Best Cup of Tea Ever!

Posted by Lea on June 17th filed in Chat

Last week I spent a day in the waiting room while Ford mended my car – I came prepared with a book, my lunch, a mug and a handful of tea bags, as I knew it would take them a while to do the work, but to my surprise I got something on top of a mended car – I had the Best cup of tea I have ever had.
It wasn’t what I expected, and there was no sign up letting me know it would happen, but nonetheless, thats what I got.
The Ford waiting room is nicely laid out with large TV, vending machine (Salt and Vinegar chips! ooh, my guilty secret – don’t tell anyone!), nice mugs, meaning my attempt to avoid nasty plastic cups was not needed, and a coffee machine.
Coffee.
Oh dear, I thought.
But there were some Bushells tea bags (Noooooooooo!) on the bench, so I knew the machine must be able to make tea somehow.
Looking at the buttons, one of them appeared to put out just water, so I put my mug under it and pressed the button. I then witnessed the slowest cup of tea ever made. OK, so allowing a cup of tea to draw normally takes a while, but you aren’t watching the water come out. Sloooooooowwwwwly…
Eventually it was done and I added a little milk (no sugar for me – I like my teeth!) and set myself down and had a sip, only to taste…. the best cup of tea bag tea I have ever had. Amazing!
And it wasn’t a one off! All 4 cups (*cough* What? I was there for 6 hours!) I had were all divine!

Now, I am trying to figure out what made it so great.
The water wasn’t amazingly hot, because I am fairly sure I was able to drink it straight away.
It wasn’t coming out fast, because it took a long time to fill the cup.
It was falling from a modest height, but not very high.

My current experiments involve pouring from the kettle as slowly as I can, from a height, and the tea does seem perfectly nice, perhaps a little nicer than a normal teabag cup. But there is no way that I can pour as slowly as that machine did, and I think that might be the secret. If someone can suggest how I can pour hot water really slowly – I am all ears!