Making Tea

At work I have a two cup/½-liter pyrex measuring cup. Each day when I make tea I fill it up to the ½-liter mark with merely hot water. Then I put it in the microwave for two minutes thirty seconds. This produces full boiling water; boiling as in when disturbed by the addition of the tealeaves it will actually foam and bubble vigorously enough to actually spill over the side if I add them right away. I then let them steep for three minutes, more or less, and strain through fine wire mesh into another cup. This seems to produce better results than most other methods I have tried. I think putting in the wire basket directly lowers the temperature of the water reaching the tealeaves too much. Perhaps I am wrong about that and the reason it comes out slightly bitter when doing it with the tea basket directly is because fine bits of tea leaves are more apt to escape in soaking than in careful straining.

And now with a cup of tea slowly cooling to a drinkable temperature I will return to printing out bills and doing payrolls.