Hey, You Should Drink This Tea

Things To Get Into: Loose-leaf tea

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:45:46 -0400

Your Google machine works just as well as mine does, so I’m not going to spend a ton of words here trying to tell you the benefits of loose leaf tea. At least, not the conventional benefits anyway. I got into tea completely by accident (read: because of a girl) and once I did — in the summer no less — I began devouring all of the different varieties as voraciously as I could. Once I like something, I tend to go full bore.

But you don’t care about that. You want to know why you should drink tea. Here’s a quick list of reasons:

1. It’s cheaper than your coffee habit.

You might enjoy dark-roast, light roast or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee at $25/lb. but for that same price you can get a truckload of tea. The best part of most loose-leaf varieties is you can re-steep them. So while you’ll need to pay for a 2nd cup of coffee when it’s all done, with tea you can just get more water over that bag of loose-leaf and drink again. Some teas can be re-steeped multiple times.

2. You can support independent coffee shops.

Some people get all indignant about folks who willingly drop cash at the altar of Starbucks. But like most chains, they don’t sell loose-leaf tea, just the bag variety. If you want loose-leaf tea, you’re going to need to trek to a indy coffee shop where the music is loud and not for sale. A true win-win if you ask me. If you’re lucky enough to live in a town with tea shops, well then even better. But be careful, some of those places can be a bit dead or not well-suited for loitering.

3. You can find tea with more caffeine than your cuppa Joe.

There are herbals teas that do not have caffeine, but if you’re just looking for a jolt then you can pick to your heart’s content. Each steeping of tea has less caffeine than the original, which means it’s not akin to chugging a bottle of Mountain Dew. Which is good, since that stuff is awful for you. (I still like it sometimes…judge away.)

4. The ultimate indie drinking habit.

If you’re one of those people who likes to be up on everything before your friends are or just wants to seem cooler than people who don’t know about something you know about (Wait, are there even people like this?! Ha.) then tea is your best play ever. Everyone knows what tea is (or at least, they think they do) but so many folks have been introduced to loose-leaf that you’ll always feel like some kind of wise educator. It’s possible that they’ll also see you as a high maintenance effete snob, but that’s just a risk you’ll have to take if you want to drink something.

So there you have it. Four good reasons why you need to put down that Big Gulp full of 7-11 coffee and track down a tea joint stat.

This Is The Greatest Calendar In The World This gorgeous Hälssen...

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:22:30 -0400

This Is The Greatest Calendar In The World

This gorgeous Hälssen & Lyon calendar is made of brewable tea.

Photo

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:33:17 -0400

"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:54:01 -0400

““One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.””

- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (via heyreadthisbook)

mssnglnk: A lot easier to clean the tea rex than my teapot for...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 02:14:26 -0400

mssnglnk:

A lot easier to clean the tea rex than my teapot for a late nighf cuppa.

How To Tea Smoke Meat

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:03:02 -0400

How To Tea Smoke Meat:

Lately, I’ve been on a tea cooking kick. Discovering tea smoking was a revelation and so, here’s how you tea smoke meat.

nyamnyaamm: Chazuke is a snack that utilizes that left over...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:13:25 -0400

nyamnyaamm:

Chazuke is a snack that utilizes that left over rice you have. You sprinkle this over your rice and pour hot water or green tea (usually if you make it from scratch you can throw in fish stock but these little packets include powder). Really cheap but super delicious and great any season.

So I am fascinated by ochazuke and only discovered it existed a few days ago. Have you tried it? I’m intrigued and sure that it’ll be on my list later this week. Especially with SNOW it seems fitting.

The Secrets of Tea Cooking

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:54:04 -0400

The Secrets of Tea Cooking

mssnglnk: Yes indeed I was given this tea steeping tea rex for...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:34:57 -0400

mssnglnk:

Yes indeed I was given this tea steeping tea rex for my birthday. Hilarious.

Green tea, rooibos, vanilla, cranberry and orange. We’ll...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:20:42 -0400

Green tea, rooibos, vanilla, cranberry and orange. We’ll see how it goes.

Strawberry pu’erh, smoked earl grey, mint. After two hrs...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 23:03:17 -0400

Strawberry pu’erh, smoked earl grey, mint. After two hrs of trying stumbled on a tea blend I can stand.

Photo

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:26:42 -0400

Making your own tea blends

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:54:25 -0400

What’s the best tea blend you’ve made?

mssnglnk: Yes sometimes I have to drink bag tea…

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:52:38 -0400

mssnglnk:

Yes sometimes I have to drink bag tea…

How-Tuesday: Custom Tea Blends on Etsy

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:47:59 -0400

How-Tuesday: Custom Tea Blends on Etsy

Moroccan Mint Tea

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 01:12:33 -0500

lifetimevoyage:

Simple, but it’s my favorite tea ever!

In summer i make this tea like a big kettle-full at once, cool it down, then keep it in a refrigerator, drink it any time of the day with some ice cubes. It looks great in a transparent long drink glass. (Even before drinking you’ll be cooled by just looking at it!) Of course you can also drink it hot, sweetened with sugar syrup. In this case the fancy, decorative Moroccan tea glasses are perfect. But who cares, with any glass or mug you’ll be in warm, sunny northern Africa!

You just need peppermint tea leaves, preferably pure peppermint, not blended with any other herbs or aroma, and green tea leaves. Tea bags are for this variation not exactly good, because they brew too well, it means the tea becomes bitter in unpleasant way, so it’s not recommendable. About the green tea, the best choice is Chinese, especially Gunpowder people say. I think it’s because its taste is comparatively neutral. So it shouldn’t be flavoured, either.

First, bring the water to boil. When the water starts to boil, put the peppermint leaves into the kettle, let them infuse about 7-8 min. while it simmers.

Then turn off the heat, put the green tea leaves in, wait another 5 min. Some recipe says, you should keep the tea simmering, but personally I prefer this way, because it has milder taste.

You know, when you make plain green tea, you should let the tea infuse under 80 degrees Celcius, some of the finest sorts even around 60. For Moroccan mint tea however, it’s important that the tea has its intensiveness to a certain point… So i put them in higher temperature but i don’t let them boil.

The amount of the tea leaves, i use 2 tablespoons of peppermint and 1.5 tablespoons of green tea for 1 Liter of water. Usually people drink Moroccan mint tea with lots of sugar, but it already has its natural sweet flavour because of peppermint. Plus, as a thirst quencher it works best when it’s unsweetened. :)

Enjoy!

Currently drinking…

RAF Tea, Iron Goddess of Mercy & Lost Malawi Tea from Rare...

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:19:31 -0500

RAF Tea, Iron Goddess of Mercy & Lost Malawi Tea from Rare Tea Company

day: why kindness can help businesses grow

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:16:25 -0500

day: why kindness can help businesses grow:

monkeyshots:

do not make tea with boiling water. that is what the rare tea lady told me the other afternoon.

a shocking statement for someone like me brought up from childhood to take the teapot to the kettle to ensure that the tea leaves were woken up by the hottest possible infusion.

“it was World War II propaganda because we had cheap industrial tea,” said the rare tea lady, henrietta lovell. “In order to get good flavour out of it, you needed to use boiling water because they say boiling water dissolves the tannins - the strong bitter flavours.”

but real tea has lots more taste than that bitterness, and that is what henrietta lovell has built her rare tea company around.

A video about Lost Malawi Tea.

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 02:41:23 -0500

A video about Lost Malawi Tea.

Trouble Brewing for Ugandan Tea Farmers

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 02:37:46 -0500

Trouble Brewing for Ugandan Tea Farmers :

But outside Uganda, no one is drinking pure Ugandan tea.

“The quality of Ugandan teas is low. That is a fact, really,” says George Ssekitoleko of the Uganda Tea Association, explaining that Ugandan teas are mainly for blending. “When our tea goes to Mombasa, that is the end of it being called Ugandan tea. That is where it disappears. It is all blended with other teas, and it goes out as Kenyan tea, mainly.”

I did not know this until today.