A Perfect Cuppa: A 1 in 24 Million Chance

It’s the first day in your new job. Your new colleagues seem like a friendly bunch and you hope they accept you as part of the team. Offering to brew up and make everyone a drink seems like an easy way to earn brownie points and you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself.

And then you recall this article, which tells you there are 24 million possible ways to make a good cup of tea, and your heart sinks.

Yes, that’s right, UK scientists have found that there are literally millions and millions of ways to make a brew. You thought you’d just have to ask who took sugar, but there are actually a whole host of other factors to consider too.

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Dr James Hind from Nottingham Trent University worked with master tea maker (doesn’t that sound like the best job?!) at Tetley, Sebastian Michaelis, to mark the teabag brand’s 180th birthday by finding out once and for all what makes a perfect brew.

After taking into account factors ranging from how many years of training the tea blender making the bag had undergone to how much the teabag weighs and what colour the finished cuppa is, a mathematician calculated that there are 24 million different ways to make tea.

And you’ve spent all these years thinking the only options were weak, strong, milk, no milk, sugar, no sugar, sweetener and green – and those eight variations were more than enough to be dealing with.

Tetley’s master tea maker explained: “Whether you add milk or not, drink it weak or strong, what is crucial to a great cup of tea is the blending.”

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That’s out of your control, so there’s not really anything you can do about it – except getting a weekend job at the teabag factory and intervening to make the brew fit your new colleague’s preferences after installing cameras in the office kitchen to spy on how they like their cuppas before you start the job. That might be just one or two steps too far.

Of course, you think the way you make tea is The Right Way, but you’ve got a slim chance of making your colleagues think the same, with Tetley finding that just one per cent of people think their workmates make the perfect brew. You’ve got no chance – sorry.

And what’s your opinion on putting the milk in the mug before the hot water? Ok, ok, calm down. But that’s not even the most controversial factor when it comes to brewing up.

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Some 48 per cent of people think the teabag needs to be left in the cup for at least a minute, one in ten want a teacup, not a mug, and three per cent think you should heat the milk up before adding it to the brew. What?!

Wait, we’re not done yet. Some 17 per cent of people even put honey in their tea instead of traditional sugar. Who do they think they are, Winnie the Pooh?!

All in all, trying to impress your colleagues by brewing up might be too much to handle on your first day, so might we suggest winning your new team over with some biscuits instead? It’s probably best to go for a variety box, then there’s something to suit everyone’s fussy tastes…