Selecting and Enjoying Tea

Editor: ourprecioustreasures

Make the most of tea time by selecting and enjoying a variety of teas and accessories.

Your Tea Making Utensils

How should tea be stored? Since tea absorbs moisture, as well as, kitchen odors, keep your tea fresh and avoid spoiling the flavor by keeping it in a sealed jar or tin.

Your tea kettle makes a big difference in your tea brewing. Of course, one can boil water in a pan or in the microwave; but a A good tea kettle will serve you well. Check the reviews on both stove top and electric tea kettles. My favorite, designed by an Englishman, is the 1.7 liter Kismet, which was the fastest, easiest to use and had the most features I wanted.

Your teapot is a key element to brewing that really good cup or pot of tea. I have a 10-cup and a 6-cup "Brown Betty" style designed by the English Gentleman Jim Sadler, as well as, a variety of others, including those hand painted by my wife, which are the most beautiful. One of my best functionally designed teapots I have is the Bodum tea press that works great with loose leaf teas. Never discard an old teapot, instead consider retiring it for use as an African Violet pot. Be sure to make sure that your teapot is both functional and attractive to your taste.

Your tea cozy is a special added touch of elegance and helps to keep your tea hot in your teapot. There are the "doom" style that covers the entire teapot and lifts off when you want to pour a cup of tea, and the "snuggie" style that tightly hugs your teapot and exposes the spout and handle. Choose one to fit your taste, function and that looks pretty.

Your other tea accessories are important too. For loose leaf tea you will want to consider using a wire mesh infuser (be sure to get one big enough to allow the tea leaves to expand and small enough to fit through the top of your teapot); or, you may want to use a tea cup strainer. Choose your tea cups and tea mugs with care giving attention to the handle design so it is very comfortable and keeps your fingers from touching the hot side of your tea cup or mug. With a little searching you will also find tea cups and mugs that have a top lid that helps keep your tea hot. Make this a truly enjoyable shopping adventure.

Your Tea Selection Process

"There is nothing like a good cup of tea." Tea is offered for purchase in either the "loose leaf" form or the "teabag" form. When you open a teabag and compare the tea in it to loose leaf tea you will see that teabag tea appears to be ground up loose leaf tea. Most tea manufacturers state that there is no difference in the quality between loose leaf and teabag tea, while many tea gourmets prefer loose leaf tea brewed in the most appropriate way. I drink both loose leaf and teabag tea, but favor loose leaf tea when time permits. You are the final judge of what you like best, so please have it your way.

Choose Your Tea Wisely

My research leads me to believe that you can choose top quality tea that you will definitely enjoy for the same cost of common ordinary tea, when you choose your tea wisely!

Example

Fine tea is one of the world’s last remaining bargains. A pound of tea will make you somewhere between 200 to 250 cups. If you pay $25.00 for a pound and get 225 cups of tea that equals eleven cents a cup; and if you pay $10.00 for a pound and get 225 cups of tea that equals just over four cents a cup. It is interesting to compare the four cents a cup for gourmet tea to the four dollars for a cup of coffee at one of those gourmet coffee shops; you save $3.96 a cup. If you drink two cups a day that is a savings of $7.92 a day, $55.44 a week, $237.60 a month and $2,890.80 a year. Calculate, too, all the many good health benefits associated with drinking tea, such as, tea has less than one half the caffeine of coffee. Save money, help your health and increase your enjoyment by brewing yourself a good cup of tea. How can I taste test tea?

Tea tasting, much like wine tasting, uses similar steps; visual, smell, taste and touch. You can tell a lot about a tea by examining the dry leaves. Gently press some dry leaves in your hand. Most new teas are a little springier and less likely to crumble than are older teas. Look for fibers, dust or stalks and note the leaf size.

Measure a level teaspoon of each sample into the cup. Use white or clear cups to view the truest color. Begin your analysis of the infused leaves as the cups are filled. Smaller flat leaves will show more body than larger twisted leaves, which take longer to steep. Steep the teas for a fixed time, generally five minutes. After steeping take in the aroma of the tea and examine the infused leaves for color and evenness. Color does not necessarily indicate the strength or body of the liquor.

Now you are ready to taste - take a spoonful of the liquid and swig to ensure that the tea covers your entire tongue. This step is important since we taste bitterness at the back of the tongue, saltiness in the middle, sweetness in the front and sourness on the sides of the tongue.

At first you may be a little challenged to describe your findings, but after sampling many teas you will begin to notice similarities and differences in color, taste and smell. I would suggest starting a small notebook to record the tea you are tasting and your impressions. Use the tea glossary at the end of this booklet to help understand what you read about the teas you are trying. Above all else, make it an enjoyable adventure and have lots of fun!

There is definitely a wonderful world of tea you can truly enjoy! The varieties of teas to choose from seems almost limitless as you search for the treasure of new teas.

Recently in the News: Brits spend more time making tea than banking online—First Direct bank says its customers have reduced the time taken to manage finances online from the national average of 47 minutes a week to just 9 minutes or 1 minute and 17 seconds a day. In comparison Brits spend an average nearly 42 minutes a week just making a cup of tea, based on information from the UK's Tea Council.

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