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Language: en

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Loads of people have talked about the
International Standard Cup of Tea.

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And there are hundreds of
clickbait articles describing it,

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or ranting about how it's
the wrong way to make tea,

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and there are lengthy infographics videos
talking about it.

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But, as far as I can tell,

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no-one has actually made a
Standard Cup of Tea for the internet before.

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And there are a couple of reasons for that:

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one, you have to either
buy a copy of the standard

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or visit a library that subscribes to the
Standards online

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so you can write down the details,

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and two, it requires specialist equipment.

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Most people in Britain make their tea by putting
a teabag in a mug

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and then pouring boiling water on it.

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If you want to be fancy,
then you take a pre-warmed teapot,

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and you put some loose-leaf tea in it,
like this stuff,

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and then you brew the tea in there,

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and then you pour the results
through a strainer into a cup.

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It's... it's fancy.

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But the standard, ISO 3103,
doesn't ask for any of that.

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Instead, it uses a bit of equipment that most
people won't even have heard of:

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which is a Professional Tea Tasting Set.

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Now, the standard describes it
in more technical terms,

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diagrams, and requirements of construction
and weight and size and volume,

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but fortunately I could just buy a set that
matched the standard.

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And the instructions for it are
actually pretty simple:

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you measure out 2g of tea per 100ml of water,
plus or minus 2%.

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So for this, that means 2.8g,
plus or minus .05g,

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which I worked out in advance because it took
it ages to get it that precise.

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And then you combine that with either local or
standardised water depending on what you're testing,

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by filling this little mug to the bottom of
those serrations.

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Also, you let it steep for six minutes, which
seems a bit long, but hey, that's the standard.

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Once your six minutes are up, you separate
the 'liquor', as it's called, from the tea leaves

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by pouring it through the little serrations here
into this cup.

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Let's see if I can do it...

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No, I can't.

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But close enough.

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They say that if you're adding milk,
you should put it in first,

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but this is green tea, so I'm not getting
involved in that debate.

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You drain it through there, most of the leaves
stay in the cup,

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and once it's drained, you can
inspect the tea leaves.

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And then you drink it not from the traditional
cup, but from the bowl.

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There is a separate standard, ISO 1839, on
how you actually sample it, and what you report.

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And it tastes, er...

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(slurps)

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Tastes okay.

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It's just okay.

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Because the standard isn't meant to make the
perfect cup of tea,

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or the most British cup of tea.

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Every time the fact that there's a Standard
for Tea does the rounds of the internet,

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loads of people misunderstand it as being
prescriptive,

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and saying "everyone should make
their tea this way",

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and they really shouldn't.

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ISO 3103 is meant to make an okay
but reproducible cup of tea.

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It sets out instructions so that,
whoever and wherever you are,

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you can create the same cup of tea as
someone else in another time and place.

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For regular tea at home?
Make it however you want.

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Stick a teabag in a mug,
put the milk in first or last.

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Use fancy china if you want.

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Make your tea days in advance and then
warm it up again in the microwave.

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Don't... don't do that.

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But it doesn't matter.

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There is no perfect cup of tea:
there's only the right one for you.

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This here? This isn't perfect,
it definitely isn't perfect,

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but as far as I can tell,

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this is the first International Standard
Cup of Tea on the internet.

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(slurps)

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I don't actually like tea.