At last! An end to that age-old quandary: milk first or tea first? The answer could not be simpler: no milk at all! That is the conclusion of German research published in European Heart Journal. It suggests that adding milk to black tea (does anyone but a fool add milk to green tea?) blocks the beverage’s famed cardiovascular benefits by eroding the healthy effects of the flavonoids in tea (if only all dilemmas could be so easily solved: Celebrity Big Brother with a guest appearance by Jade Goody or without a guest appearance by Jade Goody? Answer: no Celebrity Big Brother at all).

But should these new findings dishearten the nearly 80 per cent of Britons who among them drink 165 million cups of tea each day? Should they stain the reputation of an infusion that Sir Edmund Hillary hailed for providing constant “cheer and vigour” during his ascent of Everest?

Anyone who measures the value of tea primarily as a vehicle for delivering flavonoids and antioxidants is like the cynic who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Samuel Johnson would pour tea down his throat by the bucketful, praising its ability to “amuse the idle, and relax the studious”. Gladstone was such a devotee that he would fill his hot water bottle with tea to sip in bed at night. In his essay, A Nice Cup of Tea, George Orwell purred about how tea made you feel “wiser, braver and more optimistic”.

The first response to any crisis, whether in Downing Street or The Royle Family, is to put the kettle on. Tony Blair is never without a mug (or indeed one full of tea) when striving to appear a man of the people before a TV camera.

Life is full of dangers, risks and threats. So when it comes to tea, milk first.