Five hacks for making the perfect cup of tea

We can be very particular about our daily cuppa... five huge fans of a brew share their top tips to mark Afternoon Tea Week with Filomena Kaguako

"There's Lyons lovers and there's Barry's lovers — and never the two shall meet!"

If there’s one sure thing that can divide the Irish nation, it’s the intricacies around making a cup of tea.

Whether that means pouring a good splash of bainne into a mug before adding the teabag, or ditching the milk altogether — there’s always someone ready to pass judgment.

It should therefore come as no surprise that Ireland consistently ranks among the highest tea-consuming countries worldwide per capita, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

Elsewhere, a 2026 survey of British adults reviewed by the Tea Advisory Panel (TAP), an independent panel of nutrition and health experts supported by the UK Tea & Infusions Association, found that 81% of respondents say tea is relevant in their daily routine. I would suggest there is a similar attitude in Ireland.

So, to mark Afternoon Tea Week, which began on August 10, we’ve asked Irish tea connoisseurs their thoughts on what makes the ultimate cuppa, and here’s what they had to say.

1. Picking the right brand

“I think the first thing you need to think about is what brand of tea,” says Graham Morrissey, a Dublin native who lives in Co. Meath. “Especially in Ireland now, that’s going to be your biggest tribal divide, because there’s Lyons lovers and there’s Barry’s lovers — and never the two shall meet!”

There is a geographic divide at play, he says.

Graham, 55, adds: “My grandparents and their parents before them had been selling Barry’s tea out of the shop in Limerick. We used to go down and fish it out of a tea chest. So I think it does have a kind of geographic delineation across Ireland.”

2. Using loose leaves

“For me, I like loose leaf tea,” says Teresa O’Halloran, 64, from Co. Cavan. “I grew up drinking loose tea. My mother only ever used loose tea, so I probably have inherited my love of loose tea from her.

“I always use a teapot, and I like teapots with the strainer holes in them that block the tea leaves from coming through,” she adds, “and what I would do is boil the kettle and pour a little drop into the pot to heat the pot.”

But the routine doesn’t end there. “When I feel that it’s warm, which is probably after only about half a minute, I swish it around, throw that water out, put in a spoonful and a half — in my case — of loose tea, boil the kettle up again, and pour the boiling water on it. Then I would leave it sit maybe for anything between three and five minutes.

“People would always comment on it,” says Teresa of her cuppa. “They would basically say, ‘Oh, that is a beautiful cup of tea’, and they all really like the flavour of it.”

3. Maximising natural flavours

“It has to be strong, strong tea with at least two teabags in the cup,” says Matthew O’Connor, 35, from Co. Meath. “So I get the spoon and I push the two teabags down to the bottom of the cup and I leave them wedged at the bottom to get the maximum stew for about five minutes.”

He continues: “I don’t stir. I never stir, and when I take teabags out, I press them against the sides of the rim of the mug and you can’t see through the tea; the tea is like black tar.

“I tilt the milk carton and it’s literally a drop and then I take it away,” he adds. “I think that’s from when I used to be out working with my father, and we wouldn’t have milk. So I used to drink strong black like tea, and I just kind of developed a taste for strong black tea.”

4. Minimising all the extras

“I’ve seen people put in what I think is way too much milk, so it’s basically just milk,” says Niamh Quinn, 36, from Co. Louth, on what she feels can spoil a good cup of tea.

“I leave the teabag in for maybe two minutes. I like it to be like a decent brown colour. Then a good drop of milk,” she adds. “Not so much that it makes the tea look milky, but I like to be able to drink it straight away. “And no sugar,” she adds, “absolutely no sugar.”

That’s a sentiment shared by O’Halloran. “I take a little milk,” she says, “and generally my husband and I would get up and make a cup of tea in the morning, one or the other of us, and in our first mugs of tea, we would have just a half spoonful of sugar just to start the day. But otherwise, we don’t take sugar in our tea.”

5. Finding the right temperature

“I don’t like really hot tea, so I just let it stew, and I almost forget about it,” says O’Connor.

“I’d get regular comments from people saying, ‘Oh, pick up your tea’, or ‘Is your tea okay?’ But I just let it sit there and then I drink it all down then, and I will not waste a drop of it.”