The official tea blog of The English Tea Store. Visit us often for information about tea, tea reviews, tea accessories and much more!
We love tea here at the English Tea Store, and we figure you should probably love it too. That’s why we’re putting together a list of every tea blog that we know of – so you can learn as much or as little as you’d like about the world’s most delicious beverage!
To see the full list – or to add your blog to the list – visit our brand new (still under construction) list of tea blogs today!
Indoors it’s warm and cozy while outside a blanket of white makes a great tea time scene. Here in the Southeast people still “Ooo!” and “Aah!” when snow falls. Kids rush outside to build snowmen and generally enjoy this strange, icy, white substance all over the ground before the temperatures warm up too much and it all melts. Having grown up where snow was a regular and something-to-be-dreaded occurrence, I prefer that indoor experience. So it was time to plan a Snow Day Tea Time.
First step: coax hubby into baking again. Pretty easy to do, as he enjoys it (my home economics class in 7th grade kind of turned me off of such things). Since we didn’t have any more pumpkins for pies, he opted for scones. Watching him bake is quite an experience in itself. As with many things, he approaches the task in a very organized manner. Pre-heat the oven. Spray the cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Get out the big mixing bowl. Dump in the scone mix. Add the proper amount of water. Then, a quick stirring of the mix, dropping globs onto the cookie sheet, and popping it into the oven. Sort of like watching a conductor leading his orchestra.
Next step: select and brew the tea. That’s my province. I like to get things ready first (a little pre-prep). My “Blue Betty” teapot was warmed and made ready in her special tea cozy. The tea kettle was filled with clear water and set on the stove for the boil. Then, I took a moment to gaze out at the snow and get a “tea feel” — mentally running through the teas in stock to select the perfect one to suit our mood and the weather and, of course, be a perfect “go-with” for the scones. A black tea, for sure. Something dark, rich-tasting, heavenly aroma, and suited to milk and sweetener.
Chai (made with black tea, not green) and Assam seem the obvious choices. Both are made to go with milk. Both have a strong, rich taste and aroma. Both would enhance that oh-so-inviting scent wafting from the oven as the scones bake. How to decide? Flip a coin? Eenie meenie minie moe? Cover my eyes and point at one of the teas? All are too chancy for such an important matter as this. Sometimes, though, when the scales of taste are so well balanced…
Chai wins. Into the teapot it goes, the spices in with the dry tea spreading molecules into the air that caress my nose — ah! Just in time. The kettle lid is doing its bubble dance. Time to add water to tea. Five minutes of steeping results in the perfect brew ready for that “golden pour.”
Meanwhile, the oven timer has pinged and hubby has removed those golden-brown scones (tasty globs of dough and apricot pieces) from the oven. They sit cooling on the counter while I warm the milk for the tea (a trick I learned from a British friend).
Where to sit and enjoy this special Snow Day tea? I think the dining room with its bay window giving full view of all that whiteness would be the ideal venue. Hubby suggests pulling our counter stools over to the sliding doors where we can sit and look out over the deck while balancing teacups and scone plates on our laps. Uh, oh — decision time again. Eenie meenie minie moe…
Enjoy!
Hanging ’round the house a lot because of the snow? Why not spend some time checking out A.C.’s blog, Tea Time with A.C. Cargill?
Stash’s Ginger Peach Green Tea is a startling blend of traditional tea and nouveau fruit flavor, creating a taste experience that is more than the sum of its parts. With its daring ginger overtaste, it’s brave. Bold. Maybe even pioneering.
It’s a taste found in reading Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We. The story is chronicled by D-503, a cipher of the One State. He is happily obedient as worker-mathematician, toiling for the Benefactor. But by the meddling in his head of a woman, I-330, he becomes ill with a “soul” that torments him with feelings, laughter, confusion…love. In the end, has he forsaken one dictator for another?
Zamyatin was no stranger to Totalitarianism. This novel emerges from the time of revolutionary Petrograd. It took the Czechs to manage getting it to print. Zamyatin had been arrested and exiled from Russia, arrested and internally exiled (when they couldn’t keep him out), and put before a judge again who kicked him back out. All for his revolutionary writing. Some say Zamyatin is the inventor of Dystopian literature, and it may be true. We is rife with “cliche” plot twists and turns, but at its time of writing, it hadn’t become cliche yet. It was pioneering.
And like Stash’s Ginger Peach Green Tea, it’s brave and bold, too. As the flavors of the tea blend artfully into each other, so too does the “stream-of-consciousness” narration of the novel. At times it’s difficult to tell the difference between D-503’s imaginings and reality; true to the design of both tea and writing.
Deeper still, the overall flavor experience of Stash’s Ginger Peach Green Tea is nothing if not clean. Sip after sip, it complements the tragic–but aseptically unsoiled–life of Zamyatin’s ciphers living at the mercy of the One State.
Try both, the book and the tea, and let me know what you think!
Here in Northern Virginia, we’re preparing for yet another record snowfall–up to a couple of feet. I’ll be heading out to Costco later today, and I know that it will be quite a battle. Don’t worry, though; I’ll be fortified with a cup of tea.
If you’re in for snowfall as well, go ahead and enjoy it. Yes, it’s rather inconvenient and messy. But it’s also beautiful. And tasty.
Really.
Now, I’m not exactly talking about reverting to childhood, scooping up a snowball and noshing on it. I’m talking about something a little bit fancier. Even fancier than mixing it with a bit of maple syrup, although that’s not bad either. I’m talking about snow ice cream.
Really.
I stumbled across the recipe on TasteSpotting a year or so ago, from the Peppercorn Press Blog. Apparently, the recipe originates with the author’s great-grandmother, and if you aren’t too worried about eating raw eggs, it’s delicious. It’s best prepared with very freshly fallen snow, perhaps from a table top so it’s nice and clean, and free of ice.
Vanilla Snow Ice Cream
Ingredients:
Use a chilled mixing bowl, and whisk everything together before going out to gather the snow.
Then, bring in your bowl of snow and begin slowly pressing it into the milk with a large mixing spoon. Don’t stir! Just keep pressing until it’s all incorporated. Keep adding snow until no more can be absorbed. Serve in chilled bowls.
The original recipe says that you cannot freeze it for later and that it must be eaten immediately, but we refroze it. It wasn’t as good, but it worked out fairly well. It serves 4-6 people. And they mean it. It’s far too rich for two servings.
This dessert goes very well with a nice spicy masala chai to help cut the richness of the egg. Enjoy the snow, and go play in it, no matter how old you are.
If, like all of us here at the English Tea Store, you’ll be snowed in this weekend, make sure to spend some time perusing Stephanie’s blog, The Tea Scoop. It’s a great place to pass the time!
You love tea, you love your sweetie, so why not combine the two in a Valentine’s Day tea gift? Okay, all you lovers out there, it’s that time of year when you get to let that special someone really know how you feel. Don’t forget about family, friends, co-workers, classmates, that special teacher, your boss, and that someone special in your neighborhood who has been helpful. We all know someone who needs to hear that they are appreciated. And the choices are plentiful.
Baskets (pre-made and custom)
Even if you’re on a budget, you can say “I love you” with a gift basket, since many are priced below $20. Pre-made baskets contain teas, cocoas, candies, treats, and sometimes teawares (teapots, mugs, etc.). Who says your money doesn’t go far these days? And what a great excuse for a cozy Valentine’s Day tea moment. I can just hear you saying:
You get the idea.
Candy and Treats
Chocolates are very traditional for Valentine’s Day. Don’t worry about the calories. Just be sure to drink some tea with them (green tea goes especially well). Not only is tea great for speeding up your metabolism and burning off those extra calories, it makes chocolate taste even more chocolaty (at least it does to me). Of course, buying good quality chocolate and the best green tea helps. The heart-shaped box also makes chocolate taste better — honest! Of course, rose-shaped chocolates and chocolate-covered pretzels can be real attention-getters. If your true love doesn’t like chocolate, go for another sweet like jelly beans and hard candies. Thank goodness they’re all so affordable. You can spread your good feelings around by giving to others who are special to you.
Mugs
A Valentine tea mug says “You’re mine” year round, especially a mug that’s in red or pink. Add in some candies, a special tea or maybe cocoa, possibly some cookies, and voilà! A gift fit for your special someone all wrapped up in heart-covered plastic with a red bow and one that can’t fail to impress her or him.
Plush Toys
Something else that will last long after the tea has been drunk and the treats have been eaten: a plush toy. Of course, teddy bears are du rigueur (“par for the course,” “standard ammunition for the lovelorn,” etc.) You can be a little offbeat with a plush biker dog (yes, I said “biker dog”) and show your humorous — and a bit wild — side. Or go bananas with a plush monkey. Any of these as part of your gift basket makes the teas, candies, mugs, and treats speak even louder of your love. If your giftees are young in years as well as heart, you’ll surely bring a smile to their faces. Us old fogeys will grin a bit, too.
Whatever you choose, the time is now to order. You don’t want to be empty-handed when that important moment arrives.
After you pick out a Valentine’s gift for your sweetheart, head over to A.C.’s blog, Tea Time with A.C. Cargill, and unwind with a good “cuppa.”
Among the many claims of tea having powers most healing, soothing lovelorn hearts is certainly the most mysterious and least understood. One of the greatest love poems written was about tea. Here’s how the first draft started out:
How do I love thee,
Let me count the teas.
Of course, the final draft came out a little differently. (I think Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a bit influenced by her editor.)
Consider the very names of teas. They speak of longing for that gentle touch, the word of love that’s whispered in a lover’s ear, a gaze from lover’s eye returned tenfold. For example:
“Oh, my Darjeeling, how Oolong for you,
When first I see your countenance
As rich Assam fine tea a-brew
While we in soft embrace do dance.”
See what I mean? Well, it’s not perfect, but at least I try.
Tea speaks, with its various aspects, the language of love. The aroma, both of the dry leaf and in the cup, tells of a future full of promise and fulfillment, as love speaks of happiness to come and that will fill one’s life. The color of the tea “liquor,” when steeped the proper time, in its jewel-like sparkle holds the secrets of the flavor of the tea, as love holds the secrets of a yearning heart. The taste when tea first caresses tongue and then excites the tastebuds into their dance of bitter-sweet-tangy-salty is like a first touch, fingers to fingers sliding together in a loving clasp of hands.
Tea encompasses all of the aspects of love. The first tentative sip of a new tea is like the first holding of your true love’s glance. The attentive nurturing of the tea plants is like the building up of that special emotion. A growing knowledge of all of tea’s qualities (the good and the bad) and thus a deeper appreciation is like getting to know your love’s likes and dislikes and share yours. Even the joy of helping others find this same thrill of discovery and enjoyment is like playing matchmaker for your friends.
When hubby and I first met, he drank mostly coffee or water during the day while I drank (I’m almost embarrassed to admit it) diet soda and tea made by dunking a teabag on a string into a cup of hot water (sort of the Meg Ryan approach in the scene where she has a cold and Tom Hanks shows up at her apartment with a bouquet of daisies in “You’ve Got Mail”). Over the years, we have both learned more about tea and grown in our appreciation of it, just as we have grown in our love for each other and appreciation for each other’s traits, quirks, peccadilloes, etc.
Since this is the “Month of Love,” you might want to treat that special someone to a nice tea time. You could both end up not only increasing your enjoyment of tea, but, well, you know… Enjoy!
Visit A.C.’s blog to learn more about the mysterious powers of tea!
Organic Assam
This tea is grown in the Assam region of India, the largest tea-growing area in the world. Assam tea is much favored by those who enjoy a strong, brisk tea, as well as by those who just have to enjoy their cuppa with milk and sugar.
Flavor Profile: Good Assam is a strong tea, with flavors of malt and honey and often a fairly astringent finish. Assam is particularly known for its ability to stand up to both milk and sugar, resulting in a sweet, creamy, warming brew.
Use in Blends: Assam is the backbone of many English and Irish breakfast blends, and its strong flavor is just the thing to wake you up in the morning. Plus, Assam’s astringency makes it a great option for washing down greasy breakfast food. Assam is also a popular base for chai, as its strong flavor asserts itself in company with so many spices.
Iced or Hot?: I’ve experimented with iced Assam, usually with disappointing results. Assam’s malty characteristics that are so delicious hot can taste “off” when iced. The exception to this is an Assam-based iced chai massala: The other spices mitigate the off flavors, making the iced chai both comforting and refreshing at the same time.
Cautions: Because Assam takes milk and sugar so well, unscrupulous tea vendors often market mediocre Assam because they figure the tea’s weak points will be covered up by additives. Shop around and don’t be reluctant to pay a bit more for a truly good Assam: They are heavenly.
For more great tea-writing, check out Lainie’s blog!
There’s a lot of talk about tea being good for your heart. Not to mention a bunch of medical studies to back up those claims. Hardly very romantic though. Tea may be good for your physical heart, but it is also good for that romantic urge within you, euphemistically called the “heart.” We celebrate those romantic urges on Valentine’s Day.
A couple of weeks from now your wife, husband, sweetheart, etc., will be looking at you expectantly. Are you going to hand her/him a bunch of roses (cliché and possibly allergy-inducing), a box of chocolates (tasty but not enough), a sappy greeting card (nice start but more needed)? How about a special, for-your-true-love, gazing-longingly-in-their-eyes-while-you-sip, steaming potful of tea?
I’ve had the pleasure of trying some tea samples sent to me and, thus, expanding my idea of what makes a good tasting tea. Therefore, as “grand tea master for the lovelorn” (self-appointed), I am recommending some teas for you to give your true love:
Setting up a tea table that is just dripping (figuratively speaking) with romanticism is a must. Start with lacy tablecloths, and add lots of sparkly crystal and fine china. A heart-shaped tray as well as dishes and treats as colorful as they are tasty are good additions. Don’t forget the lovey-dovey music, classic love poems, and lots of candlelight. You can’t go overboard with this stuff.
Of course, the best gift of all is yourself. I’m not trying to be corny, but a loving hug conveys more swainful feelings to your sweetie’s heart than even the most smoky, planty fragrance of a green tea or the fruitiest wonders of a Darjeeling. Sweet treats, cheeses, fruits, veggies, patés, and other temptations of the palate are no comparison to an embrace.
As “grand tea master for the lovelorn,” I encourage you all to start preparing now for a most loving Valentine’s Day. Plan your strategy and order the teas and goodies to serve. Select the venue (your dining room, a cozy nook somewhere in the house, etc.), and get your In-Laws to watch the kids for the night. A little thought and effort now will surely have a big reward later.
I’m off now to begin my own plans for that special day — quite in secret, of course. Cheers!
Don’t forget to check out A.C.’s blog, Tea Time with A.C. Cargill!
Do you like old movies? I adore them. I mean black and white ones, not the color ones from the sixties and seventies that are often passed off as classic.
I was watching an old one the other evening: In Which We Serve. Filmed in 1943 and written by Noel Coward, it is a classic WWII film about a British naval ship crew and their families. There is a gripping scene, where the ship has gone down, leaving a small group from the crew clinging to a life raft, oily sea water washing over them and enemy planes shooting at them. Finally, the enemy planes are gone. One of the young seamen, actor John Mills, flips water from his head and says:” You know what I’d like about now? A cup o’ tea.”
A little while later in the movie, we are shown the same spirit in the women, when during a London blitz, three of the sailor’s wives are together and listening to the sirens and the bombs falling nearer and nearer. One of the women says, “We’ll have some tea in a minute anyway, just to keep us going.”
The movie gave a good illustration of a successful manner to get through any hard time, which is to keep a sturdy attitude, and that tea helps.
Anyone who is a tea drinker knows from experience the sustaining power of tea, but to back us up, there have actually been a few studies on the matter that I found through an exhaustive couple of clicks on Google Web search.
A study done back in 2006 and reported with good enthusiasm all over the web was done by The University College London. In this study, the sensory comforts of tea drinking were eliminated as much as possible in order to examine the actual properties within black tea. While the actual tea properties were not identified, the end result was stated: “Although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress we experience, tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal.”
I found enough information at The University of Maryland Medical Center Website on green tea to reduce my stress on the spot and make me decide to give green tea another very good try.
There was also quite a bit of information to explain why I drink all those cups of tea while writing. I, as do many writers, have mild ADD. The stimulating effect of caffeine in black and green teas helps the brain to stay focused.
Just now I’m looking at cleaning a floor, taking my mother to the doctor, picking grandson up from pre-school. Before I embark on all that, I’ll just go down and have a cup of Lover’s Leap Estate Ceylon. Frankly, yes, the name got me.
CurtissAnn is the author of many books of fiction, including “Chin Up, Honey,” which Publishers Weekly called “a Bradburyesque vision with drugstore soda fountains, old-timey radio shows filling the airwaves and a cast of characters who wouldn’t be out of place in Lake Wobegon.” To learn more, visit her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com.
Black Tea
In the United States, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, this bone disease affects eight million women and two million men. Some 34 million Americans have low bone mass, a condition that places them at increased risk for osteoporosis. According to Osteoporosis Canada, an estimated 1.4 million Canadians also suffer from the disease.
If you’re a tea drinker – good news. There may be some benefits related to osteoporosis. This is according to an Australian study, the results of which were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study took a look at 275 women between the ages of 70 and 85. It found that those who drank black and green tea on a regular basis had higher bone density in two sections of their hip than study participants who didn’t drink tea. Tea drinkers tended to lose less bone density over a four-year period.
Prior to that, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona took a look at potential links between habitual tea consumption and the risk of osteoporosis. The subjects studied were women aged 50-79 years. The findings of the study suggested a trend of increased total body bone mineral density with tea drinking with no significant association between tea drinking and the risk of fractures at the hip and forearm/wrist.
Another study, the results of which were also published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that older women who drank tea tend to have higher bone density in their spine and thighs. The study was carried out by researchers from Britain’s University of Cambridge School of Medicine. It looked at women aged 65 to 75, 1,134 of whom were daily tea drinkers and 122 who were not. Flavonoids in tea are thought be a contributing factor to these findings.
For a useful overview of additional research on links between tea and osteoporosis, take a look at this summary from Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute.
Don’t forget to check out William’s blog, Tea Guy Speaks!
It’s National Hot Tea Month. What better time to review a tea product?
New products for preparing and enjoying tea are coming out everyday. Recently, I was asked if I wanted to try one of these products and, thinking it would be a good way to help out fellow tea drinkers, I said “Sure!” They let me choose which one to try, so I picked what I thought looked the most like something I could actually use, one way or another.
Product:
Stainless Steel Tea Thermal from Copco, a Wilton Products Company.
About the Design:
First thing I did after the mug arrived was take it apart. The parts were a bit stiff at first but not too hard to do. The most challenging was removing the cap off of the infuser basket. The cap handle is slippery. Perhaps some indents would allow a better grip, especially when trying to remove it and the infuser basket from the mug after steeping (there is some suction built up during steeping).
A – Infuser basket
B – Infuser basket cap
C – Insulated stainless steel cup
D – Main cap that holds infuser basket
This Tea Thermal is a rather enigmatic item. On the one hand, it seems to have been designed by people trying to be very attentive to usability, loading up the design with a number of clever features. On the other hand, they appear to have been excessively attentive since this item seems to have too many such features. For example, it has a piece on the lid that covers the drink hole, then becomes a handle or can be snapped open on the opposite side of the lid — clever but not really a big selling point, at least not for me.
A – Main cap with drinking hole covered
B – Main cap with hole cover/handle up
C – Main cap with hole cover/handle snapped down for drinking
The interior of the mug plus the main cap and infuser cap are made of plastic. Be sure to wash thoroughly between uses to avoid the build up of tea residue that could end up making all of your teas taste the same. I warn you, though, that cleaning all the way down to the bottom of the inside of the mug is difficult unless you have small hand.
Tea Preparation:
I think that how the designers envisioned people using this item is as follows:
People would get up in the morning, steep loose tea in the Tea Thermal, turn the lid to “Stop” (which blocks the infuser holes from the water) and drink the tea while commuting to work.
Unfortunately, a few tea preparation steps have not been taken into consideration. For example, I enhance some of the teas I drink with milk and sweetener. (Assam, English Breakfast, PG Tips, Typhoo, etc.) When do I do this? It’s impractical for anyone to steep in this cup a tea that needs to be enhanced.
No worries. The designers have made it fairly easy for you to convert this to a straight tea thermos by unscrewing the part on the lid that holds the infuser basket in place. Great, but then why buy this thermal mug when you can have a plain thermal mug?
Speaking of the infuser basket, this one compared with others I have experienced is small with tiny holes that don’t allow a lot of interaction between water and tea. I have one that’s worse (it’s larger but has fewer holes) and that, therefore, I’ve never used. Hubby suggested that I could put a teabag in the infuser basket. Sure, but why bother? The only reason would be to use the Stop feature. Otherwise, it’s better to just steep the bagged tea, then add it to the mug with whatever enhancements you use (milk, honey, lemon, sweetener, etc.).
A – The Tea Thermal’s infuser basket
B – Another infuser basket that’s worse
I’m not saying the mug is not useful. At home or in the office, I can steep my tea, pour it into this thermal mug, and enjoy a brew that stays at least drinkably warm for an hour or two (at least through the commute and even that Monday morning staff meeting).
As for drinking from Copco’s Tea Thermal while driving, since it doesn’t fit into the cupholder in my car (which is standard size), this isn’t quite convenient.
Time to do a steep test:
The tea: The English Tea Store’s Green Chai. (I chose this tea because I usually drink greens with only sweetener or unenhanced. This is one I can drink unenhanced.)
I placed only a small amount of dry tea into the infuser basket. The tea has large leaf pieces (some even whole leaf), so confining them in this small space really was hard for me to do. Sigh, all in the name of helping fellow tea drinkers.
I poured a bit less than 2 cups of water into the mug, turned the infuser cap to Steep, and set the timer for 3 minutes. After infusing, I poured the tea into a glass mug so you could see how it turned out. The tea infused well but to me was lacking something. A lot of the spices in the chai, which distinguish it from a plain green tea, were lacking. Compared with the taste test I had done of this tea where it was steeped loose in my little cast-iron Japanese teapot, this confined steeping was less satisfactory.
The tea in the infuser after steeping:
We did a second infusion from these same tea leaves in a regular little teapot, letting them float loose in the water. The infusion was more chai tasting, with the spices able to come out into the water.
Summary:
Overall rating: 2 ½ teacups out of 10
Upsides:
Downsides:
[Author's update: I just tried to tea thermal in my car's cupholder and was able to get it to fit, but just barely.]
Disclaimer: The product reviewed here was provided by the company named. However, the rating of the product and any opinions concerning it are strictly objective. Conducting the review, writing the article, and posting article and photos on this blog took about 16 hours of productive time.
Check out A.C.’s blog for more great product reviews!
