# S410: BADTEA

By [Andrew Shanahan](https://paragraph.com/@shanahan) · 2023-04-13

---

This is not how you make a cup of tea.

First - find a mug in the cupboard. Any mug will do, but generally it helps if it is quite wide. Some people – primarily from an older demographic – will prefer a china mug. There’s something to do with the thinness of the ceramic that means it cools quicker. I don’t know. Anyway, find a mug and then place it on the kitchen counter. It’s very important that you place it upside down, so that the opening is facing the counter. You should just be able to see the bottom of the mug.

Once you’ve done that you can boil the kettle. Pour in water from the hot water tap and fill it right up to the brim of the kettle. You should be able to see the water slopping around in the spout if you’ve done it right. Now you need to start boiling it. Flick the switch and wait for the water to boil. Because it’s so full it will take a while and you’ll probably lose quite a lot of water as it bubbles out of the spout. Keep your arms out of the way!

Once it’s done boiling, the kettle will automatically switch off. What you want to do is to press the o switch again. Most kettles will try and click themselves off because they know that they’ve already boiled. Ignore than and just keep your finger on the switch. You are almost certainly going to get burned while you do this.

Just like making a flavoursome jus, the idea is that you will boil away the water until it’s at its most concentrated form. You want to make sure that there’s just enough water left to half-fill the cup. That’s very important.

Now it’s time for the all-important teabag! You’ll find that tea bags come automatically attached to another teabag, that’s its best friend. When you separate them don’t feel bad, they’re teabags and therefore not sentient in the slightest. As you tear along the perforations, it’s a good idea to allow the rip to go off course so that the dark, dried leaves of the tea spill over the counter somewhat.

Next, rest the ripped teabag on the underside of your mug. Pour over the concentrated water jus from the kettle and with a ladle really mash the water into the bag, this is the messy part so just have fun with it. Finally, you take some milk and add a dash to the top of the mulched paste you’ve created. Congratulations! You’ve made a cup of tea in an extremely poor way!

---

*Originally published on [Andrew Shanahan](https://paragraph.com/@shanahan/s410-badtea)*