When to Add Milk to Tea

The habit of putting milk in tea reportedly started in France. Madame de Sévigné described how Madame de la Sablière launched the fashion:

Madame de Ia Sahlière took her tea with milk, as she told me the other day, because it was to her taste.

Much of the tea produced in India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya is manufactured to be drunk with the addition of milk. Milk complements a malty Assam or full-bodied Sri Lankan black tea, but cream can sometimes mask the taste of quality black teas. It’s too heavy.

This settled, let’s launch right into a hotly debated issue in tea etiquette: Are you a M.I.F. (milk in first) or are you a M.I.L. (milk in last) tea drinker?

Milk is poured after the tea. You may have heard or read that milk precedes the tea into the cup but this is not the case. You do not put milk in before tea because then you cannot judge the strength of the tea by its color and aroma. A dark Assam might taster better with more milk than a lighter Darjeeling tea.

Where did this old milk-first tale come from? Samuel Twining has theorized that milk first prevented early china from cracking in reaction to boiling water. That theory appears rather shaky today since boiling water is not poured directly into the cup.

By now, it goes without saying that milk should not be added to white, green, or oolong teas.

Downstairs at Downton Abbey

Good reasons to add milk after the tea is poured into the cup

I’m sure Carson the butler would advise the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey to put milk in second. After all, the butler in the popular BBC television program Upstairs, Downstairs kindly gave the following advice to the household servants who were arguing about the virtues of milk before or after the tea is poured:

Those of us downstairs put the milk in first, while those upstairs put the milk in last.

Moyra Bremner author of Enquire Within Upon Modern Etiquette and Successful Behaviour, says,

Milk, strictly speaking, goes in after the tea.

According to the English writer Evelyn Waugh,

All nannies and many governesses…put the milk in first.

And, by the way, Queen Elizabeth II adds the milk last as did George Orwell. Listen to a short recording of that famous writer schooling listeners on a proper cup of tea.

Which teas work best with milk?

Here are a few classic selections from The Tea Maestro –

Ceylon New Vithankande