us a tad austere at worst, but Orwell presents some of them as downright “controversial”. Dare he so boldly insist upon drinking only out of a “good breakfast cup,” de-creaming milk before pouring it into tea, and never, ever using neither strainers nor bags?

Here are his eleven rules, every one of which he regard as golden:

Only make tea with Indian or Ceylonese tea

“First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.”

George Orwell’s first golden rule describes mainly on the type of tea to be used for the preparation of tea. He clearly states that one should use only Indian or Ceylonese tea and avoid using the china tea. The reason behind this is not known exactly. Historians state that his connection to India has something to do with the fact that he stresses on using Indian tea or probably he has not tasted the Chinese tea and has very poor knowledge of the Chinese tradition.

There has been a disagreement on the above statement by many of the tea lovers around the world, especially in China. Orwell has directly criticized the Chinese tea by plugging them into the category “substandard tea makers” by emphasizing on the statement – “…but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it.” One of the authors in china put a contradicting statement regarding the same – “I don’t think Orwell can have tried Yunnan pu-erh tea or Japanese houjicha, from which anyone can find instant solace.

Tea should be made in a teapot

“Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities – that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britannia ware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.”

George Orwell’s second rule stresses on the fact that whenever we make tea it should be made in lesser quantities. He also suggests the use of china or earthenware teapot (And not just any old tea-pot, but one made of china, ‘earthenware’ or pewter) while stating that the use of other tea-pots results in inferior tea. One surprising comment which he makes in the statement is regarding the army tea, wherein he criticizes the tea to be tasting of grease and whitewash, and one can easily make out Orwell’s bitter experience in the army.

The pot should be warmed beforehand

“Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Orwell’s third rule can be agreed wholeheartedly and t he reason is just too slow down the cooling of the tea. When the tea-pot is preheated the hot water does not cool down so fast as it is in contact with a warm material. Tea leaves require very hot water to percolate and if the pot is cold when the water is added the temperature drops very quickly and the tea does not percolate long enough in near boiling water.”

The tea should be strong

“Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.”

It’s clear that George Orwell was a big fan of a strong cup of tea, and he was a tea lover too. He has his own view point on being a tea lover and his views seem to be rather monotonous. According to him, all the tea-lovers like a strong cup of tea, and with the passing years their tendency to have a stronger cup of tea rises. This cannot be true for all, as many tea lovers have a different taste which doesn’t just rely on how strong is the tea.

Tea should be put straight into the pot

“ Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries, teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.”

Orwell here clearly restricts the use of strainers or muslin bags and depicts a scientific aspect not filling the teapots with any material to catch the tea leaves, which in-turn is harmful. There is no valid proof for the above statement and there is much written on how many minutes you should brew each kind of tea (green, black, white) which can vary depending on which time of the year it was picked (first flush, second flush). This statement can clearly disagree because unless you have some removable straining device in your tea pot, you will stew your tea.

Take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about

“ Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference”

Although there has been a lot of change over the years in which out kitchens are being handled and the process almost differ now. Orwell’s rule can be agreed on this one, as we are really unaware of the 1940’s kitchen and how it used to be. So, yes whatever Orwell says on this one…agreed.

After making the tea, stir it

“Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterward allowing the leaves to settle”

There is nothing to disagree or comment on this one as this is pretty uncontroversial.

Drink it out of a good breakfast cup

“Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it”

These are the rules set by Orwell and surely he has his own style statement. A ‘good breakfast cup tea’, itself personifies his style and elegance. Although, in India, we don’t have a separate breakfast cup tea but Orwell’s statement surely makes us think. What do you think…???

Pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea

“Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste”

Depends on the taste of the tea lover on how he likes the tea. This could be true for western countries but in India, this doesn’t stand fully correct. In our tradition, the tea is often served with cream.

Pour tea into the cup first, then the milk

“Tenthly, 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”

We can clearly disagree on this one as a true tea lover knows how much milk to use to make a cup of tea. The years of practice clearly teaches a tea lover on how much quantity of milk and tea to be used.

Also, there is a scientific reason for pouring the milk first- ‘If milk is poured into hot tea, individual drops separate from the bulk of the milk, and come into contact with the high temperatures of the tea for enough time for significant denaturation – degradation – to occur’.

Drink it without sugar

“Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water”

We cannot say that the flavor of the tea is destroyed by adding sugar in it as for many around the world, a cup of tea holds no taste if there is no sugar in it. Again, it is actually meaningless to make a comment on the same.

Despite these points of difference, we all should appreciate the golden rules of George, as he has surely written it with great spirit, and whatever difference holds in making tea in different cultures, tea lovers just love to have a great cup of tea.

Would you want to share a pot of tea with George? Where do you stand on the perfect cup of tea?

I’m a Blogger, always ready to explore new things. Starting from Technology to Seo, webiners etc. Driving more and more traffic to our website is my passion.

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How To Make a Decent Cup of Tea

Ignore yoko ono and john lennon, and heed george orwell’s tea-making advice..

Take a look at a Magnum Photos gallery on British teatime .

Now that “the holidays”—at their new-style Ramadan length, with the addition of Hanukkah plus the spur and lash of commerce—are safely over, I can bear to confront the moment at their very beginning when my heart took its first dip. It was Dec. 8, and Yoko Ono had written a tribute to mark the 30 th anniversary of the murder of her husband. In her New York Times op-ed , she recalled how the two of them would sometimes make tea together. He used to correct her method of doing so, saying, “Yoko, Yoko, you’re supposed to first put the tea bags in, and then the hot water.” (This she represented as his Englishness speaking, in two senses, though I am sure he would actually have varied the word order and said “put the tea bags in first .”) This was fine, indeed excellent, and I was nodding appreciatively, but then the blow fell. One evening, he told her that an aunt had corrected him. The water should indeed precede the bags. “So all this time, we were doing it wrong?” she inquired. “Yeah,” replied our hero, becoming in that moment a turncoat to more than a century of sturdy Liverpool tradition.

I simply hate to think of the harm that might result from this. It is already virtually impossible in the United States, unless you undertake the job yourself, to get a cup or pot of tea that tastes remotely as it ought to. It’s quite common to be served a cup or a pot of water, well off the boil, with the tea bags lying on an adjacent cold plate. Then comes the ridiculous business of pouring the tepid water, dunking the bag until some change in color occurs, and eventually finding some way of disposing of the resulting and dispiriting tampon surrogate. The drink itself is then best thrown away, though if swallowed, it will have about the same effect on morale as a reading of the memoirs of President James Earl Carter.

Now, imagine that tea, like coffee, came without a bag (as it used to do—and still does if you buy a proper tin of it). Would you consider, in either case, pouring the hot water, letting it sit for a bit, and then throwing the grounds or the leaves on top? I thought not. Try it once, and you will never repeat the experience, even if you have a good strainer to hand. In the case of coffee, it might just work if you are quick enough, though where would be the point? But ground beans are heavier and denser, and in any case many good coffees require water that is just fractionally off the boil. Whereas tea is a herb (or an herb if you insist) that has been thoroughly dried. In order for it to release its innate qualities, it requires to be infused . And an infusion, by definition, needs the water to be boiling when it hits the tea. Grasp only this, and you hold the root of the matter.

Just after World War II, during a period of acute food rationing in England, George Orwell wrote an article on the making of a decent cup of tea that insisted on the observing of 11 different “golden” rules. Some of these (always use Indian or Ceylonese—i.e., Sri Lankan—tea; make tea only in small quantities; avoid silverware pots) may be considered optional or outmoded. But the essential ones are easily committed to memory, and they are simple to put into practice.

If you use a pot at all, make sure it is pre-warmed. (I would add that you should do the same thing even if you are only using a cup or a mug.) Stir the tea before letting it steep. But this above all: “[O]ne should take the teapot to the kettle, and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours.” This isn’t hard to do, even if you are using electricity rather than gas, once you have brought all the makings to the same scene of operations right next to the kettle.

It’s not quite over yet. If you use milk, use the least creamy type or the tea will acquire a sickly taste. And do not put the milk in the cup first—family feuds have lasted generations over this—because you will almost certainly put in too much. Add it later, and be very careful when you pour. Finally, a decent cylindrical mug will preserve the needful heat and flavor for longer than will a shallow and wide-mouthed—how often those attributes seem to go together—teacup. Orwell thought that sugar overwhelmed the taste, but brown sugar or honey are, I believe, permissible and sometimes necessary.

Until relatively few years ago, practically anything hot and blackish or brackish could be sold in America under the name of coffee. It managed both to be extremely weak and extremely bitter, and it was frequently at boiling point, though it had no call to be. (I use the past tense, though there are many places where this is still true, and it explains why free refills can be offered without compunction.) At least in major cities, consumers now have a better idea how to stick up for themselves, often to an irksome degree, as we know from standing behind people who are too precise about their latte, or whatever it’s called.

Next time you are in a Starbucks or its equivalent and want some tea, don’t be afraid to decline that hasty cup of hot water with added bag. It’s not what you asked for. Insist on seeing the tea put in first, and on making sure that the water is boiling. If there are murmurs or sighs from behind you, take the opportunity to spread the word. And try it at home, with loose tea and a strainer if you have the patience. Don’t trouble to thank me. Happy New Year.

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George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens’ Ironclad Rules for Making a Good Cup of Tea

in Food & Drink | April 30th, 2015 8 Comments

It’s not that I don’t appreciate good coffee—I consider it a delicacy. But at the end and the beginning of the day, coffee mostly functions as a caffeine delivery system. But not tea. Tea must be savored, and it must be good. Americans’ enthusiasm for tea does not come naturally. What passes for tea in the U.S. is best described by Christopher Hitchens as “a cup or pot of water, well off the boil, with the tea bags lying on an adjacent cold plate.” (See his January 2011 piece in Slate called “How to Make a Decent Cup of Tea.”) If this doesn’t sound wrong, he elaborates, setting up his endorsement of George Orwell’s methodical instructions for proper tea:

Then comes the ridiculous business of pouring the tepid water, dunking the bag until some change in color occurs, and eventually finding some way of disposing of the resulting and dispiriting tampon surrogate. The drink itself is then best thrown away, though if swallowed it will have about the same effect on morale as a reading of the memoirs of President James Earl Carter.

I like Jimmy Carter. I haven’t read his memoirs, and this does indeed sound awful. And before I had learned anything at all about drinking tea, it was all I knew. I tried. I cribbed a few notes here and there, wrote in tea shops, read the rough-hewn formalism of Sen no Rikyu , and looked to the East. I did not look to Britain and her former Commonwealth.

Perhaps I should. George Orwell would probably say so. Hitchens as well, though they don’t perfectly agree with each other. “Tea,” wrote Orwell in his famous 1946 essay “ A Nice Cup of Tea ,” “is one of the mainstays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but… the manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.” The only disagreement Hitchens musters against Orwell is that some of his rules, “(always use Indian or Ceylonese—i.e. Sri Lankan—tea; make tea only in small quantities; avoid silverware pots) may be considered optional or outmoded.”

Many old restraints may be loosened. But make no mistake, for Hitchens, as for Orwell, making a good cup of tea is not about mindfulness, patience, impermanence, or meditation. It is about rules . Orwell had 11. The “essential ones are easily committed to memory, and they are simple to put into practice.” What are they? Hitchens has his own succinct paraphrase, which you can read over at Slate . Orwell’s rather baroque list we reprint, in part, below for your edification. Read the complete essay here . Hitchens recommends you straighten out your next barista on some tea essentials. Imagine, however, presenting such an unfortunate person with this list of demands:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it.…
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot.… The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse.…
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right.… I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes.…
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea.…
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours.…
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type.…
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
Tenthly, 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…
Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt.…

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George Orwell’s 11 Golden Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea
A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell
A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell (1946)
A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell (1946)
Tea guide: how to make tea by George Orwell. If you love drinking tea
George Orwell was an avid tea drinker and even wrote an essay on how to

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A Nice Cup of Tea
A Nice Cup of Tea. This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Orwell Estate.The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity - please consider making a donation or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to help us maintain these resources for readers everywhere. ...
George Orwell's 11 Golden Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea
In 1946 English novelist and journalist George Orwell published an essay in the Evening Standard entitled "A Nice Cup of Tea." For everyone who's ever believed there's an art to making a good cup of tea, you'll definitely enjoy Mr. Orwell's 11 "golden" rules for the perfect cup. Read the full essay below:Originally published January 12, 1946 in the Evening Standard.
A Nice Cup of Tea
A Nice Cup of Tea. Orwell's preference was Indian and Ceylonese teas over those from China. " A Nice Cup of Tea " is an essay by English author George Orwell, first published in the London Evening Standard on 12 January 1946. [1] It is a discussion of the craft of making a cup of tea, including the line: "Here are my own eleven rules, every one ...
George Orwell: A Nice Cup of Tea
A Nice Cup of Tea, the essay of George Orwell. First published: January 12, 1946 by/in Evening Standard, GB, London. ... Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle. Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is,the cylindrical type of ...
George Orwell Explains How to Make a Proper Cup of Tea
Next to my bed lies George Orwell's Essays, the bricklike Everyman's Library edition of the 1984 author's thoughts on ideology, colonialism, the abuse of language, crime and punishment, and just what constitutes a nice cup of tea. The astute essayist keeps his mind prepared to go anywhere, and Orwell's rigorous love of simple ...
George Orwell's Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea: A Short
Several years back, Colin Marshall highlighted George Orwell's essay, 'A Nice Cup of Tea,' which first ran in the Evening Standard on January 12, 1946. In that article, Orwell weighed in on a subject the English take seriously--how to make the perfect cup of tea.
A Nice Cup of Tea
A Nice Cup of Tea. 'First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China teahas virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it...'. 'Chemists are to honour George Orwell by searching for the perfect way to make his favourite drink ...
How to Make the Perfect Cup of Tea: George Orwell's 11 Golden Rules
The passage, which discusses "one of the most controversial parts of all" — the matter of the milk — is part of his altogether fantastic 1945 essay "A Nice Cup of Tea," originally published in the Evening Standard on January 12, 1946, and later included in the indispensable 1968 anthology George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945: The ...
Orwell on tea: 11 golden rules
A Nice Cup of Tea. By George Orwell. Evening Standard, 12 January 1946. ... (taken from The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3, 1943-45, Penguin ISBN, -14-00-3153-7) Author Jonathan Posted on 2011-01-07 2011-01-29 Categories Food.
A Nice Cup of Tea
Summary of the essay A Nice Cup by George Orwell. "A Nice Cup of Tea" is an essay written by him upon the art of making the perfect cup of tea wherein he lists his own eleven "golden" rules which he believes if followed, would result in an excellent cup of tea. The essay was first published on 12 January, 1946 in the London Evening ...
George Orwell's 11 Tips for Proper Tea Making
More than 70 years ago, in the January 12, 1946, edition of the Evening Standard, George Orwell wrote up 11 tips for making and consuming tea. Published under the title "A Nice Cup of Tea," Orwell ...
A Nice Cup of Tea
Some weeks ago, I read George Orwell's essay, A Nice Cup of Tea. Written in 1946 for the London Evening Standard; the essay makes it into Wikipedia, the penultimate recognition, a modern Encyclopedia Britannica, which has at least two things in common with tea today. ... A Nice Cup of Tea. By George Orwell. Evening Standard, 12 January 1946. ...
The Best George Orwell Essays Everyone Should Read
10. 'A Nice Cup of Tea'. Orwell didn't just write about literature and politics. He also wrote about things like the perfect pub, and how to make the best cup of tea, for the London Evening Standard in the late 1940s. Here, in this essay from 1946, Orwell offers eleven 'golden rules' for making a tasty cuppa, arguing that people ...
Essays and other works
Essays and articles. A Day in the Life of a Tramp (Le Progrès Civique, 1929) A Hanging (The Adelphi, 1931) A Nice Cup of Tea (Evening Standard, 1946) Antisemitism in Britain (Contemporary Jewish Record, 1945) ... George Orwell; Free will (a one act drama, written 1920) George Orwell to Steven Runciman (August 1920) ...
(PDF) 'A Nice Cup of Tea': An Analysis of Tea ...
George Orwell in his essay "A Nice Cup of Tea", published in the London Evening Standard in January 1946, described tea as "one of the main stays of civilization in this country", and this belief was confirmed by the British documentary filmmakers who produced many short films during the 1930s and 1940 depicting the act of tea drinking as a significant part of British culture.
A Nice Cup of Tea by George Orwell
George Orwell provides his eleven rules for making the perfect cup of tea in this essay. Some of his key points include using Indian or Ceylonese tea, making tea in small batches in a warmed teapot, using six teaspoons of strong tea for a full teapot, steeping the loose tea leaves, and pouring the tea before adding milk. Orwell acknowledges that some of these rules, like whether to add milk or ...
George Orwell's rules for drinking tea
George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He was an author of a kind and his work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. George Orwell's eleven golden rules of making a cup of tea is actually an essay written by him ...
A Nice Cup of Tea
One. does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone. who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup oftea' invariably means. Indian tea. Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities--that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made.
How To Make a Decent Cup of Tea
Stir the tea before letting it steep. But this above all: " [O]ne should take the teapot to the kettle, and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact ...
George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens' Ironclad Rules for Making a
"Tea," wrote Orwell in his famous 1946 essay "A Nice Cup of Tea," "is one of the mainstays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but… the manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes." The only disagreement Hitchens musters against Orwell is that some of ...
Making Tea, Orwell Style
Today's guest spinster is tea enthusiast Irfan, who talks about George Orwell's 1946 essay on how to make the perfect cup of tea, as we try to follow his ins...
How to make a perfect cup of tea
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of A Nice Cup of Tea, George Orwell's celebrated essay in which he sets out 11 golden rules for making tea the 'correct' way.

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George Orwell's 11 Tips for Proper Tea Making

A NICE CUP OF TEA BY GEORGE ORWELL

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George Orwell’s rules for drinking tea

Only make tea with Indian or Ceylonese tea

Tea should be made in a teapot

The pot should be warmed beforehand

The tea should be strong

Tea should be put straight into the pot

Take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about

After making the tea, stir it

Drink it out of a good breakfast cup

Pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea

Pour tea into the cup first, then the milk

Drink it without sugar

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How To Make a Decent Cup of Tea

George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens’ Ironclad Rules for Making a Good Cup of Tea

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