There is no right way to make tea. The “right” way is whatever way tastes best to you. We have put together some of the suggested best ways for making various types of tea.

• Warm the teapot by rinsing it with boiling water.
• Place the right amount of tea in the teapot.
• Pour in the water.
• Allow to steep.
• Stir the tea before pouring.

Of course you may make it directly in the cup, and not even use a teapot!

If you have a teapot with a strainer inside, remove this once the tea is ready. Once the tea is steeped for the right amount of time, it spoils the taste to keep the leaves inside the water.

Different teas should be used in different quantities, with different temperatures of water, and steeped for different lengths of time. For example:

• For green tea, use 2 teaspoons of tea, add water at 80C, and steep for 3 minutes.
• For black tea, use 1 teaspoon of tea, add water at 95C, and steep for 3-5 minutes.
• For scented tea, use 1 teaspoon of tea, add water at 95C and steep for 5 minutes.

However, the details do vary for different teas. For example, white teas range in required steeping time from 6 to 12 minutes. Green teas vary in required water temperature from 50C for some of the finest green teas, up to 95C. It is always best to check for each individual tea. The labels on Tippyleaf tea packets give you some suggestions about steeping times and temperatures.

Whatever you do, “rules” should not get in the way of making and enjoying tea. If nothing else, remember that different cultures make tea very differently - in Lybia, for example, they add a lot of tea to water in a saucepan and boil it for a long time. And children in Argentina are given tea made with milk instead of water.

If you do not have a teapot, put the leaves in a cup and add water. If you do not have a thermometer to measure 85C, use water that is just about to simmer.

Some examples of tea in literature include:

Hawk: Far in the dreamy East there grows a plant whose native home is the Sun’s Cousin’s garden.
The ladies: Oh, it is tea!
Hawk: It is.
The ladies: To think of tea!
Hawk: Its home lies in the Valley of Romance, a thousand miles beyond the wilderness. Fill up my cup. I thank you. Let us hold on tea and love a good tea-table talk.
Love’s Comedy by Henrik Ibsen

At ten o’clock Mma Makutsi got up from her desk and went into the back room to make the tea. She had been asked to make bush tea, which was Mma Ramotswe’s favourite, and she soon brought two cups back. She had a tin of condensed milk in her handbag, and she took this out and poured a small amount into each cup. Then they drank their tea, watching a small boy at the edge of the road throwing stones at a skeletal dog.
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more”.
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing”.
“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.
“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, “It was a treacle-well”.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

To the office, where Sir W. Batten, Colonel Slingsby, and I sat awhile, and Sir R. Ford coming to us about some business, we talked together of the interest of this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland; where Sir R. Ford talked like a man of great reason and experience. And afterwards I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before, and went away.
Diary of Samuel Pepys

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines,” which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

Mrs Doyle: Do you think would our new guest like a cup of tea Father? The little sheep fellow.
Ted: I don’t think they drink tea Mrs. Doyle. Not unless you have some special sheep tea. (laughs)
Mrs Doyle: Yes.
Ted: What?
Mrs Doyle: I do have some sheep tea in the kitchen.
Ted: Right well, em, give him some of that then.
Mrs Doyle: Okay so.
Television series Father Ted

“No,” he said, “look, it’s very, very simple … all I want … is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen”.
And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn’t get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company.
“So that’s it, is it?” said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
“Yes,” said Arthur, “that is what I want”.
“You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?”
“Er, yes. With milk”.
“Squirted out of a cow?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose”.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The naming of teas is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your everyday games-
Some might think you as mad as a hatter
Should you tell them each goes by several names.
For starters each tea in this world must belong
To the families Black or Green or Oolong;
Then look more closely as these family trees-
Some include Indians along with Chinese.
The Naming of Cats by T S Eliot

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, “Work!” After beefsteak and porter, it says, “Sleep!” After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don’t let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, “Now rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life: spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!”.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not - some people of course never do - the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime.
From The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

When comic book characters Asterix and Obelix come to Britain, tea has not arrived in the British Isles. The inhabitants partake of hot water with milk regularly at five o’clock. Even when fighting the Romans, the British forces stop at five o’clock to drink hot water. Eventually, character Getafix brings tea leaves to Britain.

If you can think of any other examples, please let us know.

Tea is grown in over thirty countries around the world. Some of these are:

• Argentina
• Bangladesh
• China
• India
• Indonesia
• Iran
• Japan
• Kenya
• Malawi
• Malaysia
• Nepal
• Rwanda
• South Africa
• Sri Lanka
• Taiwan
• Tanzania
• Turkey
• Vietnam
• Zimbabwe

China and India are by far the biggest producers, followed by Sri Lanka, Kenya, Indonesia and Turkey. Japan also produces significant amounts of tea, but most of it is drunk by the Japanese and never exported.

Other small producers include Australia, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, Ecuador, Georgia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Portugal, Uganda and Zaire.

England also has its own small plantation in Cornwall.

The biggest commercial tea auctions take place in India (Calcutta), Kenya (Mombasa), Sri Lanka (Colombo) and Indonesia (Jakarta).

All tea comes from the camellia plant, specifically the camellia sinensis (Chinese camellia). The wild tea plant is a tree. When tea is cultivated, it is pruned into a bush with buds. These buds are harvested as tea. Tea from other plants, such as mint tea or rooibos tea, is not strictly tea. That does not make it any less delicious.

The main types of tea are:

• White: a relatively rare tea which was originally, and still mostly, from China. White teas are delicate in flavour and have low caffeine content. The “white” comes from the fuzzy downs on the tea buds used. You can find white tea at Tippyleaf.
• Green: these are unoxidized teas, which means that they do not go through fewer processes than black teas. Japanese people mainly drink green tea, which is why Japan produces a lot of green tea but exports very little of it. You can find green tea at Tippyleaf.
• Blue, or Oolong: mainly from China and Taiwan, oolong is half-fermented tea which steeps into a dark red, translucent liquid. Oolong means “black dragon”. You can find oolong tea at Tippyleaf.
• Black: this is tea that has been completely oxidized. In China, black tea is often referred to as red tea. You can find black tea at Tippyleaf.

Other teas include:

• Yellow: these are rare teas similar to white teas, but made from green tea. The leaves become yellow naturally when they are processed. You can find yellow tea at Tippyleaf.
• Pu erh: Pu erh is an earthy tea, which can be green or black, from south-west China (where the town of Pu erh is located) and Taiwan. It is considered by some people to be the most luxurious of teas, and does fetch the highest prizes. It has a unique smell, reminiscent of mold, which is misleading given the high quality of Pu erh tea. You can find Pu erh tea at Tippyleaf.
• Flavoured: this is any tea to which additional ingredients have been added for flavour or scent. The most popular is probably Earl Grey, which is tea with added bergamot oil. You can find flavoured tea at Tippyleaf, including jasmine tea and earl grey tea.

No one knows for sure how tea originated. There is more than one legend about the origins of tea.

One legend says that Chinese Emperor Shen-Nunweg discovered tea by accident, nearly 5,000 years ago. Shen-Nung was boiling water one day, to purify it. The water was boiling close to a wild tea plant, and the breeze floated some leaves down onto the water. The Emperor drank the steep and liked it so much that he ordered the wild tea plant to be cultivated in China.

Another legend tells of Prince Bhodidharma of India, who was a Buddhist missionary in China as late as 500 AD. The prince promised to meditate for seven years without once falling asleep. Bhodidharma nearly fell asleep in the sixth year, and was kept awake through the serendipitous chewing of the leaves of a nearby plant. This plant turned out to be a tea tree.

A similar legend from Japan claims that Bhodidharma actually did fall asleep. When he woke up, he was so angry that he ripped off his eyelids and threw them away. They grew from the ground into the tea plant, with its ability to keep tea drinkers awake.

A fourth story is that of Gan Lu, a Chinese scholar living around 100 AD. Gan Lu travelled from China to India to become a Buddhist. On his return, Gan Lu brought with him the tea tree to China.

Some variations of the above stories insert Buddha into the role of discoverer.