George Orwell noticed this, and in 1946 wrote an essay with 11 golden rules about how to make the perfect cup, hoping to end any disagreements once and for all.

“If you look up tea in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points,” the famous author wrote.

“This is curious, not only because tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country, as well as Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.” (Read the essay in full here.)

Orwell included some points that most people would agree with, such as warming the teapot and using freshly boiled water. But surely the part of tea making most argued about is whether to add the tea or the milk first.

George Orwell thought putting tea in the cup first and adding milk at the end, was the way to do it, as you are less likely to end up with a drink that is too milky. Edward Bramah from the Tea and Coffee Museum in London, on the other hand, thinks that starting with room temperature milk (and definitely not skimmed) makes the tastiest cup of tea. You can watch Mr Bramah's instructions in full here.

Asking the experts

The Teapottery in Yorkshire goes along with George Orwell’s idea of adding tea first, but the company has a relaxed attitude to the use of tea bags and sugar – both enemies to strict tea lovers.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – star of the River Cottage TV series, has a very individual and long-winded way of making his perfect cup of tea that probably means he doesn’t get offered a cup too often! It involves two mugs, twice boiling the kettle, and flavouring pre-warmed milk with tea, added at the end. Even then the drink is not ready. “The tea, which is far too hot to drink, will now be left to stand for at least five minutes, before a sip is attempted,” he says.

The debate of when to add milk may stem from what class a person belonged to in the 1700s. The middle-classes’ china wasn’t tip-top so milk was added first to prevent cracking – not a problem for an expensive aristocratic cup, or an earthenware vessel used by the working classes.

Most stories about the origins of drinking tea with milk have more to do with money than taste.

One theory is that while tea was initially very expensive, milk was cheap. The amount of each added became a tell-tale sign of a person’s social standing: the wealthy drank tea undiluted, the middle classes added some milk and the poor filled their cups with cheap milk and just a splash of tea.