I don‘t know about whether or not Americans make tea with water straight from the tap, but I have heard that Americans have some kind of a strange aversion to kettles. Or was it an aversion to electric kettles as opposed to stovetop ones, because of the 120V electrical standard, that makes American electric kettles slower? I can’t remember now. Americans do be doing some weird shit all the time
@“Tom of the Fog”#p149824 Please tell me that people in the US don’t make tea with water from the tap/faucet. I am assuming this is some sort of horrible horrible joke.
yeah you take the tap water and add enough sugar to make it syrupy, then put it in the microwave. Then you add 2 tea bags, wait for it to cool, mix in cold water into a pitcher, and serve with ice cubes. Anything else and you're highfalutin.
@“Tom of the Fog”#p149843 Yeah I don‘t know about the tap thing. My tap definitely gets hot enough to brew tea, but I don’t think I'd ever consider it.
But the salt and the lemon? I'm not gonna argue with the science.
@“Mnemogenic”#p149849 Lemon I get, for black tea but most people in the UK drink it with milk and sometimes sugar. I use lemon in tea when I‘m ill but otherwise it’s always with milk.
I think the way the UK and US drink tea differently may not be as wildly known as I realised.
@Tomofthefog I can‘t imagine the warm tap being true but people do microwave the water with the bag in. I don’t have a problem with it because realistically it's just getting that water hot, but for whatever reason it “feels strange.”
As for what @"Tradegood"#p149848 is describing, just in case you're unaware, that's sweet tea, which is so common in the south that if you want iced tea without sugar you have to ask for "unsweetened tea." frank's wife being from the south is so used to this that (now that she's living here in the north) she asks for "unsweetened tea" at restaurants and it confuses people completely. They assume she wants it sweet but not with sugar (because it's by default unsweetened here so why would you ask for it, etc)
My mom is from Georgia and would make sweet tea all the time. There was no microwave involved, but she did boil an absurd amount of teabags in a big soup pot on the stove. That‘s probably not the best way to do it; I dunno I’m not a tea scientist.
@“Gaagaagiins”#p149846 I've been using an electric kettle for nearly 10 years and they do seem to go round as gifts quite often. So the US is not completely devoid of their use. I do prefer a stove-top kettle though. At work there is a tap that is specifically for hot water (190F / 87C) and I use that for my tea.
@“exodus”#p149855 I‘ve actually spent a collective four months on and off in the southern part of the US, more than the north and was amazed with how sweet tea is the norm - it’s where I developed my taste for it.
I remember people asking for unsweetened tea to then fill it with fake sugar which to me seemed even stranger!
I take tap water and put it in a stove top kettle and boil it. My girlfriend has this really cute strawberry shaped kettle that has a two tone whistle. I like my tea with honey, too. In an ideal situation I have some local honey from the bees that live at my college, but I don't often have that. Still voted for having my tea black with something.
@“tomjonjon”#p149859 I love those boiling water taps!
I also love electric kettles. The very fancy ones are great for getting really precise with temperature for various different kinds of loose leaf tea. I have a cheap one in my studio because making tea is an essential part of my artistic process.
