The recipe for the “perfect tea” at the origin of a diplomatic incident between the United States and Great Britain

It all started with an article in the “Guardian”, the famous British daily, in which an American scientist put her two cents into the tea recipe so dear to the English.

The Guardian recounts, Wednesday January 24, in an article entitled “a scandalous tea recipe?”, how an American chemist has just revealed the recipe for the perfect tea. Michelle Francl, exasperated to live in a country where “people prepare tea with lukewarm water drawn directly from the tap”, analyzed research papers and ancient texts dating back over 1,000 years to develop this recipe.

First tip: choose a fairly narrow cup, without too much surface area, to keep the heat of the tea as much as possible. It would also be absolutely necessary to preheat your cup or teapot in order to release as many antioxidants as possible, i.e. “the vital aromatic compounds of tea”.

And above all, you should choose your bag carefully. “It’s the size of the bag that counts, not its shape”explains Michelle Francl, according to whom the bag must be large enough for “the tea leaves have enough space to evolve in the water”. The best thing is that there is no bag at all.

A pinch of salt causes discord

Finally, last but not least, Michelle Francl invites tea lovers to always add a little lemon juice and a pinch of salt, because the sodium ion contained in salt could block the chemical mechanism that gives tea a bitter taste.

And this is the whole object of the sacrilege which caused a diplomatic incident. Because, just after the publication of the Guardian article, the United States embassy in London issued a very official, although entirely humorous, statement to deplore this serious incident which “risks plunging the very strong ties uniting Great Britain and the United States into hot water”.

The American embassy explains in its press release that it wishes to reassure “the good people of the British people” because “This totally indecent proposal to salt your tea will never be part of the official policy of the United States”. And the statement calls on the people of America and Britain to show they can stand together when it comes to tea. The American embassy also promises that it will continue to prepare its tea “in the proper way”in the appropriate way, that is to say by passing it…in the microwave.