Hygge House Responds:

Actually, milk last isn’t a typical “English” way to drink tea and is a fairly “new” way to drink tea (after refridgeration was invented). If you use old china, it is still best to do milk first but it’s really all about preference:

From Wikipedia: When taking milk with tea, some add the tea to the milk rather than the other way around when using chilled milk; this avoids scalding the milk, leading to a better emulsion and nicer taste. The socially ‘correct’ order is tea, sugar, milk, but this convention was established before the invention of the refrigerator. It is worth noting that this convention was only universally established in the 20th century – prior to this, the common earthenware mugs used were unable to withstand the temperature of the tea, and so the convention was to add the tea to the milk. This was not the case with bone china.

Adding the milk first also makes a milkier cup of tea with sugar harder to dissolve as there will be no hot liquid in the cup. In addition, the amount of milk used is normally determined by the colour of the tea, therefore milk is added until the correct colour is obtained. If the milk is added first, more guesswork is involved. If the tea is being brewed in a mug, the milk is generally added after the tea bag is removed (however, it is arguably better to add milk before removing the tea bag than it is to remove the tea bag too soon: the tea will continue to brew even with milk added).

Steph Responds:

Hi Alex,

I love the Hygge House blog and the whole concept of hygge

The tea info is fascinating! The earthenware cup explains why you are sometimes told as a child that to do the milk first might crack the cup. It never made any sense because china is so strong

Cheers,
Stephanie