|
GhitaAmati -> RE: Arrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh! (9/19/2007 8:06:52 AM)
|
Sigh......tea......
Ok...first...tea from a grocery store...isnt really .....tea.....go find a nice tea shop...how can you tell if its a nice tea shop? Tea is stored in air tight opaque contaners, and they have a larger variety of tea than pastries. If your tea shop has lots of pastries, dont fret....at least you can pick up a nice scone or two.
You need something to boil your water in. A sauce pan works good. An electric kettle is great, heats faster than the stove, but can be expensive if you dont use it often.
Water...water needs to have lots of oxygen in it. Bottle water doesnt. Neither does water that has boiled for a long time. Tap water works great, a brita filter can do wonders for bad tap water (It can do wonders for cheap vodka too......)
The sauce pan or kettle is only for heating the water, for actually brewing the tea you will need a tea pot. Cast Iron holds heat in much much better, but ceramic is cheaper and usually looks prettier too. Possible to find them to match your kitch decor usually. Most teapots come with an infuser. Take it out...there is never enough room in an infuser to let tea spread out and move around enough in the water. Dont throw it away though, it makes a nice strainer to pour your tea over once its done. whatever you use to brew tea in needs to be able to hold the heat in, you dont want it to cool down while its steeping.
The tea cup. Your grandmothers fancy china tea cup will just not do. Never enough room in those things. Coffee mugs are generally better. Don't use some ugly freebie mug you scored off some vendor. Don't use some mug with a once humorous, now clichéd saying on it. Find something nice. After all, this is tea, not bitter boiled bean juice.
Put some water in your kettle and set it to heating. Doesnt matter how much here, this is throw away water. Get it nice and hot. Pour some into your teapot and while your at it fill the teacup too. Set these aside to warm up. If you pour your boiling water for tea into a cold pot, it immediatly looses some of the heat. Refill your kettle with enough tea for how ever many cups you want, plus a little extra. Set it to boil. Wait. Right before water comes to a boil, dump warming water out of teapot and blot with a papertowel. Add tea to the pot. Approx 1 teaspoon per 8oz water (duh...why the hell else would it be called a teaspoon?) Add extra for stronger tea....For black or herbal tea, let the water come to a full boil. For green teas try to catch it just before. Pull the pan or kettle from the heat as soon as the water reaches the boil. The longer it boils, the more oxygen escapes. Pour the boiling water into the teopot over the loose tea.
For green tea, steep for 2-3 minutes. I stop at 2 minutes. For black teas, 3-5 minutes. I stop at 3. For herbal teas, 5 minutes or more. Longer steeping times make for stronger tea. But they also make for bitter tea. (Except for herbal teas, which aren't real teas.) If you want stronger tea, increase the amount of tea you use. Don't steep longer.
Pour out the water from the teacup with the steeping time is done. Sometimes it helps to pour it out over the infuser so that warms up a bit too. Pour the tea into the teacup through the infuser. Now you can place the infuser into the teapot now that you are done with it so it doesnt drip on your countertops and stain them with tannin.
Drink your tea. As for additives, thats up to you. Sugar goes into the cup before the tea, milk goes in after the tea.....
|
|
|
|
