Now, to make my tea, I need two good-sized mugs. I boil the kettle. The hot water goes into one mug first, stays for a few seconds so the mug is heated, then goes into the second mug. The tea bag goes into the first, hot, mug, boiling water is poured in, to within a couple of millimetres of the top, and the two mugs, one containing brewing tea, and the other containing hot water, are left to stand. After about five minutes, the mug of brewed tea is placed in the sink, where some new hot water (freshly re-boiled) from the kettle, is sloshed into it, so it overflows by about half a mug. This is to stop the well-brewed tea being too strong. The full-to-overflowing mug is now tilted a little bit, so it spills out enough tea to allow room for some milk.
Remember the second mug, full of the hot (now not so hot, but still quite hot) water that was used to warm the first mug? That is now emptied. The tea bag is fished out from the first 'brewing' mug, and placed in the bottom of the empty 'warm' mug, where a small splash of milk is poured over it. The effect of the hot tea bag, and still-warm mug, is to take the chill off the milk - and impregnate it with a mild tea flavour. To encourage both these objectives, the mug is picked up and swirled, put down for a few seconds, picked up and swirled again, and left to stand for a short while longer. The tea-coloured, warm milk is now poured from tea-bag mug to brew mug, which is given a stir.
The resulting colour is observed. A little more milk may be necessary, in which case it will go via the still-warm tea bag mug, into the brew mug. When the colour is exactly right, I will stir in exactly one rounded teaspoonful of golden caster sugar. The tea, which at this point is still far too hot to drink, will now be left to stand for at least five minutes, before a sip is attempted.
Incidentally, my tea of choice is Clipper's Organic, and has been for some years now. Ridgeways Fair Trade is an acceptable alternative, and in other people's houses 'breakfast' teas, 'afternoon' teas and big brand builders' teas are always preferable to varietals. I no longer drink Earl Grey, ever. I sometimes drink Lapsang Souchong, but only after four o'clock.

I seem to recall Alex posted a method to create the 'perfect' cup of tea back on the Dennis boards...It would be interesting to read that again...
The spiced winter tea tasted a lot like Chai tea, which I also quite like.

Earl Gray, Black

I now have a proper tea pot at work and my own loose lef tea so I can have better tea than that which come out of the machine - which is a hot brown liquid of indeterminate origin – not 100% sure if it makes any difference if you ask it for Tea, Coffee or Hot Chocolate – oh yes wait a min the hot choc does have fairy liquid in it as its frothy!

it said something about leaving the tea bag to stand for two minutes and not bashing it against the side of the mug...

A splash of milk in the bottom of each mug, and then the tea is poured after a final swish with the spoon.

Ben, was this what you were after:

Heathen!
Milk goes in last!

Heathen!
Milk goes in last!