"Fancy a cuppa?" I said.

"Yes please," he said. "I could murder a cup of tea."

"How many sugars?"

"One, please."

"How much milk?"

"Erm, just a little."

Do you see the problem? There is no way to communicate the exact amount of milk you wish to be poured into your tea. I once took a cup of tea containing my preferred amount of milk and measured the wavelength of its colour, but this information was useless because I couldn't find a possessor of 'perfect colour', the electromagnetic and possibly imaginary equivalent of 'perfect pitch'.

My solution to the problem is to freeze milk into an icecube tray. With these milk-cubes, the above dialog can be rephrased as so:

"...how much milk?"

"Four, please."
-- spiritualized, May 10 2005

Coffee Coloured Mug Coffee_20Coloured_20Mug
by PiledHigherandDeeper. A different approach to the problem. [calum, May 11 2005]

Swatch Tea-Cup http://images.zento...tos/1/600x600/3.gif
From [moomintrol]'s anno, I got this idea.
"How do you like your tea Vicar?"
"Oh, number 3 please, 2 sugars."
[zen_tom, May 11 2005]

But then your tea would get cold!
-- contracts, May 10 2005


"Was that four biggish cubes or four smallish ones? Or two biggish and..."
-- Basepair, May 10 2005


When I was a student, one of the guys doing product design produced mugs which had all the Pantone reference numbers for different shades of brown printed on the outside.

Also, I have tried freezing milk in ice cube trays(coz I tend not to use a great deal). It never lasts as long as you think it should, and the tea never looks the same, either. Nine times out of ten the milk seemed to curdle as soon as it hit the tea.

Lemon slices, on the other hand, freeze just fine.
-- moomintroll, May 10 2005


Besides [moom]'s observation that the milk cubes curdle in the hot tea, this is a great idea.

I wonder how this would work for iced tea. Hmmm, can't imagine it would be good with milk, somehow.
-- Machiavelli, May 10 2005


yeah, there has to be a way, they'd look cool. (+)
-- neilp, May 10 2005


Is it just so very un-tea-like to say 1 tablespoon or 15 milliliters or something like that? Maybe specify it as a ratio like 100:1 Tea to milk. (No idea if those are realistic numbers, I don't drink hot tea.)

[Machiavelli], you might try it in iced tea; I've heard of worse. My aunt used to put milk in her Pepsi. I could never bring myself to actually try it. Of course, this was the same aunt who chewed her aspirin before swallowing it.
-- half, May 10 2005


No kidding, [half]... I don't remember exactly if it was Laverne or Shirley who used to drink her Pepsi with milk but that's when I realized that the world's no longer a safe place.
-- Machiavelli, May 11 2005


Milk in Pepsi is probably better than you imagine. After all 7up in chocolate milk is excellent.

As for milk cubes...you could just use a pat of butter. Unsalted, of course.

One thing that is interesting is frozen whipped cream.
-- bristolz, May 11 2005


interesting [bristolz]? To me it looks just like vanilla ice cream - which i hate digging out of a tub when its rock solid. o whoops can anyone spell "off topic?"
-- CombatChuck, May 11 2005


Apparently you can but you probably had to look it up.
-- bristolz, May 11 2005


"say when."

"when."
-- po, May 11 2005


If you've got liquid nitrogen you can have vodka cubes! They melt v. quickly though.
-- not_only_but_also, May 11 2005


I agree that scientific measures are 'un - tea - worthy'. Let's come up with ISO measures and give them tea names: An Earl Grey for me with a Lord Byron of milk!
-- not_only_but_also, May 11 2005


The elegance of this idea is that it solves a trivial problem while creating a more serious one.
-- ldischler, May 11 2005


[Machiavelli] It was Laverne. I tried it once and couldn't spit it out quick enough.

[Moom] What type of milk did you try? I would think fat free might work better although I haven't tried it.

Another application for this would be to keep your glass of milk cold longer. I can't drink warm milk and have been known to put ice cubes in it.
-- 37PiecesOf Flair, May 11 2005


How bout powdered milk, compressed into cubes? kinda like the chicken/onion/tomato/mushroom flavoured seasoning cubes...
-- maximus5, May 11 2005


Lactose bullion. As opposed to a lactating bull.
-- RayfordSteele, May 11 2005


//How bout powdered milk//
yeah, but then it curdles when you put the marshmallow in.
-- moomintroll, May 11 2005


//yeah, but then it curdles when you put the marshmallow in.// Why would I want marshmallows in my tea?
-- maximus5, May 11 2005



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