Top London hotels show how to make tea to perfection
tea in London – whether at a posh hotel such as the Ritz or the Savoy or in a department store like Harrods or Fortnum & Mason – is a special occasion treat for visitors and locals alike. It’s not an inexpensive affair, as you’ll be sitting in elegant surroundings, perhaps dressed up a bit. The freshly baked scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, the traditional dainty crustless sandwiches, the cakes and pastries are so popular at some venues that you’ll need to book well in advance.
But what about the tea itself?
Most people who brew tea, whether at home or as part of their job, don’t know how to extract full flavor from tea leaves. Indeed, tea has been neglected compared to other popular beverages. We have craft beer, craft coffee and craft cocktails – but where’s the craft tea?
Perhaps it’s due to bad tea advice, which can be found wherever you look.
The good news: Several London hotels that serve afternoon tea recognized that their tea did not match the quality of the scones and fancy sandwiches and decided to do something about it.
FIRST TIP: USE SOFT WATER OR FILTER IT
If your tap water has a lot of chlorine or minerals such as calcium, or just isn’t that great, use a neutral-tasting bottled water or filter it.
Many London hotels
that care about tea, I learned from my tastings, brew it with good spring water. At London’s Conrad St. James, which sources tea from London’s Lalani and Company, they use Aqua Panna from Italy; at the Rubens across from Buckingham Palace Gardens, its Belu water from Wales.
Before I go on, let me make it clear that we are talking about making only black tea here, not green, blue or herbal. Different rules apply for those.
SECOND TIP: DO NOT BOIL THE WATER
Claridge’s and several other top London hotels, I soon discovered, get their tea from London’s Rare Tea Company, so I reached out to founder and tea expert Henrietta Lovell. Contrary to the “BS” advice online, she told me, “Whatever water you choose, do not boil tea water. Heat it to just boiling, around 95 C (203 F).” That’s because boiling removes oxygen and oxyAfternoon
gen is part of what makes water taste good. As Lovell explained, “Ever wonder what those bubbles are when you boil water? It’s oxygen escaping.”
Most of the hotels and tea experts I queried agreed the ideal brew temperature for black tea is about 202-203 F, or 94-95 C, although at the BoTree they heat it closer to the boiling point, and several recommended preheating the pot with water at the same temperature to prevent a cold pot from cooling the water.
THIRD TIP: TIME THE BREWING TO THE MINUTE
Lovell advises that most of the best flavor from black tea is extracted in the first 90 seconds, and one should never let the leaves steep for more than 3 minutes. “After that you get bitter tannins, although if you’re adding milk it’s OK to brew up a bit longer.” Set a timer because it’s easy to get distracted while you wait.
But do time it please. The tea connoisseurs I interviewed agreed that overbrewing is a sin. PMD’s Dananjaya Silva: “Steeping time must be monitored by the minute and the tea leaves must be removed after they’ve done their job!”
FOURTH TIP: CAREFULLY MEASURE THE TEA LEAVES AND THE WATER
I also learned that the ideal ratio of black tea to volume of water is about 2 to 3 grams of tea, basically a level teaspoon, to about 2/3 cup (5 to 6 ounces or 150-160 ml) of water–or what the average tea cup holds (a coincidence that the teaspoon and the tea cup are ideal measures? I think not). Because the leaf size can vary between types of tea, true believers use a scale to weigh the leaves. At the Rubens, they bring out a small scale with calibration weights and weigh the tea in front of you.
FIFTH TIP: THE TYPE OF TEAPOT AND CUP MATTERS
Cast iron? Silver-plate? Bone china? At the Conrad, where servers are encouraged to do a taste test before delivering the finished product, only glass tea pots (from Bodum) are now used. “Silver might look posh, but the metal might react with the tea’s flavor,” Manager Luigi Volpe told me. “Plus glass shows the tea’s color.”
PMD’s Silva advises against using a teapot with a built-in mesh strainer. Tea wants to be free, he insists, so he recommends putting the leaves directly in the pot and stirring both immediately when adding water and then just before pouring. Some experts even think the cup you drink from matters. According to Mariage Frères, a Paris-based tea merchant with an outpost in London’s Covent Garden, in the 8th sentury the celebrated Chinese poet Lu Yu wrote that to enjoy really delicious tea a porcelain cup should be used, preferably beside a lily pond in the company of desirable women or gentlemen.
Tastes (and access to ponds and desirable company) do vary, but just as a fine wine may not live up to its full potential when drunk from a mug, the same can be said of fine teas.
SIXTH TIP: LET’S NOT FORGET THE TEA LEAVES
Start with good-quality loose leaf tea, not “industrial” tea bags, from a reputable source such as those already mentioned, all of which do international mail order. Store it in a cool, dry place in a sealed container. At the Savoy, leaves are kept in the fridge.
“Tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation and the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes,” wrote George Orwell in his essay “A Nice Cup of Tea.” The author of “1984” and “Animal Farm” exaggerates, but clearly there is a right way and lots of wrong ways to make good tea. I took what I learned in London and put it into practice when I returned to New York. Finally, a good cup of tea at home. I’d been missing so much.