As a Brit, tea is mother’s milk to me. I drink it all day, every day. No morning is so bleak as a morning without a wake-up cuppa.
So you’d think Cuppa, a mini software app for timing the perfect cup of tea, would be just my, well, cup of tea.
But I already know how to make the perfect cup of tea. I can do it in my sleep, and often do — well, half asleep.
This software is for clueless Americans, who can’t brew tea to save their lives. Americans never heat the water hot enough to properly steep the brew. (Quick tip: if you want a decent cup of tea in America, head for the nearest Chinese bakery. It’s the only place that actually boils the water).
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
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Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
20 responses to “Tea Making Software”
Top tip: get a pantone colour swatch and show people the colour your tea should be when the milk is added.
Water has to be BOILING and it has to flow through the bag. None of this quick dip nonsense. Might as well drink hot water.
Best tea ever: Yorkshire Tea by Taylor’s of Harrogate. It is available in the US by special order. I checked when I was hoping to get a job over there. No tea, no deal.
The amount of times I’ve started to make a cup of tea and then come back to my Mac and forgotten about the tea is unbelievable! This small application should hopefully remind me of my tea!
I drink it all day and every day.
Thanks for the tip!
As Davinder I have also had too much of seriously longbrewed tea. I tend to forget not only the cup, but the whole pot. I have a timer on the microwave oven, but who can hear that tiny squik when headset and iTunes is on? I have a timer on my cell phone, but when at home that thing is stuck in the warderobe.
So thanks to Nathan for the app, thanks to Leander for the tip. Now I have a timer where I need it, in the dock of my iMac screen.
A fine cup of tea requires hot water BELOW the boiling point (ideally, the water’s a 93 C @ 500m of altitude / 200F @ 1640ft). Boiling water will destroy flavor-molecules and turn the tea bitter…
Two minutes of brewing-time will be fine for most teas. The longer, the more caffeine will be “washed” out of the leaves. And as time goes by, most of these very volatile flavors will be gone or destroyed by the heat.
Davinder – you need a USB-powered kettle or tea-making device. It could sit next to your Mac and be controlled by software like this!
Now why isn’t there one of those around? Or is there? Must patent that…
I too often forget a brewing cup of tea, or spend a few hours thinking ‘I could do with a cuppa’ and then realise there’s one sitting cold on the window sill.
And you know what one of the unwritten rules of tea is (unwritten, that is, until now)? A forgotten cup of tea would have been one of the best you’d ever tasted.
Ahem… I’m sorry. Me stupid American. Me no know how to make tea.
Apparently it takes seven british rocket scientists with bad teeth…
Every one should have a friend like ‘Tom the tea maker’ in their life. He turns up makes endless cuppas plys you with crisps (and more importantly chocolate). No party is complete without Tom in charge of the kettle. A life saver in the wee hours. There is a huge tea drinking culture round here and he is most appreciated.
Clueless Americans? That comment is a little overboard, don’t you think? Plenty of us dumb ol’ Americans make perfect tea. I’m sure many dumb yanks could make tea even better. Nothing like a little friendly competition. But calling us clueless… that’s not friendly… that’s just ostracizing your readers.
Cheers!
I second TeaMan comments: hot water BELOW the boiling point preserves the many flavors that a decent tea has.
Also, I must remind that “tea” is an Asian invention: many times Brits speak like they invented it, but you guys actually STOLE it from Asia (eh eh). :-P And the Asian American community in the US is large, so it’s not at all uncommon to have a great (not just decent) cup of tea in the US.
Precisely why I was so pissed when I couldn’t find the whistle for the kettle this afternoon. Yes, you boil it. You can pour if you like it with a bite, or wait a tic if you like it smoother (and more subtle). Over the years you learn how long you like it steeped.
As you know, I’m not British, but growing up in the American South, the summer camps I attended were staffed with folks from all over the British Isles… Big fan of the tea too…