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<p></p>Whether you are in the middle of summer in the Northern Hemisphere or washed out in the Southern Hemisphere winter there is nothing better than a cup of tea. On a boiling hot day it is refreshing while in mid-winter it is comforting and warming. Plus it contains all those tannins and other great chemicals that the quacks say are good for us.In terms of tea the world is divided. There are those countries that know how to make tea - the UK, India, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. And there are those that don’t - the rest of Europe and the US.The reason the US and most of Europe don’t make good tea is because they don’t use loose leaves, boiling hot water or teapots, which are the essential ingredients. As is a tea cosy in winter.I’m currently obsessed by brick red cups of builders’ tea, spicy chai (with added fresh ginger) and green tea. Speaking of green tea I almost exclusively drink pots and pots of the stuff with yum cha and Japanese food at lunchtime.And why is Top Gear’s James May drinking wine? Well he has just shown the French how to make a cup of tea. If you are not sure how to then I suggest you pay attention. But if you already know this clip from Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure is amusing anyway.Seven point plan to perfect tea 1. Boil the kettle.2. Heat the pot by swilling the boiling water about in it.3. Only use tea leaves as they impart the best flavour (Think of using a teabag as having a bath with a wetsuit on). Use one teaspoon of leaves for each cup and add one for the pot.4. Add boiling water to the pot to the required level and cover with a cosy to retain heat (a beanie will do).5. Leave to steep for five to ten minutes. This is essential for the boiling water to leech out all the great flavours from the tea.6. Pour the tea into a good quality cup. I personally favour Villeroy & Boch cups from their House & Garden Collection, a Limoges cup and saucer. Sometimes I also drink out of a vintage cup and saucer. The important thing is the shape and you simply can’t drink tea out of the kind of cup that you would serve an cappucinno in.7. If you are to add milk now is the time (and unless we are talking about chai the milk should be cold from the fridge).Food fascist 1. Do not event attempt to make tea with water that is not boiling. It won’t work.2. Tea made with teabags may approximate a decent cup but think of all the wastage in the packaging. How hard is it to make a small pot or use some new fangled tea infuser rather than a bag?
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July 3rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Also, you should only boil cold tap water. Tea brewed with re-boiled water, or hot tap water that has been boiled, does not taste nearly as good.
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm
ok - that was fantastic - a little cheerful pick me up before bed time. thanks so much for sharing the laugh. I really appreciated it.
sam
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Great post. Love my tea. Though I’m not as impressively fastidious in my technique as you are (Wow!) I know a good brew from a bad one. Living abroad for some years introduced me to the horrors of Lipton tea. It wasn’t long before I had friends/family at home shipping me out Scottish Blend tea!
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Oh yes! You speak the truth, however unfortunately most cafes here in NZ insist on using water from a zip, which only heats the water to 83 degrees C! Even so called “Tea houses”!! Probably some OSH crap where they’re not allowed to handle 100 DegC. Best cuppa here is the one made at home… Orange Pekoe!
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Here, here. Nothing beats a good cup of tea. Don’t forget to warm the cup when you warm the pot.
Tea at my work is always horrible and I had assumed it was the water quality. I’m thinking, thanks to Bron, that it might actually be the temperature of the “zip” as we don’t have a kettle at work.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Loved the show with Oz and James, the Top Gear bloke is such a top bloke and the tetchy chemistry between the two was priceless. I even warmed to Oz in the end…what was the old UK show he and that silly toff woman were on again, both trying to outdo each other with their flapping wine verbosity bollocks?
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Davy - that was the BBC Good FOod show wan’t it? was it Jancis Robinson. the one with the long straight hair.
July 4th, 2007 at 2:32 am
Ed,
do give JustMake oolong tea on Russel St a go.
I would recommend their King Hsuan or Li Shan tea.
You will see why such tea can cater a high premium, =)
Soon enough, you will consider adding milk and sugar are just a pure sin!
No bloody way sugar and milk can come to such exquisite delicacy…
July 4th, 2007 at 8:52 am
OneMan, are you having us on? Perhaps I should ask Marold McGee on this.
Sam, glad to have cheared you up. These chaps do the same for me and are as uplifting as a cuppa itself on a winters night. I think some more from this series, which took only four days to download through various torrents, needs to be posted
Wendy, I must admit Lipton seems to be a victory of marketing over taste.
Bron, in general cafes seem to be the worst places to drink tea as the water raerly makes it to boiling and is mostly taken from coffee machines. far better to make a cuppa at home.
Davy/Sam, are we talking about the bubbly Jilly Goolden with the curly blond - Jancis is pretty low key compared?
Adade,I haven’t been to JustMake but will drop in when I’m next up there. Certainly no milk in those teas.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I love hearing different methods of tea making. Whilst visiting the tea plantations is Sri Lanka, it was stressed repeatedly that tea should be made with water that was just below boiling point, or had come off the boil for a few minutes, so as not to scorch the leaves. Given that the tastebuds cannot determine flavours in foodstuffs at boiling point, it is a fair call that it may be more flavourful too.
My future mother inlaw is of the opposite persuasion. Not only does she use the boiling water but then she nukes the cup, insisting that all f&b must be scalding hot. I suspect that she has no tastebuds.
Did you know that Tea bags are made with the detritus that was once swept off the floors of tea packing factories?! No wonder they don’t make as tasty a brew.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Yep, Jilly, that’s the one…bubbly is indeed one description of her
Thanks Ed!
July 5th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
So Ed, what’s your criteria for good tea?
Mine is how palatable it is for first timer…
July 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Davy, I think I shall trawl for some bubbly footage for a laugh. Adade, where do you start - tere are so may different teas.
July 6th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Well, let’s start with Chinese/Taiwanese tea then.
Japanese tea is more of acquired taste I would say
July 12th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Thanks for a great write up about tea- I also lurve tea… my recent fascination. I bought a dozen types online several months ago, so that I can learn more about it!!
July 17th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Thanks Ed!
I have to say, though, I am a student of the Douglas Adams school of tea making. The ideology is based on the following mantra:
“The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics.”
When one pours milk into tea the milk is heated too rapidly. Pouring tea onto milk heats the milk more slowly and so doesn’t affect the milk protein molecules and therefore the taste of the cup of tea.
Here’s an a PowerPoint presentation to help break it down properly:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/oldblobs/996668.swf
Try Mr Adams’ way and you’ll taste a tea that really is perfect.
At work I’m normally very busy and don’t have time for a slow-paced pot and beanie. But I can almost re-create the Douglas Adams tea this way:
1. Get two Styrofoam cups.
2. Put two tea bags in one.
3. Pour milk in the other cup which has been slightly warmed under a tap
4. Pour boiling water from the insta-boil thing on the wall over the tea.
5. Leave to steep for 30 seconds. This is essential for the boiling water to leech out all the great flavours from the tea. Bounce the bags around heaps.
6. Pour tea into cup already containing milk.
7. Add a teaspoon of sugar for yourself and one for the Styrofoam cup.
8. Enjoy.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Cheers Richard. So here we have molecular tea prep. Do I have to use styrofoam?