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To many folks out there, the very word “selfishness” raises their blood pressure a few levels, since the term has been vilified for centuries. Before you start thinking that I am proposing some totally hedonistic and/or bacchanalian tea time bingeing, hold on. I’m just saying that selfishness can be a key ingredient in the enjoyment of tea.
Yeah, I like milk in my black tea. But be selfish and have tea YOUR way!
Here’s how:
- Take a tea moment — Slip away from your routine and even away from friends, family, and associates to enjoy a solitary cuppa tea. I’ve posted a series of examples on this blog of tea moments, that is, opportunities to do something just for your own enjoyment (see the list at the bottom of this article).
- Acknowledge the validity of your own taste — You like what you like, not what some tea “expert” says you should like or even what some celebrity likes (or is paid to say he/she likes). So, go ahead at tea time and satisfy yourself. Who cares if that aged ripe pu-erh won some award somewhere? If you like Iron Goddess Oolong or a basic black tea blend, go for it!
- Your method is not necessarily madness — Have the tea your way. This is subtly different from the above in that here we are talking not about which tea to have but how to steep and serve it. I like milk and sweetener in a lot of black teas. Other people think that milk in tea is an abomination and/or interferes with the body using the beneficial elements in the tea. The selfish tea drinker decides which, if either, is right for him/her. Ditto for whether you steep in your gaiwan or a teapot, whether you serve in cups, sipping bowls, or mugs, and a multitude of other options.
- Letting others do the same — You’ve been a bit selfish with your tea time, so it’s only fair and balanced to let others do the same. Make your recommendations and then stand back. If they select some tea that makes you cringe, just look away. That’s what I do when hubby has some mint-flavored tea. Love means never having to say you’re sorry (that hubby could drink such a thing). Hee!
Well, I’m hoping the meaning is clear here. I’m not advocating that you hog the teapot, just that you feel free to have your own tea moment your way. See, selfishness can be good!
Pick an article and have a selfish tea moment:
A Cozy Tea Moment: The Kids Are in School
Tea Moments — Doing Laundry
Tea Moments — Watching Raindrops on the Window
Tea Moments — Remembering a Thanksgiving Past
Tea Moments — Long Shadows at Teatime
Tea Moments — Being Thankful
Tea Moments — Enjoying the Christmas Sparkle
Tea Moments — The Christmas Tree
Tea Moments — Reading Fortune Cookie Fortunes
Tea Moments — Hubby Bakes Some Pies
Tea Moments — Candles Setting the Mood
Tea Moments — Putting Down the Duster
Tea Moment — Bird Bath Brouhaha
Tea Moments — Watching an Airplane Fly By
Tea Moments — Iced Tea and the Bug Zapper
Tea Moments — Enjoying a Cloudy Summer Day
Tea Moments — Finding a Shady Spot
Tea Moment — Tea at the Piano
Tea Moments — The Scrabble Game
Tea Moments — The Trick-or-Treaters
Tea Moments — The Relatives
Tea Moments — The Carolers
Tea Moments — A Too Quiet House
Tea Moments — A Castle on My Teaspoon
Tea Moment — That Fall-time Frame of Mind
Tea Moments — The Chef Knows Best?
Tea Moment — “Honey, I’m Home!”
Tea Moments — The New Pot of Tea
Tea Moment — The Colmar Pâtisserie
Tea Moments — Filling (Not Pushing) the Vacuum
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Tea reviewing is not exactly rocket science. In fact, I sorta dove into reviewing teas head first when a tea company sent me some samples and then this competing company found out and said, “Hey, would you like to try our teas?” So, I said like “Sure, why not?” And then, so, like, they sent me some samples and then I reviewed them and people read them and other tea vendors started sending samples and…
Uh, well, you get the idea.
Electric Kettles are part of your tea tasting torso!
In reality, tea reviews have an anatomy similar to the human body, with its major systems. At least, that’s my theory.
Head = Planning & Knowledge
In your anatomy, your head is where your brain resides — you know, that mass of “little grey cells” (as fictional sleuth Hercule Poirot calls it) in your skull. It thinks, reasons, works things out, but also hates, loves, and processes sensory input (taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch).
In a tea review, this is the planning part. Tea samples arrive. (These could be ones you buy — lots of vendors offer sample sizes these days — or that the vendor sends gratis.) Time to do a bit of studying. Examine the package of each sample to be sure it is intact and airtight. Check to see if any of the teas should be used right away. Some delicate white and green teas, for example, have fairly short shelf lives. Then, check into how to steep the tea for best effect. Many vendors put basic information on the sample package (water temperature and steeping time) and more detailed information on their web site. If you will not be trying the teas right away, store the samples in an appropriate place. Hopefully, this will be short-term storage until you can do a properly set up taste test.
This is also the sensory processing part. You will be tasting, smelling, seeing. It can take some time and effort and trying a bunch of teas to start discerning some of the finer differences. At least, it has for me and my dearest hubby, who has been as involved in the tea tastings as I have.
Torso = Equipment
The torso supports the head and houses your essential parts (heart, stomach, etc.). Your equipment is the main body of your tea review and digests (steeps) the tea. You will want to do a bit of research on the vendor’s site or on blogs like this one to determine how to prepare the tea in accordance with the vendor’s recommendations or the advice of others who have tried the same or a similar tea (after awhile, you will have sufficient knowledge to judge for yourself what water temperature, steeping time, teawares, etc., will be needed). Then, you will want to decide what teawares to use. Frankly, for hubby and me this has gotten more and more complicated, especially now that we have our our “Tea Gang” (a small collection of teapots and a wonderful steeping mug) from which to choose.
Just like the human torso, regular workouts/tea tastings will develop your connoisseur muscles. (This also works for the following two items, also.)
Arms & Legs = Actions
Arms and hands are used to do things: lift, carry, pour, wash, etc. Legs transport you: from the sink where you fill the kettle with fresh water to the stove to heat the water; from the stove to the teapot; from the kitchen with the tray with the full teapot and the treats to the dining room table to serve your tea time guests.
When it comes to tea tastings, the arms and legs are the actions: heating water, steeping, lifting cups to lips, and so on. Without these actions, there is no tasting — duh! Water doesn’t put itself into the kettle. Tea leaves don’t put themselves into the teapot, gaiwan, kyusu, etc. The steeped liquid does not pour itself. Sorry if this seems self-evident, but amazingly enough there are folks out there who need to hear it said.
The Whole Picture
Put all of the above together, and you will have a successful and complete tea tasting. And whatever you do, don’t let some sassy teapot take over and start running the show (yes, it happens!).
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Memorial Day hasn’t been around too long — only about since the late 1800s which is pretty short relative to the history of tea drinking — but it has quickly become a time for picnics and celebrating. Those celebrations honor bravery and people who fought. Making tea a part of that celebration can be a brave thing to do.
U.S. flags flying high on Memorial Day!
Some folks out there are convinced that tea is not a very “manly” beverage. I say, “Hey, drink what you like!” Lots of men like tea. They’re just concerned about the public image tea has in some circles. Including tea in your Memorial Day picnic, tailgate party, or massive cookout featuring a team of grill champions will be very manly and very celebratory.
Some teas to have with manly Memorial Day celebration foods:
- Pure beef burgers and plump hotdogs (grilled just the way you like ’em and served up on buttered, grilled buns) — go for Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Kenyan, or Nilgiri.
- Slabs of ribs (barbecued to perfection using either a rich tomato sauce or a tangy vinegar-based sauce) — select from Ceylon, Gunpowder, and Yunnan.
- Vegan Kabobs (chunks of green bell pepper, sweet onions, cherry tomatoes, fresh pineapple, and mushroom caps) — If you go more spicy on the kabobs, try Assam or Kenyan, maybe even Yunnan.
- Heavy duty potato salad (unskinned red potatoes, diced sweet gherkins, mayonnaise, mustard, dill, and even some diced sweet onions if you are so inclined) — serve up some Ceylon black tea, a nice Darjeeling, a Nilgiri tea, or even a nice Oolong.
- Sweet corn on the cob (wrap each ear in aluminum foil and toss on the grill for awhile) — green teas are good here, such as Chun Mee, Hojicha, or Sencha.
- Baked beans (you can add in a few hunks of pork for added flavor or keep it vegan) — try Yunnan, Kenyan, or Assam.
- Coleslaw (freshly chopped cabbage, bits of chopped carrots, and coleslaw dressing) — Ceylon, Chun Mee, Sencha, or Nilgiri will go great here.
You may have noticed that different teas go with the above foods. So, what do you do? Serve them all? Or select one or two that go with most of what you are dishing up? There are several that go with most of these foods, so you might start with one of them: Ceylon (black and green), Assam, Kenyan, and Nilgiri. Hot or iced, these teas will deliver manly flavor for your Memorial Day celebration. And us women will enjoy them, too!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Like this:
Foodie Michelle Judd of Tasteasyougo.com, a food blog I have been practically glued to for awhile, has some of the most mouth-watering recipes on her site. While her goal isn’t necessarily to come up with recipes for tea time, most of them do seem perfect tea go-withs. Here is the 2nd of the baker’s dozen (13) of her recipes that I selected off of her site since they seem to really fit this bill. This is a more unusual recipe to serve with tea but seems to fit this time of year.
After reading my take on these, you might want to try out her recipe with a pot of the tea named and assess the pairing for yourself.
The recipe: Simple Summer Couscous Salad
Simple Summer Couscous Salad
Tomatoes and cucumbers and scallions — oh my! Two years ago, Michelle presented this most yummerlicious looking salad on her site. She had presented it as perfect for your Memorial Day Weekend luncheon. It’s a real “beat the heat” dish. The recipe calls for fat-free chicken stock, but you can sub a nice vegan style broth. I made it with the chicken stock, and hubby said I achieved very satisfactory results (the recipe is simple enough for even me to handle).
Fresh ingredients will assure a fresh-tasting and satisfying treat that deserves a wonderful tea with a flavor and aroma to contrast with it.
The tea: Golden Heaven Yunnan
Golden Heaven Yunnan
My tea choice may not be yours, but having actually made the salad and had it with this tea, I can attest that the combo is worth trying. Golden Yunnan is climbing my personal scale of faves, but still remains some distance behind Keemuns, Assams, Ceylons, and Darjeelings. It is a tea that I can enjoy both straight and in a more British-style serving manner with milk and sweetener. In fact, it is even a tea that can take the chill, delivering a refreshing peppery punch during the heat of the Summer.
Hope this works for you. Feel free to comment here with your experience, and watch for the next pairing to be posted in June.
See also:
Pairing Tea and Food — Pomegranate Vanilla Scones and Sencha Tea
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Acquiring some Yixing teapots started me looking into the whole Gongfu Tea Time thing, except that there was a part that hubby and I overlooked: the chahai! Unbeknownst to us, though, we had come up with our own version without even realizing it.
First, we need to back up a bit. What’s a chahai? Well, if you’re on Facebook and friends with tea folks, you’ve probably seen these cute little glass pitchers full of the steeped liquid sitting beside a little Yixing teapot or sometimes with the teapot tipped inside it so the spout is pointing down, allowing the tea to drain into the little pitcher. The little glass pitcher is the chahai, which means fairly literally “sea of tea.” Not all of them are glass. Some are ceramic, porcelain, etc.
A tea set with a white gaiwan, a glass chahai, and 2 glass sipping cups on a bamboo tea tray
People who do a lot of gongfu style tea steeping, where they steep a small amount of liquid using a sizable amount of tea leaves and repeat it several times, are discovering this little marvel. The main reason is to assure that when the tea liquid is served up, it is even. That is, no one gets the weaker top liquid while others get the stronger bottom liquid where the substances that have infused out of the tea leaves have settled. I’ve also found from personal experience that pouring from those cute little Yixing teapots is tricky, and I usually end up with a bit of spillage.
That’s why hubby and I naturally gravitated to using our own version of a chahai, since we don’t have an official one (yet). When the tea is steeped, we pour it into a glass measuring cup, assuring spillage-free pouring and an even serving out of the tea liquid, neither of us getting tea that is too weak nor too strong. We also want to be sure that none of the liquid stays in the pot when the steeping time is done so that it doesn’t continue to steep and so that the teapot is ready for the next infusion. Since each of the teapots is a different size, we usually have more in them than will fit into our two little sipping cups. No worries, since it stays safe in the chahai substitute (the measuring cup) until needed.
One thing we do when steeping tea in a regular ceramic teapot is to straing it into a second teapot. That’s sort of how the use of chahais began, with folks pouring the tea liquid into an empty teapot. Having a glass chahai just gives you a chance to enjoy the visual of the tea liquid — often quite an enjoyable sight!
Someday, we’ll add a chahai to our “Tea Gang,” but for now that measuring cup will do just fine.
See also:
Diving Into the World of Yixing Teapots Pt 1
Diving Into the World of Yixing Teapots Pt 2
Diving Into the World of Yixing Teapots Pt 3
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Some of you are probably thinking right now: “Gee, she’s making a really big assumption here. That it’s possible to get a good cuppa tea at a coffee shop.” No assumptions being made here, since I have experienced this seemingly impossible feat.
Cups like this also make tea drinkers shrink away from coffee shops
To some, the very thought of getting tea in a coffee shop is practically blasphemous. The smell of the coffee beans and the fresh ground coffee, plus the brewed coffee are strong enough usually to overwhelm the more delicate aromas and flavors of the tea. How do you enjoy a delicate tea in such an atmosphere? If you are the type that really pays attention to the sensory nuances of your tea, this will be a big problem. So, the first step is to face the fact that you will most likely be going for a tea with a more prominent aroma and flavor.
Another fact tea drinkers have to deal with in coffee shops is the usage of tea concentrates in preparing chai lattés and other specialty tea drinks. One particular coffee shop chain even bought the company that makes the concentrates they routinely serve. Just don’t expect the same taste experience you’ll get when you make your own stovetop chai.
Some coffee shops carry brand name tea bags such as Harney & Sons, which is a “silk” (actually, nylon or some other material) pyramid bag filled with tea leaf pieces instead of dust and fannings. Sadly, the water is usually not freshly boiled and is generally heated to the same temperature (really, really hot in some places and downright tepid in others), no matter what type of tea you’re having.
The answer to getting a really good cuppa in a coffee shop seems to be to avoid the specialty tea drinks and the more delicate tasting and smelling teas, going instead for their regular teas that are stronger in character. And since there is quite a variety between coffee shops, you will also be better off if you select one that has the type of tea you want and that you know heats the water sufficiently.
In short, do a bit of homework or even private investigation. Then, you won’t go far wrong!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Like this:
The other day I was drinking tea (as always) and thinking of chocolate (also as always). Then, I had some chocolate and started thinking about tea! It seems to be a fairly common occurrence, as a bit of online searching revealed.
See the article about my great tea and sea salt chocolate experiment for an explanation of the above.
Awhile back, Lainie Petersen, well known to readers of this blog, had a chocothon all by herself. She tried three versions of chocolate (dark, white, and milk) with a hojicha green tea. The results were quite revealing. She also recently stated that chocolate with jasmine tea is a favorite combo. Being a great sipper of tea, she is certainly one who knows!
Another blogger tried several teas paired with several chocolates and had more revelations. These pairings all worked well:
- white tea with milk chocolate
- green tea with milk chocolate
- scented floral tea with ginger flavored dark chocolate
- oolong tea with green and black dark chocolate
- oolong tea with bittersweet dark chocolate
- black huckleberry tea with white chocolate
- black huckleberry tea with milk chocolate
A couple of years ago Tea Consultant Lisa Boalt Richardson had mouths watering at the America’s Mart International Gift Show when she and tea company owner Beth Johnston showed how tea and chocolate paired together. There is such an interest in the subject that she conducts Tea and Chocolate Pairing Seminars and gives presentations on the subject at the World Tea Expo.
Yours truly did my own mini tea and chocolate pairing taste test to find what tea went best with salt chocolate. (See photo above.)
Lots of information is out there in cyberspace about what tea goes with what chocolate. You could spend hours going through it all, or you can read my handy compilation of the pairings that I spent hours looking up (does not include tea-infused chocolates):
Milk Chocolate
- Black teas that can take milk, such as Assam, English Breakfast Blend, Earl Grey, Yunnan
- Oolongs
- Darjeelings (the flush and garden were not specified)
- Green teas, such as Gen Mai Cha, Dragonwell, Sencha, Jasmine Green, Matcha
- Teas with a roasted or “toasty” quality, such as Houjicha Green Tea or Wu Yi Oolong
- Masala chai (strong black tea blended with mixed spices) traditionally simmered directly in milk
- White Peony (Pai Mu Tan, Bai Mu Dan)
- Some flavored teas such as Black Huckleberry (full leaf blended with raspberry, cornflower and rose hip, citrus note, full body, sweet under tone, coppery liquid)
- Herbal infusions
- Organic spicy ginger yerba maté
Dark Chocolate
- Black teas that can take milk: Assam, Keemun, Earl Grey
- Lapsang Souchong and similar smoked teas
- Darjeelings (the flush and garden were not specified)
- Bai Hao Oolong rich in Honey notes
- Really floral oolongs such as Ti Kuan Yin Oolong
- Both plain and scented green teas: Gyokuro, Matcha, Hojicha, Jasmine Green Tea, Jasmine-scented Pouchong
- Pu-erh (again, the specific type was not named)
- White teas including White Peony (Pai Mu Tan, Bai Mu Dan)
- Some flavored teas such as Vanilla Cream Tea and Black Huckleberry (full leaf blended with raspberry, cornflower and rose hip, citrus note, full body, sweet under tone, coppery liquid)
White Chocolate
- Black teas that can take milk, such as Assam and Yunnan
- Spicy teas, such as Masala Chai Black Tea
- Darjeelings (the flush and garden were not specified)
- Oolong such as Dung Ti
- Green teas: Sencha, Matcha, Gen Mai Cha, Dragonwell, Hojicha
- White teas, such as White Peony (Pai Mu Tan, Bai Mu Dan) and Silver Needle
- Black Huckleberry Tea (full leaf blended with raspberry, cornflower and rose hip, citrus note, full body, sweet under tone, coppery liquid.)
- Herbal infusions
Flavored/Filled Chocolates
- Green teas such as Sencha, Gyokuro, Jasmine Green, Hojicha
- Oolongs
- Earl Grey
- Lapsang Souchong
- Citrus flavored tea paired with citrus flavored chocolate
- Fruit flavored tea paired with fruit flavored chocolate
- Floral scented tea paired with floral flavored chocolate
- Unflavored tea, naturally reveals flavor notes to similar filling in chocolate
- Flavored teas such as masala chai, almond cookies green tea, and strawberry black tea
Simple, eh? Now, uncross your eyes and head out to buy some chocolate, then rush home and steep some tea to enjoy with it. At least, that’s what I’m gonna do!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Like this:
With tea, more can be less or it can be more, depending on how you approach it. More tea leaves can give you a truer and more robust flavor in your cup. Fewer tea leaves will give you a lighter flavor, especially if you are having pu-erh, a nice white like Silver Needle, or a Sencha. Put a few in a cup or gaiwan, add hot water, and steep.
Lately, hubby and I changed our method for steeping black teas. For you to understand the situation, I need to give a bit of background info. We had been steeping up a 6-cupper potful whenever we had a hearty black tea, which is about 80% of the time. Our cups hold 1.5 cups (12 ounces) of liquid each, which includes about an ounce of milk. So, out of the 48 ounces in the pot, we get four cups (11 ounces of tea + one ounce of milk), leaving 4 ounces in the pot. Rather annoying, actually, having that half cup left all the time.
Steeping it up!
Time to up the ante. We need a pot of tea that can go the distance, giving us each at least a third full cup of malty Assam or smoky Keemun or even a nice raisiny black Ceylon. How can we use a little more tea leaves to get a lot more (or at least enough more) tea?
Step 1 — Steep in a larger container
Hubby and I purchased a glass measuring cup that holds 8 cups (64 ounces). Sure, we could have purchased an 8-cup teapot, but there was a logical reason for our choice: the glass measuring cup could hold in the heat very efficiently and let us see the steeping process, meaning that we wouldn’t be guessing so much on when the tea was done (even with using a timer, we sometimes oversteeped). We didn’t like the rubbery bright orange lid that came with the large measuring cup, but a lid from a 2-quart stainless steel saucepan fit perfectly.
Step 2 — Make a slight increase in the amount of tea leaves used
Sure, I know that using a generous amount of tea leaves and steeping a shorter time can result in a strong yet non-astringent cuppa. When we steeped in the 6-cupper teapot, we would use 6 teaspoons of tea leaves (one for each cup of water). For the 8-cup measuring cup, we upped the amount of tea leaves to 7 teaspoons, not 8 teaspoons as you would expect. The efficiency of the glass in holding the heat means that we got more infusion from the leaves. The tea turned out as tasty as ever without astringency or bitterness, even from our CTC Assams. We strained the tea into the 6-cup teapot, with the extra going into our drinking cups.
Pretty simple, huh?
So far, the system is working great, giving us each three 12-ounce cups of tea. It means we have enough to satisfy without steeping another whole big potful and then having too much. (Yeah, I know, how can anyone have too much tea?)
Got your own solution to your tea time dilemma? Post it as a comment here.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Waiting for the water in a tea kettle to boil tends to lead one’s mind down all sorts of pathways. Add to that the coming of Summer, the Memorial Day Weekend, and cookout fever. This led me to start thinking about how odd some sizes are, primarily in packaging.
There always seems to be a little left in the pouch!
A classic example is the hotdogs and buns dilemma. Hotdogs come in packages of eight (most brands that I know of, that is) while buns come in packages of 10. What do you do with the extra two buns? You can open another package of hotdogs, but then you’ll need to put away the extra six. So you open another package of buns, and then you’d have four buns left… urgh! If you’re the one bringing hotdogs and buns for the company or church picnic, you need to do some complicated math formula to figure out how to get the hotdogs and buns to come out pretty close to even (and then you show up and see that someone brought brats and no buns, so the extra buns would have been needed after all).
Another odd size is bath towels versus towel bars. Bath towels are one width and the bath towel bars are at least 3-4 inches narrower. So, if you drape the towel over the bar so that the towel is not folded over, the sides get crumpled. Certainly not earth shattering, but certainly ponderable while that kettle is getting close to its boil.
When it comes to tea, there are all kinds of “misfits” where the size of one thing is not in line with the size of another. My tea kettle holds six cups of water, so my 4-cupper teapot is usually set aside in favor of my 6-cupper. Lainie Petersen pointed out in one of her articles on this blog that most tea-for-one sets have a pot that holds more than the cup holds, meaning that you end up with an ounce or two of tea in the pot, and it ends up getting cold while you sip the tea in your cup.
I’ve even written about blending those few spoonfuls of dry tea leaves left in the various tea pouches. Somehow, there always seems to be a bit of Nilgiri and some Assam and a bit of Kenyan and so on — not enough separately for a full pot but certainly enough if combined.
Well, the kettle is boiling and my Nilgiri-Assam-Kenyan blend is ready for steeping. May you have a great tea day and no odd sizes!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
In response to my article “Teas with Something Extra,” a friend on either Twitter or Facebook (I can’t remember which) commented, “Hey, if you’re gonna add ‘stuff’ to your tea, why not throw in the kitchen sink?” So very true. Once you’ve loaded down a tea with so many pieces of fruit, or flower petals, or spices, your chances of tasting the tea are virtually nil. The Tea Association of Canada even recommended adding carbonated lemon-lime drink to your iced tea for some extra kick. While these things don’t suit my taste, I know there are some folks for whom these additions to their tea are a definite plus.
Some flavored teas have so much “stuff” in them!
Some people just plain don’t like the taste of tea yet drink it, trying to get the health benefits it is said to have and/or avoiding resorting to drinking things like colas (one tea vendor actually has a cola-flavored tea). They relish teas that are mainly fruit-flavored (lemon, strawberry, and blueberry are quite popular) or floral-flavored (jasmine and rose petals/buds being the most common). They also go for spiced teas (usually made with cinnamon, coriander, ginger, cardamom, and black pepper), teas with various herbs added (chamomile, hibiscus, and mint are rather popular), and teas flavored with oils (Earl Grey being the most common and containing oil of bergamot, vanilla is another one that is trendy).
Some of these flavored teas tend to go with the seasons. Pumpkin Spice Black Tea tends to be most popular in Autumn here in the U.S. — probably due to our Thanksgiving Holiday in late November but also since pumpkins are harvested in September and October. In Summer, teas flavored with lemon and mint are quite popular for their cooling and refreshing qualities. Fruits like raspberry and blueberry also sell well, especially in those bottled teas that are usually served chilled.
There are tea vendors, large and small, that work hard to come up with new combinations and convince you of how great they taste. They give their mixtures names that are memorable, descriptive, and sometimes downright silly (which can help make them memorable). So far as I know, though, know has a tea concoction named “Everything but the Kitchen Sink.” My guess is there’ll be one soon.
As for those of us who like our tea tasting like tea, there are a growing number of tea vendors devoted to just that. They source the finest teas from tea gardens near and wide because they know that some of us are not fond of all that “stuff” getting between us and our tea.
Isn’t variety wonderful?
See also:
Men’s Names and Tea
Tea Name Circus
A Bouquet in Your Teapot, Pt. I — Flowers in Your Tea
A Bouquet in Your Teapot, Pt. II — Herbals Made from Flowers
A Bouquet in Your Teapot, Pt. III — Teas with Floral Aroma and Flavor
All Flavored Teas Are Not Created Equal
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