Preparing a good cup of tea is an art

The following are the five golden rules to better prepare a black tea, in a practical way, but without abandoning the traditional principles governing the ritual of tea:
1. Prepare a number of packets equal to the number of cups you want to prepare. Consider typically one packet every 200ml of water.
2. Always use water fresh, avoiding boil several times (eg. Leaving residual water in the kettle).
3. Bring water to a boil and then immediately put too steep the tea bags, with very hot water (90-100° C). For the teapot, porcelain is preferable.
4. Leave to infuse up to the attainment of the desired aroma intensity, typically between 1 and 3 minutes and then remove the bags from the teapot.
5. Serve plain or with added lemon or milk and sweeten to taste, according to your tastes.

If you do not have a porcelain teapot you can use a modern kettle. A little trick may be to carry out the ‘infusion directly into the cup (glass or porcelain), preferably preheated with hot water (this will prevent the infusion to cool too quickly when poured into the cup). Then put a sachet of tea and pour directly into the piping hot water. Proceed as in steps 4 and 5. Always avoid infusing the sachets directly in the kettle (in plastic or steel).