A Nice Cup of Tea.

I feel a blissful calm just by saying or thinking those words. What makes the process of preparing and sipping a nice cup of tea so enjoyable?

I take my tea with milk and honey. Today I am having Stash White Tea.

Many of us have warm memories about something in our childhood. Those memories may be triggered by weather, food, holidays, smells, etc. My memories happen to be triggered by tea. On Sunday afternoons, my aunt and grandmother would come to our house and the ladies would sit in the dining room and catch up over a cup of tea. Everyone drank their tea a little differently and we always had an array of tea bags to choose from.

Some preferred their tea with nothing, some with milk, some with sugar, and some with honey. As time went on, the artificial sweetener also reared its ugly head! I remember a time when my mom actually kept those little sugar cubes in a dish!

50 years ago, our family favored black tea varieties... the Liptons of the world. Today, however, we love many different kinds of tea, including white and green tea (since our daughter is an expat living in Japan).

Tea gives comfort during any season, and being in the middle of a new season of life, it has been my comfort through the anxiety of retirement and relocation.

So, turn on the kettle, prepare a cup of tea YOUR WAY, and read on.

Rie Tulali of teacurious.com, published a quick guide to understanding tea varieties. I'm really simplifying here, so if you want to know more, please follow this link.

• White tea has a soft, sweet, grainy, herbaceous, spicy taste. A common misconception is that white tea has the least caffeine of all tea varieties. Not true - caffeine levels vary from tea to tea.

• Green tea has a lively, fresh, grassy, nutty, bittersweet taste. There are two common types: pan-fired or steamed. Pan-fired green tea has a plant-like, nutty taste and steamed a more grassy, umami (translates to deliciousness) taste. The popular powdered green tea, matcha, is steamed. Rie recommends using cool water to brew green tea, "to avoid bitterness or astringency".

We picked these Green tea varieties up while visiting Japan.
The Japanese Tea Ceremony is a very important part of the culture.

• Oolong tea is one of my favorites. It has a taste somewhere between green and black tea. It is described as having an aromatic, flowery, fruity, savory, buttery, nutty, toasty, complex taste. There are many different forms of Oolong tea leaves, so adjust your brewing style to match the specific tea. Meaning - trial and error or follow any directions printed on the package.

• Black tea is the most popular and familiar tea type here in the west. The taste of black tea is described as strong, bold, robust, malty, chocolaty, fruity, sharp, bittersweet, aromatic or dry. 

• Dark tea or Pu'erh tea is fermented or intended to age over time. It's said to have an earthy, intense, bittersweet, herbaceous, sharp, fruity, sweet and complex taste. There are many dark teas and they are often compressed into a cake or brick form and aged over time. 

• Herbal tea is labeled as such, but is not really a tea. Only leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant are considered tea, and herbal tea is made with an infusion made from a plant other than the Camellia sinensis. Herbal teas are called tisanes (pronounced tea-zahn) and they have their own interesting history that you can read here.

Tea is old...and people around the globe have been preparing and enjoying tea for a long, long, long time. Marta Lopez Garcia wrote about different Tea Traditions around the world. Some of these traditions are as follows.

• India is the land of Chai tea and produces and consumes more tea than any other country.
• Japan produces a lot of green tea, in many varieties. The Matcha tea ceremony is a very important tradition.
• Morocco prepares and serves Touareg (Moroccan mint) tea many times a day. Touareg translates to, and is literally, the heart of their culture.
• New Zealand calls tea time, "the tea break". New Zealanders have one commercial tea plantation but citizens are fond of many varieties.
• The good ol' USA loves tea. We drink it anyday, anytime, and anyway. It is one of the most popular nonalcoholic beverages in the country. Any variety can be found here. 
• Thailand is known for one of the trendiest, very popular teas today. It's made from strongly brewed red tea and usually contains anise, red and yellow food coloring and sometimes other spices.
• Great Britain first imported tea from India during the days of the British Empire. The British consume a large amount of tea and are famous for serving "afternoon tea".
• Russians enjoy Zavarka - a very strong tea which is brewed in its own pot, allowing hosts to serve guests in several rounds.
• China is the first to discover the tea leaf and cultivate different types of tea. The art of tea making is called "Cha dao".

New to our family is the art of preparing Japanese green tea. We have a tea set given to us as a gift from our daughter which consists of a pot with a removable wire basket and lid, along with 4 teacups. I've noticed these sets popping up during shopping trips to popular retailers.

If you are thinking of purchasing one, here's how we make our tea. We put the loose green tea in the kettle's basket and seat the basket into the top of the kettle.

Fill 1/4 of basket with dry tea.

When the water boils, we pour it over the tea leaves until the water reaches the top of the basket. Then put the lid on.

Pour boiling water over tea to top of pot.

Put the lid on and let steep until light green in color.

 We let it steep for a few minutes and then pour the tea into the teacups. You may notice a few tea leaves floating around. This is normal. It is difficult to keep all of that loose tea in the basket.

I do not add anything to my Japanese green tea. It has a wonderful flavor.

Notice how plump the tea becomes after the water is added. I filled the basket 1/4 full with dried tea leaves and it is now completely full!

Don't leave the green tea steep for more than a few minutes. When I came back for my second cup, about 15 minutes later, the tea was very acidic and I had to throw the rest away. 😞 As I think about it, I did not start with cool water as recommended by Rie Tulali. The water was still warm from making the white tea earlier.  I will have to try this again tomorrow - after work. I'm sure I will be looking forward to a "nice cup of tea".

How do you prepare your tea? Let me know in the comments below and have a great day!

Kelli


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