Apparently, lower classes had cheaper cups made of a different material than the upper classes (porcelain vs. bone china or whatever, I don’t remember the exact details).

The cheaper cups could not handle the thermal shock of being cooled by having the milk put in first, and then the hot tea, so milk first was upper class. Something like that.

Women are feeding their children and possibly also their pregnant selves. These entities are less robust to poisoning to men. It would be completely sensible to expect women to be more sensitive to colour and odor or taste than men.

Now I’m like- IS there another wall colour than Apartment White?

It’s long been my observation that women, in general terms, are far more sensitive to things like flavor and smell than men are. I suspect that this is another one of those realities that the idiots are willing to ignore, in the belief that there is no difference between men and women. Things I find completely unobjectionable, in terms of scent and flavor? My female peers regard with horror…

Not to mention, most women have low tolerance for environmental things, aesthetic issues that men don’t even notice. Friend of mine repainted the interior of his house with what was supposed to be the same shade his wife had picked out before her vacation. For some reason, the guy mixing it down at the paint store didn’t get it quite “right”, and his wife spotted it within seconds of getting home. None of the males involved could make it out, but she sure as hell could, along with three other women. They went down to the paint store in legion, and by the time they got done brow-beating the poor bastard managing the place, they had new paint and a professional paid to come apply it. Me? I could see no difference before, during, or after that fiasco, but the ladies could. And, apparently, some bizarre electronic spectrum analyzer that one of them had for her graphics design work–I remember one of them saying something to the effect that the first paint applied by the husband was a “…whole two pantone shades out…”, and we’re all going “Huh?”.

Women are generally more sensitive to these things. Men may notice them, but we just kind of gloss over it all–The tea tastes “about right…”, and that’s all it takes. For her, though? “It ain’t right…”, and that’s all it takes.

There’s probably something there in the evolutionary biology of it all, what with women having done rather more of the gathering bit of “hunter-gatherer”…

Could be something in it.

Ever the centrist, I add milk to the handful of teas where I think it taste appropriate- usually the basic bagged orange pekoe mixes that form the industrial base of the tea world. They get sweetened too. There may be other viable dairy candidates.

I once saw someone add milk and sugar to Earl Grey. Hoooogh.

(There’s probably an interesting paper to be written on who focuses on what: science or social.)