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Milk and tea seem to be a topic that is popping up on this blog quite a bit lately. From exploring the correct way to add milk to A Tea Drinker’s Experiment with Milk to my own toe-dipping into the whole issue of whether milk should be put in the cup first or not, the issue seems to be getting a thorough treatment. Or is it? Most seem to be missing an important question: Is milk added in to your tea in essence a flavoring of that tea?
Is the milk here a flavoring or not? You decide.
Considering my latest exposition on the whole topic of losing my taste for flavored teas, I, too, missed this important point. Officially, a flavored tea is one where “stuff” is added to the dry tea, thus steeping up with the tea leaves and creating a liquid that combines the flavors of each ingredient. This is sort of like stew, soup, casserole, and so on. The flavors cook together.
Adding milk into tea, whether you put it in the cup first and then pour in the tea or vice versa, is a different matter. The tea flavor does not steep together with the milk. In fact, as Elise Nuding showed in her recent article, if you add milk while the tea is steeping, you get a bit of a mess. Making a stovetop version of masala chai is another matter, but still means adding the milk after the tea has had a chance to steep a bit.
Here is a version hubby and I make on a fairly regular basis:
Ingredients
- 2 tsps Assam
- 1/8 tsp tea masala mix (contains black pepper, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg), adjust the amount as needed
- 2 cups of cold water
- 2/3 cups of whole milk (you could use reduced fat milk or soy “milk”, but skim/fat free milk is not recommended)
Preparation
- Put the tea, masala, and water in a saucepan.
- Heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes. (This imparts tea flavor into the water along with the spices.)
- Add milk and bring back to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for another 3 minutes. (This combines the milk flavors with the tea/spice flavor.)
- Strain into mugs and enjoy. (Hubby recommends you let it sit about 1 minute to let all the flavors blend and the tea to cool slightly.)
According to the above recipe, I would call milk definitely a flavoring. In that case, milk is a very acceptable tea flavoring. On the other hand, once the tea is fully steeped and added into the cup, technically whatever you add to it could not be classified officially as a flavoring, even though it alters the tea’s flavor.
These are just my own musings here and by no means anything definitive. If you have contrary thoughts, by all means share them here.
See more of A.C. Cargill’s articles 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.
I’ve written about that elusive creature known as the perfect cup of tea on a number of occasions now. My most recent thoughts are here. I’m still not convinced that such an item exists. But I guess all we can do is to try our best to get as close as we can to that lofty goal.
British Tea Favourites
I’m not sure that the British Standards Institution was setting out to promote perfection when they put together various standards for preparing tea, but I guess that’s implied just by the fact that they’ve done so. The group drafted general standards for preparing a cup of tea as well as more specific standards for black and green tea. All of which popped up in the news recently, specifically in the British press, when it was revealed that the BSI is reviewing the standard for tea, which has been in place since 1980.
For those who might be wondering, like I was, just exactly what this group is all about, let’s consider their Wikipedia entry. It states that the British Standards Institution, also known as the BSI Group, is “a multinational business services provider whose principal activity is the production of standards and the supply of standards-related services.” Which cleared things up for me.
The group’s standard for tea is BS 6008:1980 and is described as a Method for Preparation of a Liquor of Tea For Use in Sensory Tests. You can purchase a copy here, but at about $128 it’s not for everyone and presumably is geared more toward industry types with deep pockets. This standard, if I have my story straight, was apparently adopted by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 3103-1980, which is also a bit pricey for us mere mortals.
You can get a rough idea of what it’s all about without having to shell out so much as a penny, by checking out the Wikipedia entry. A key point made here is that “this standard is not meant to define the proper method for brewing tea, but rather how to document tea brewing procedure so sensory comparisons can be made.”
In the end, the “systematic periodic review” of the tea standard may not amount to much and is not likely to have much bearing on us average Joes, no matter what. But I guess it’s nice to know that someone out there is keeping tabs on the “rules” for tea preparation.
See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles 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.
Chefs Choice Cordless Electric 680 Glass Kettle
The basics of a samovar are simple, so you will be asking yourself why you would need one. And indeed you do not need one. You can enjoy a samovar-style tea time without having a samovar.
A samovar, developed in the 17th century, is actually two items: a large urn that holds hot water and a smaller teapot filled with a strong tea brew that sits on top of it through the day. Some even have two teapots (one for tea type A, the other for tea type B). Modern samovars have electric water heating compartments. The stronger the tea in the teapot, the more hospitable the host is perceived to be. The family and any guests gather around the samovar, pour tea from the teapot into their glasses set in holders (podstakanniks), add hot water from the bottom portion of the samovar, and then sweeten it. Or sometimes they hold a sugar cube between their teeth and sip the strong tea through it.
So, how do you have that same type of tea experience without a samovar? First, you need a way to have hot water readily at hand. There are some options here: an electric kettle, a microwave, or (my hubby had one of these when we met) an automatic coffeemaker that was used strictly for keeping water hot. Next, you need a small teapot (2 to 4 cups capacity) for your strong tea. The trick is keeping that tea reasonably warm, but not necessarily hot. A cozy is one option. A single-burner hotplate set on “Warm” is another. You can, of course, simply let the tea go cool in the teapot and heat it with hot water. I give no guarantees that this will result in any tea that you would actually want to drink.
This brings us to the key item: the tea. Give careful consideration to the need for the tea to stand up to a heavy steeping, to sitting for awhile being kept warm, to then being diluted. Not just any tea will do here. In Russia, black tea is commonly used, with green tea gaining popularity, thinking it is more healthy, more “Oriental.” They also love to mix black teas and herbal tisanes.
Keemun is a good choice here, as are Russian Caravan, Lapsang Souchong, and other strong Chinese black teas. On the green side, gunpowder is a good option, one that I know personally can take the treatment it will receive here without turning into something akin to witches’ brew.
There you go — a way to have that samovar-style tea without the samovar. Enjoy!
See more of A.C. Cargill’s articles 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.
While many of you tea drinkers out there will know exactly what these two terms mean, I feel that there is often some confusion about the difference between the two. This is partly because tea is often both loose-leaf and full-leaf. But despite not all loose-leaf tea being whole-leaf tea, and vice versa, I have often heard the two terms used interchangeably. Needless to say, this can cause some confusion, especially for those newly introduced to tea.
Full-leaf oolong steeped loose (no infuser) (Photo by A.C. Cargill – used with permission)
Loose-leaf tea is tea that is not contained in a teabag, sachet, or other enclosing device. That is, the leaves are loose, and, as such, they are usually sold by weight. When brewing loose-leaf tea you need to be able to separate the leaves from the steeped tea that you drink, both so you don’t slurp down wet leaves and so that you can remove the leaves at the appropriate time to avoid over-steeping. A mesh infuser will do the job, as will a teapot with a series of holes at the base of its spout to prevent the leaves sliding into your cup as you pour your tea.
Whole-leaf tea is exactly what it sounds like: tea leaves that have been processed whole. That is, not broken up. When you steep whole-leaf tea, you end up with entire leaves in your infuser after they have unfurled and expanded in the water. They can be really quite beautiful! Pearl teas, such as this one, are some good examples of whole-leaf teas, but there are also many whole-leaf teas that are not pearls.
As with the example just given, much loose-leaf tea is also whole leaf tea. However, there are many teas whose processing methods require that the leaves be broken up to release flavours, and so although these may be sold loose they are not whole-leaf teas. Formosa Oolong is one example of such a tea (a review of it can be read here).
Similarly, not all full-leaf tea is sold loose. There are many tea companies that promote the consumption of high quality tea by making it more accessible through using teabags and sachets. With these teas, the integrity of the tea is maintained by using whole tea leaves, but they are not loose. Of course, this is not to say that you couldn’t take matters into your own hands and cut the bags open to make it into loose tea for a better steep…
So, although these two categories of tea often overlap, this is not always the case, and knowing the difference between the two is important to getting the teas that you want to be drinking in the form that you want to be drinking them.
See more of Elise Nuding’s articles 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.
Hubby has been known to conduct on occasion some … uh, well, for lack of a better term I’ll call them “experiments” with tea. Tea experiment #29 was a doozy, so I had to share it here.
A secret blend. (Photo source: A.C. Cargill, all rights reserved)
It all started so innocently. The teapot was empty. (Side note: empty teapots are the source of the world’s ills, so keep yours filled.) Hubby being the kind of guy he is, that is, someone who doesn’t hesitate to dive in and solve a crisis such as this, stepped up to the plate and got ready to steep tea. He filled the tea kettle with water and set it on the stove (and yes he remembered to turn on the burner!). Then came the inevitable question, one that can cause some moments of contemplation on my part: “What tea should I steep?”
Dead silence.
Well, silent except for the head-scratching. Or was that the gears in my brain creaking? Whichever it was created enough of a pause for hubby to fill the void with his own suggestion, which was: “Hey, I know, I’ll try that blend I’ve been thinking about.”
Sounds of brakes screeching to a halt.
“Uh…okay…” What else could I reply? He had that excited kid look. I was banned from the kitchen (a pretty hard thing to do, since I use the family room as my writing space and it opens up to the kitchen — I just did my best to focus on writing and ignore the various sounds he was making). Then came the call, “Tea’s ready!” I was over there in an instant, eager to see what he’d cooked up. He had cleverly hid away any sign of what he’d done.
“Here you go,” he said, handing me a steaming cupful. I took a sip while he watched with eager anticipation. Would his efforts evoke a “Yum!” or a “Yuck!”? Mmmmm…rich, full flavor smoothed with milk and just a touch of sweetener.
“Assam!” I cried triumphantly, confident in what my tastebuds were telling me. “Yes,” he said, “and…” Huh? Okay, what else had he sneaked in that potful? I took another sip. Then I asked for a sipper cup of the tea straight (no milk or sweetener). Very revealing. “PG Tips!” I exclaimed. “Yes, and…” he said again. “Uh… hm…” sip, swish. “Typhoo! And Barry’s!” Hubby beamed. “Correct. And correct!”
Wow, hubby combined these brandname teas with our regular CTC Assam. He said he ground down the CTC Assam to the consistency of the tea dust in those brandname teas. They contain some Assam but also other teas, including tea from Kenya and other African growers, who generally use the leaves of the Camellia Sinensis assamica. So, I guess this experiment wasn’t too crazy, tea-wise, but flavor-wise, it was a real doozy. Yum!
See more of A.C. Cargill’s articles 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.
Black Tea (stock image)
Much has been said about the fast pace of modern life. So much, as a matter of fact, that I won’t belabor the point by saying much more. I’m not one to sit around and wail and gnash my teeth about this sort of thing because we can all choose the pace at which we live our lives, at least to some extent.
But I couldn’t help sitting up and taking notice recently when I ran across the following headline – Capresso Brews a Cup of Coffee or Tea in 60 Seconds. Well, I have to say that this seemed to be a bit much. I’m not one of those tea drinkers who gets all overcome with the meditative nature of the tea drinking experience. But on the other hand I wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with that sort of approach.
I don’t think it would hurt any of us to slow down a bit and smell a few roses and whatnot, but my objection to this kind of speed tea is more along practical lines. I don’t know anything about preparing coffee and whether or not the process can be completed within a minute and still come up with something worth drinking. When it comes to tea I’d venture to say that the answer is no.
Of course, there is at least one notable exception I can think of and that is those who brew tea in the gaiwan style, using relatively large amounts of tea with smallish amounts of water and very short steeps. But to be slightly ungrammatical about the whole thing, this isn’t that.
This is tea prepared in the “Western” style, unless I’m missing something, and there are plenty of variables here to be sure. But for the most part 60 seconds isn’t going to cut it, especially for that old favorite of tea drinkers here in the West – black tea. I tend to steep my black tea near the lower end of the range, but even I always give it at least two minutes. Do the math.
My other concern with such a gadget is that tea seems an afterthought and it doesn’t seem that any allowance is made for the wide range of steeping times and water temperatures that are critical to prepare different types of tea effectively. Perhaps if you were going to spring for a product from this company your money would be better spent with something like this. You probably won’t get 60 second tea, but you can wait a few more minutes to make sure it’s done right.
See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles 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.
No weapons here. (ETS image)
I can’t really presume to speak for the good people who bring you this blog, but in this instance I’m going to make an assumption. I’m going to assume that they, like yours truly, do not condone the use of their fine teas as a weapon. But if the truth be told, from time to time you do run across reports of tea used in such a manner.
Sometimes, I’m sad to say, said stories recount how tea was used as an offensive weapon. On the other hand and perhaps more in the category of good news, are those instances in which a cup of hot tea is used to repel some sort of evildoer. One of the most recent such incidents that made it into the press took place in the parking lot of a convenience store in Pennsylvania. In this case the potential victim of a robbery held off the bad guy with a well-aimed cup of hot tea to the face.
Over the course of the years, in the not quite so real world, we find that tea has been used a weapon in the annals of mystery fiction. Although to say that tea itself is the weapon might not be completely accurate, given that in many of these stories it’s actually the delivery vehicle for a variety of poisons. Tea used in this manner turns up in a number of books by the famed mystery writer Agatha Christie and surely in works by numerous other authors that I’m not aware of.
The dark side of this sort of thing is that tea is occasionally used as such a delivery vehicle for poisons in the not so fictional world. One of the more notable instances of this was the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian spy who, in 2006, was apparently done in by a radioactive substance introduced into his tea. For a more mundane but just as unsettling example of this sort of thing, refer to this article about a recent case of poisoning by tea that had a better outcome.
Finally, it’s not really an example of tea used as a weapon, but here’s an article about how the damages allegedly caused by a cup of hot tea led to a lawsuit of nearly a million dollars brought against Southwest Airlines.
[Editor's note: No we do not condone the use of tea as a weapon. Life is tricky enough.]
See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles 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.
Awhile back I advocated avoiding the dreaded tea dregs. Those nasty bitter final drops in the teapot. Time and more tea adventures with some truly superior tea has me rethinking that position. Why waste a precious drop?
This is dregs from an instant masala chai. (Photo source: A.C. Cargill, all rights reserved)
Dregs can occur in any tea, from those powdered instants to the full leaf steepings. Some consider this part of the tea to be too bitter or astringent or worse yet tasteless. And the feel of that gritty powder residue in your mouth can be less than appealing. That being said, it stands to reason that you should choose carefully which teas to drink to the dregs.
Here are a few where you wouldn’t want to waste a drop:
- Kamairicha — A Japanese green tea (pan-fired as opposed to their usual steaming treatment) that is rarely seen in the West. Thus the flavor is free of the characteristic bitter taste of most Japanese tea and has a sweetness with a mildly roasted character. It is made only in the district of Kyushu and is a by-product of Sencha or Gyokuro.
- 2011 Spring Imperial Yunnan Silver Needle White Tea — A top grade and slightly oxidized tea comprised of needle-shaped and plump tea buds that appear silvery due to the conspicuous natural, fine tea hair. It’s made from big white pu-erh tea trees, so the sweetness in this tea liquid lasts longer than and has a totally different aroma from Fuding silver needle. The steeped liquid is a lightly shiny yellow, with a fresh, sweet, mellow, and light honey taste.
- Imperial Meng Ding Huang Ya — A yellow bud tea where the leaves have a flat straight form; it is mainly produced in Mengshan, Sichuan Province, China. The liquid is a yellow green with a pure aroma and a mellow, thick, sweet taste with a unique fragrance that comes from the complex processing steps.
- 3 Dragon Pearls — Grown at the higher elevations of northern Fujian Province in China. The fine young leaf-and-bud sets are picked in April and rolled by hand into tiny pearl shapes. This unscented version has a rich perfume fragrance and is wonderful, nutty, and sweet with a luscious round character. Steep a few pearls in a glass to watch them unfurl. Then drink every drop!
Too exotic? Never fear — there are teas that are more mainstream and affordable. Here are a few to get you started, ones so tasty you will be straining to get every molecule:
- Nine Bend Black Dragon Tea — I love this tea! A classic China Black tea, full-bodied with deep burgundy depth and delightful oaky notes. Excellent as an after dinner tea or for anytime you want a tea you can really get into! (my review)
- Genmaicha Japanese Green Tea — A tea that inspires many to love it, and others to hate it, but nevertheless one that deserves a spot here. A good grade Japan sencha green tea is blended with the toasted rice. You get the fresh vegetative character of the green tea tempered with the toasty character of the rice and a natural sweetness at the end that you won’t want to miss.
- Spring Pouchong — One of the world’s most exceptional teas, with fragrances of flowers and melon, and a rich, yet mild cup. (Read more here: The Mystery of Pouchong)
You probably have other options. We’d love to hear about them!
See also: Throw Those Tea Dregs Away
See more of A.C. Cargill’s articles 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.
(Photo by A.C. Cargill, used with permission)
There is a long-running, healthy debate about milk and tea (when do you add milk? Should you or shouldn’t you? How much?) and several articles on this blog have contributed their opinions on these questions. As one recent article quite rightly concludes, the bottom line is that it is really about personal preference. However, I would like to argue that while there may not be a right time to add the milk to your tea, there is definitely a wrong one. And that is before it is fully steeped.
I am talking about black teas here. There may be some tea drinkers out there who enjoy their teas like this. But whilst it is completely up to those people to do as they please with their own tea, for the rest of us, adding the milk while the tea is still steeping can completely ruin the cup.
If you are steeping your tea in a teapot, this is probably not going to be a concern. The tea will be steeped and then served into individual cups where each person can add whatever they desire: milk, honey, sugar, etc. This is one of the most practical applications of the teapot: it allows people to enjoy tea together despite their different preferences for how to take it.
However, if you are brewing your tea in a cup or mug, the timing of the milk may start to become an issue. For me, it seems common sense to allow the tea to steep, remove the infuser (or sachet, teabag, or anything else you are using to steep it) and then add milk. But this basic element of tea etiquette seems to be sorely lacking in some parts of the general populace. On more than one occasion I have had a cup of tea ruined because the person serving it added the milk mere seconds after adding the hot water to the tea. Yes, the water is still hot, and yes the tea will continue to steep. But it is just not the same; the tea is not allowed to fully steep and release its flavours, and the cup ends up tasting a bit watery, unbalanced, and just generally sub-par.
This is mostly an issue in more generic cafes and eating establishments; I have never had this experience in a specialty tearoom. As a result of bad experiences, I quickly learned to always request the milk on the side when asked if I wanted milk. Most servers take this in their stride admirably, but more times than I would like they give me a slightly funny look. Admittedly, this happens less often now—perhaps a sign that tea is on the upswing. Nevertheless, the problem still lingers; the other day I did not quite catch it quickly enough, and ended up with milk plunked into my mug before the tea had fully steeped.
Another cup of tea ruined, and the debate about milk and tea continues.
See more of Elise Nuding’s articles 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.
As if we didn’t have enough to be concerned about. Tea bags? Really?
There are those who would say that the easiest way to sidestep any potential dangers with tea bags is not to use them at all. Which might be a valid point and one that I can agree with, to some extent, given the tea bag’s reputation for turning out somewhat lackluster tea. But not so fast.
As it turns out the news that inspired this article has to do with the “good” tea bags, if there can be said to be such a thing. It came from that august publication known as The Atlantic and was titled Are Tea Bags Turning Us Into Plastic?
If you follow the latest developments in tea bag technology, then you’ll probably know that in recent times the increased interest in “good” tea has led to some improvements in tea bags, specifically those of a type that are designed to be more spacious, which allows tea leaves more room to breathe during the steeping process and should improve the flavor of the tea.
The problem with this – if there is a problem – has to do with the plastic many of these bags are made of. The writer of the aforementioned article notes that this may contribute negatively to the problem of landfill waste and then turns to concerns about health.
As the author notes, these bags, which “are most commonly made from food grade nylon or polyethylene terephthalate (PET)” have a high melting point and would be considered relatively safe with regard to their potential for leaching harmful compounds into tea. He/she (Taylor?) goes on and takes a relatively in-depth look at the pro and cons of plastic tea bags but ultimately does not come to any real conclusion.
Which leads me to conclude, as I always have, that my poison of choice will be tea made from loose leaves (and steeped in one of those plastic gravity-fed gizmos). But if I were a fan of plastic tea bags I probably wouldn’t give them up out of any concerns over health just yet. But that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.
See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles 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.
