Milk in Your Tea?

In my youth (back in England) there was a period when we used the expression "MIF or TIF?" This was class shorthand for “milk-in-first or tea-in-first?”, based on a popular book by Nancy Mitford, which classified many actions as U or non-U. (I forget what U and non-U stood for, but they meant acceptable or not-acceptable in upper class society.) As I recall, MIF was considered U, and TIF was non-U.

In those days just about everyone took their tea with added milk. I always preferred TIF, as it allowed one to easily see how much milk was needed to "cut" the tea.

Now comes news that adding any milk reduces the health benefits of black tea. A study conducted at the Charité Hospital in Berlin studied the effects of drinking 2 cups of black tea with and without milk. Scientists measured the flow-mediated vasodilatation in the forearm brachial artery as an indicator of cardiovascular effects of tea. Drinking tea without milk was associated with a more than four-fold increase in the arterial effect, compared with drinking hot water. Drinking tea with 10% of added milk resulted in the same dilatation as that seen with hot water.

It seems that we should abandon milk in our tea if we want to experience the health benefits - whether it's put in first, or after the tea.