PG Tips has reduced the amount of tea in its tea bags – still fancy a brew?

In times of crisis, of war, of recession, of the continued existence of Jeremy Clarkson, the one thing Britain has always been able to rely upon is the restorative powers of a brew. A nice cup of tea will never let you down – which is why it has been such a shock to find we’re being rinsed by a couple of chimpanzees.

Over the weekend the news broke that the nation’s favourite brand of tea, PG Tips, has quietly reduced the weight in its much vaunted pyramid-shaped bags by 0.2g, while keeping the price exactly the same. Parent company Unilever justified the change with talk of a new blend, which, it claims, means that the brewing time, and the results are unaffected.

PG Tips is not what you might call a delicate drink – its popularity reflects the British taste for tea as a pick-me-up rather than a subtle pleasure. Blessed with a powerful malty flavour and a certain robust astringency this is not, I suspect, a tea that many of its fans spend much time pouring over.

Indeed, a survey for British Science Week found that more than a third of us wait only half of the three to four minutes recommended by the UK Tea Council before whipping out the bag (though as anyone who has ever done the tea round in a busy office will know, even that seems generous).

PG Tips is a product that can be obligingly dunked in a mug of water, squodged hard against the side and whipped out in less time than it takes for your document to reach the front of the printer queue, and I doubt that many people will notice the difference – indeed, Unilever itself says that it has tested the new blend on hundreds of satisfied customers.

Tea connoisseurs aren’t too bothered, either; for them, the real scandal is that we use teabags at all. Henrietta Lovell, founder of the Rare Tea Company, which only sells the loose-leaf variety, says she prefers to let the customer decide how much tea they want in their cup, comparing pre-portioned teabags to instant coffee, or fish-fingers.

But sometimes, needs must. So just how do you make the perfect cup with a teabag? Start by boiling a kettle (none of those warm water taps, thank you) and pre-warming your pot (or mug); Orwell had the right idea when he recommended you “take the pot to the kettle”. Steep for three to five minutes, depending on how much of a caffeine hit you’re after, then quietly remove the offending bag and stir in milk and sugar as desired.

Does it matter a jot if that bag weighs 2.9g or 3.1g? No. In fact, you could say this story is the very definition of a storm in a teacup.