The first mention of tea with milk is found in the gossipy epistles of the French letter writer Madame de Sevigne. She writes about her friend, Marquise de la Sablière, patron of La Fontaine, who took her tea with milk, “because it was to her taste.” This is perhaps the most significant contribution by the French to the tea culture, who are professed coffee drinkers.
The famous physicist and Nobel winner Richard Feynman, when asked by his hostess, the President of Princeton University, if he would have milk or lemon with his tea said, “both,” to which the response was, “Surely, you’re joking, Mr Feynman?” This became the title of a very popular set of lectures by the scientist whose wit was as keen as his science.
George Orwell, connoisseur of the brew wrote in A Nice Cup Of Tea of pouring milk, off the cream, in the tea, but went on to add that “unless one is drinking it in the Russian style, tea should be drunk without sugar.”
Yorkshire tea states in its manual the first step of pouring milk in a cup and topping it, without stirring, with black tea. Samuel Twinning, of the famous tea family endorses this view. The ninth generation member speaks of mif (milk in first) in almost mandatory terms.
If you ask me about the many choice of additives and fastidious ways, I would go with Mme Sabliere, “to your taste,” and I enjoy this soupcon of oddities that comes along. My grandmother vouched that water from the well in her backyard made the best tea; that spring water was better as it was bubbly and oxygenated.
“Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea,” wrote Henry Fielding and those are additives the tea sippers combine will not disagree with.
