To think this is so AGEING

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Being over-specific about how you want your hot drink. Don't do it! You can choose milk and/or sugar. That's it. Any further instruction makes you sound like you buy your shoes from an insert in the Telegraph weekend supplement.

'Just dunk the bag and take it out quickly could you?'/'Not too much milk, please'/'just the one sugar, but if you could make it a smallish spoon'/'I prefer a good slug of milk'.

Urgh. Verbal varicose veins.

Oh, and to add to the confusion, I call coffee tea.

Penny - not everyone. While my PIL probably do have their preferences when they make their own tea and coffee, I have never been given a list of requirements other than "tea please, milk but no sugar.".

(My mum, who actually is a lot younger than PIL, travels with her own tea bags)

is that right

oh well I am old enough to not care if something makes others think I am old or older than I am

that is the beauty of age I have found you care less and less what others think of you

thought it was gonna be about horlicks!

Don't really drink tea now never drink coffee but when I did drink tea it was builders tea very strong with just a drop of milk no sugar I was 22,23 ish.

You don't all get the same tea out of a teapot. People who like it weak pour first. People who like it strong wait til it's brewed longer and is less dilute.

So if someone say to me 'Brew?' and I say 'yeah, strong tea please' am I acting old?

People are supposed to be happier the older they are. Maybe it's because they finally know how they like their tea. Not like those feckless youth who'll take any old slop in a cup. They'll learn.

Of course not everyone!
Yeh - take your point about the teapot. I used to use one but can't now because of all the requirements. But I'm not losing sleep over it.

YANBU since I turned 40 I have become very specific

Boiling water poured on teabag.
Left to brew for no longer than a minute.
No sugar.
A splash of semi-skimmed milk.

If these steps aren't followed it goes down the sink - unless I'm in a hospital bed then I will drink the warm, sweet milky liquid.

I used to laugh at my MIL's fussy 1/4 teaspoon, splash of milk yada yada

OP if you keep having to make lots of drinks at work, just make them so badly they're undrinkable. People will soon stop asking.
Signed
An old person who's learned a few tricks

Kingfisher, that sounds to me like "how you make tea". That's the basic recipe and if someone gives you other than that as a default then they just don't know how to make tea.

I don't think you're at all fussy!

Actually, if the only thing you are fussy about is tea, then it's probably ok, as long as you can still remember to be polite if someone has offered to make you a tea or coffee in their home/a work setting. If someone asks you if you have preferences, you could say, and if you are in a work setting where you'll be taking it in turns to make each other drinks a couple of times a day for months, it's worth asking nicely if they could make a drink your way, otherwise it's rather rude to instruct someone in the "correct" way to make a cup of tea when they are being nice enough to make one for you.

I had a cup of tea with my tea the other day (cold roast beef, pickles and chips)

now that really is giving something away on mn

it was very enjoyable too

In fact, even better, just offer teapot, jug of milk and sugar bowl separately so I can do it myself

If you come round to mine that is what you will be offered. Tea, in a teapot, made with loose leaf tea.

Gabilan, I'm on tea making duties for some months yet, there's no chance a bad brew will get me out if it. Meantime, I will continue my fussiness vs youthful-or-otherwise attitude survey.

I'd offer to report back but the observational hot drink findings may be considered incompatible with MN talk guidelines.

Kingfisher - surely that's just how people make tea? (unless they drink a different type of milk and only that other type in the fridge)

That's not instructions you would need to give unless you think the person you are getting tea from has no concept of what this drink is. It would be a bit rude to talk a fully functioning adult through the 'how to make basic tea' recipe if they asked you if you'd like a drink.

Gabilan or make all of them with a fruit teabag.. from another old person who has learned new tricks!

As for the tea - in my day, a brew were a brew and we liked it or lumped it, none of this skinny-almond-caramacchiato-with-acai-infusion hipster whippersnapper nonsense.. cereal bloody cafes, they'll be putting up the price of Hovis next..

I like a good strong tea, too much milk and I go apeshit. I'm 36 and 3/4 years old.

Boiling water poured on teabag.
Left to brew for no longer than a minute.
No sugar.
A splash of semi-skimmed milk

I don't have tea bags. Would you pour my tea down the sink?

I was surmising that you are junior at your work..

'Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee...?' should always be followed by 'How do you like it?'

Because one size does not fit all, my dear.

However I don't approve of people making a meal out of ordering very specific teas if not invited to specify how they like it.

I think people have got very specific and very entitled about their beverages since the advent of Starbucks.

Fwiw, if you're ever making a cuppa for me I like my tea several shades darker than the darkest tea on the colour chart, with a dash of milk, no sugar, and I have drunk my tea like that since i was 11. I bring my own (Tetley) teabags with me everywhere, and I always brew tea in a teapot. Unless I am making tea for someone else, in which case I will ask them how they like it.

Tea, in a teapot, made with loose leaf tea

Now, that's my kind of cuppa!

'Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee...?' should always be followed by 'How do you like it?'

(If that was meant as helpful advice for me:) It is, hence the thread.

Now I'm worried. I've recently bought a pair of shoes from the Telegraph supplement pages and thought they were lovely ...