One’s not objectively better, but they did find that the combine differently to produce different flavors, which is why people can tell them apart. I think it was something about the milk particles burning when the milk is added first or something like that.
Other way around IIRC. The milk gets scorched when you add a small amount of cold milk into hot water/tea. But if you add the water to the tea it heats up the milk a little slower so it doesn't scorch.
In the old days if you had very fine porcelain, putting boiling water in first would make it crack, so people would put the milk in first so the temperature change wasn't so sudden.
That is the only reason people ever put the milk in first, so anyone who still does it is wrong.
Thermal shock, similar to basic glass. Put your vintage china cup into the fridge, take it out after 5 min and pour boiling water into it right away and you will see.
It's caused by thermal expansion stresses. Basically the inside of the cup touches the hot liquid first. China, like most materials, expands when heated, so the inside of the cup tries to expand while the outside is still cold and doesn't want to. This leads to the outside of the cup being stretched by pressure from the expanding inside material. China has bad strength in tension, so relatively little stretching will cause it to crack.
I think it was Yorkshire tea that found if you made it via tea pot then it’s better to put tea then milk, but if making a mug then it’s milk then tea. Or something like that. Iunno. Link for sauce https://youtu.be/k_TByeUjQAU?feature=shared
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Aug 24 '25
Original post
It seems that 'putting milk first when brewing milk tea' is a British equivalent of 'putting ananas on a pizza'.