xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

Tea is exceptionally popular in the United Kingdom (although decreasingly so, and not as serious a business as in Japan and China). Electric kettles are a standard appliance in British homes (used to boil water for tea, coffee, soup powders, instant mash, etc) and teapots and other related crockery can be found in many cupboards, or even on a shelf in full display, whether or not regularly used. British people are perceived as taking tea seriously, having very specific and strongly held opinions on the proper way to make tea. In contrast, tea (especially hot tea) is less commonplace in the United States of America (Randall's native country), and few people are particularly serious about it. Coffee is a much more common hot beverage, and both homes and offices are far more likely to have automatic coffee makers than electric kettles. While some US households have kettles that can be put on a stove top, many do not have any specific device to boil water. As a result, when Americans need a cup of hot water — for tea or otherwise — the options are usually to use a pan on the stove, or to simply microwave a mug of water (the latter probably being more common in modern times).

British people are stereotyped as taking genuine offense to microwaved water, believing it to be an objectively incorrect way to make tea. Randall mocks this stereotype through exaggeration, saying British people would be significantly less offended by someone stealing the Crown Jewels and using those for tea-making than they would be by tea made with a cup of microwaved water.

Methods mentioned

Making it in a kettle

Perhaps an intentional misnomer. Water may be boiled in a kettle, but the tea itself is made in a separate teapot, with loose or bagged tea-leaves, ready for pouring into any number of teacups, mugs or thermos flask as required. Making tea actually in the kettle, by placing the tea in with the water and then boiling it, would be considered very bad form and render the kettle less useful for its other purposes (and likely void your warranty). Boiling the water in a kettle is standard practice (occasionally a potable water geyser or similar may be available), leaving the tea-making process to occur in the teapot (as above) or the drinking vessel (as below).

Boiling water in a pot, steeping in a mug

Identical to the basic boiling process above, except using a pot (commonly called a 'saucepan' in the UK) on the stove, rather than a kettle. This is slightly less convenient than using a kettle (since pans generally lack a dedicated spout for pouring and a whistle to signal when the water boils), but is otherwise functionally identical. Nonetheless, the comic notes that Brits would take mild offense, considering it to be inferior to using a kettle.

To confuse matters, British people would normally take 'pot' (in the specific context of tea-making) to be short for 'teapot'. However, a ceramic teapot should never be directly heated in the manner of a pan or a kettle. It should be filled with freshly boiled water, ideally after an initial small splash of hot water is swirled around it to warm the teapot to prevent cracking and then the requisite number of teabags (or quantity of tealeaves) dropped in.

Making it in a chalice and ampulla stolen from the Crown Jewels

A chalice is an ornate type of cup; an ampulla is a type of flask or bottle. Both are typically now terms used in relation to objects used in ritual. Randall is likely drawing a parallel here with the ritualism and particularity with which some people surround the making of tea and its associated artefacts.

The Crown Jewels are a set of items belonging to the British monarchy, including ceremonial items and clothing using in royal coronations. These items have both major cultural significance, due to their historical connection with the monarchy, and major objective value, as many of them are heavily jeweled and/or made of precious metals. To steal items from this collection for the purpose of tea-making would obviously be both highly criminal and highly disrespectful. The ampulla referenced is used to anoint the monarch with oil during the coronation ceremony and the chalice may refer to a Communion vessel, giving them religious significance as well.

More importantly for many, though, this would be incorrect tea-ware. The gold or silver chalices and gold ampulla are doubtful as being of suitable materials for British tea-making (as opposed to using cast iron, stainless steel, silver-plate, robust ceramics and/or fine china, for various stages of the process) and there'd definitely be some complaints that it does not taste like a proper cuppa (particularly if oil residue from the ampulla has made its way into the tea). To use such objects to make tea would simply not be cricket.

The suggestion that this method is less angering than microwaving a mug emphasizes the British hate for microwaving.

Microwaving a mug

As mentioned above, heating water in a microwave, for any purpose, is considered acceptable and common in the US. To do so to make tea is considered uncommon and borderline heretical in the UK. The reasons for this are difficult to pin down. Some argue that the microwave doesn't allow proper control over the water temperature (which is considered vital for proper tea-making), or doesn't easily allow the water to come to a full boil. Others raise the danger of superheating water which might boil over when the tea bag is added. Some people even argue that microwaving changes the quality or composition of the water in some way. The validity of these theories varies, but it's unlikely that any of them has enough objective basis to justify serious antipathy towards the method.

Another disputed theory for the difference in approach surrounds convenience. Electric kettles and microwaves are both highly efficient methods of heating water with electricity, but electric kettles in the UK tend to draw significantly more power than either US kettles or microwaves (due, in part, to higher main voltage in the UK grid). As a result, UK kettles can heat an equivalent volume of water significantly faster than can microwaves. When making a single cup, the difference is unlikely to be significant, but when making tea for a whole family, or for guests (as is much more common in the UK), using a microwave would be much less convenient.

Ultimately, though, the difference probably comes down to an accident of culture. Most likely, the preparation of tea simply has a sense of tradition and ritual in Britain, and using a microwave feels crass, modern, and completely disconnected from the cultural associations of tea.

The title text continues with this theme, by reassuring us that the microwaved mug doesn't have a teabag in it (analogous to the 'boiling tea-kettle' version). It then strays into farce, though, by suggesting it is separately microwaved. In reality there is no obvious reason to microwave a teabag: Microwave ovens heat water molecules almost exclusively, and tealeaves (and bag) should be dry before use, with no water molecules to heat. The wrongheadedness of this claim does little but provoke a skeptic's doubts about how utterly perverse this colonial variation on tea-making has become.

Other tea controversies

Other sources of controversy in the correct way to make tea are not covered in the comic, or hidden behind the other 'obvious errors'. Perhaps primary among these is the question of the difference between making (and steeping) the tea in a teapot and pouring the water over a teabag in a mug.

The former tends to be a more formal method, to serve in polite company, or from the traditional need to prepare a large volume of tea for an indeterminate number of recipients and refills, such as in a canteen/cafeteria situation, where the 'pot' stays hot for almost as long as the supply lasts. A prepared teapot of tea allows a fairly consistent 'brew' that is readily poured out into teacups (or mugs) as and when required, and can be readily topped up if an increase in the supply is needed.

The latter method relies upon individual teabags or loose-leaf tea in an individual infuser, and lets each recipient leave the tea in for as long as they personally prefer (or end up having to), which reflects more individual flexibility. Again, this splits between 'high' and 'low' class use. The infamous "builders' tea" often has the teabag left in for a long time (even during drinking), with plenty of milk and sugar, to perhaps produce an increasingly dense brew as the workman concerned takes opportune sips as he (usually) can during his work. Conversely, the trend in more stylish restaurants and tearooms tends to be to supply each customer their teacup together with an individual small vessel of freshly boiled water (rarely more than one or two cups-worth) and the recipient's choices of bagged tea (including fruit/herbal) and additions (milk, or equivalent, lemon, etc, plus sweeteners of all kinds), letting them prepare their own infusion exactly in their own way; this is often presented with an air of 'continental sophistication', but may bemuse and confuse the more down-to-Earth British tea-drinker used to their home method, as does the choice of dozens of fancy coffees from a barista when they'd be happy enough with a decent "instant coffee".

The issue of whether the milk (not obligatory, but decisively traditional) should be put in before the tea (or teabag!) is also often considered Serious Business...

In January of 2024, Michelle Francl, Ph.D., a chemistry professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, suggested putting a pinch of salt into tea, saying that the sodium in salt blocks the bitter taste of tea. This prompted a great outcry by The Guardian and a statement by the US embassy on X (Twitter): “Today's media reports of an American Professor's recipe for the 'perfect' cup of tea has landed our special bond with the United Kingdom in hot water … We want to ensure[sic] the good people of the U.K. that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain's national drink is not official United States Policy. And never will be. ... The US embassy will continue to make tea in the proper way – by microwaving it."