Showing posts with label tea time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tea time. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
top 10 famous chinese tea
there is no official list for The 10 Most Famous Chinese Tea. however, LONG JING tea is always on the top of the list.
so far i have tasted longjing, huangshan maofeng, lu-an guapian, tie guan yin, bi luo chun, oolong. and so far i prefer lu-an gua pian and maofeng. coincidentally, both from anhui province, the province where i live now.
my next tea-hunting will be yunnan pu'erh, monkey king, keemun, big red robe, silver needle, and white fur silver needle. keemun and monkey king are also produced in anhui province.
sources:
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tea Bags and Tea Storage
In 1907, American tea merchant Thomas Sullivan began distributing tea samples in small bags of Chinese silk with a drawstring. Consumers noticed that they could simply leave the tea in the bag, and better still re-use it with fresh tea.
..introduced by Lipton and PG Tips in 1996. its three-dimensional tetrahedron shape allows more room for tea leaves to expand while steeping. However, some types have been criticized as being un-environmental- friendly, since their synthetic material is not degradable in landfills.
are teabags safe to be used? read about bleached (chlorine-whitened) teabags here and here.
Storage
Tea has a shelf life that varies with storage conditions and type of tea. Tea stays freshest when stored in a dry, cool, dark place in an air-tight container. Storage life for all types of tea can be extended by using desiccant packets or oxygen absorbing packets, and by vacuum sealing. Improperly stored tea may lose flavor, acquire disagreeable flavors or odors from other foods, or become moldy.
Black tea has a longer shelf life than green tea.
Black tea stored in a bag inside a sealed opaque canister may keep for two years.
Green tea loses its freshness more quickly, usually in less than a year. When storing green tea, discreet use of refrigeration or freezing is recommended. In particular, drinkers need to take precautions against temperature variation.
Some teas such as flower tea may go bad in a month or so.
An exception, Pu-erh tea improves with age.
Gunpowder tea, its leaves being tightly rolled, keeps longer than the more open-leafed Chun Mee tea.
Milk Tea
from wikipedia: Adding milk to tea
The addition of milk to tea was first mentioned in 1680 by the epistolistMadame de Sévigné. Many teas are traditionally drunk with milk. These include Indian masala chai, and British tea blends. These teas tend to be very hearty varieties which can be tasted through the milk, such as Assams, or the East Friesian blend. Milk is thought to neutralize remaining tannins and reduce acidity.
The Chinese do not usually drink milk with tea. but the Manchurians do, and the elite of the Manchu Dynasty continued to do so. Hong Kong-style milk tea is based on British colonial habits.
The order of steps in preparing a cup of tea is a much-debated topic. Some say that it is preferable to add the milk before the tea, as the high temperature of freshly brewed tea can denature the proteins found in fresh milk, similar to the change in taste of UHT milk, resulting in an inferior tasting beverage.
Others insist that it is better to add the milk after brewing the tea, as most teas need to be brewed as close to boiling as possible. The addition of milk chills the beverage during the crucial brewing phase, meaning that the delicate flavor of a good tea cannot be fully appreciated. By adding the milk afterwards, it is easier to dissolve sugar in the tea and also to ensure that the desired amount of milk is added, as the color of the tea can be observed.
A 2007 study published in the European Heart Journal found that certain beneficial effects of tea may be lost through the addition of milk.
Tea Classification and Varieties
Tea is traditionally classified based on the techniques with which it's produced and processed.
White tea: Unwilted and unoxidized
Yellow tea: Unwilted and unoxidized but allowed to yellow
Green tea: Wilted and unoxidized
Oolong: Wilted, bruised, and partially oxidized
Black tea: Wilted, sometimes crushed, and fully oxidized
Post-fermented tea: Green Tea that has been allowed to ferment/compost
(from wikipedia)
History of Tea
Tea was first discovered by the Chinese Emperor Shennong in 2737 BC. It is said that the emperor liked his drinking water boiled before he drank it, so it would be clean. One day, on a trip to a distant region, he and his army stopped to rest. A servant began boiling water for him to drink, and a dead leaf from the wild tea bush fell into the water. It turned a brownish color, but it was unnoticed and presented to the emperor anyway.
The emperor drank it and found it very refreshing, and cha (tea) was born.
The Origin of the word "Cha" (Tea)
During the Han Dynasty, the word 'tu' took on a new pronunciation, 'cha', in addition to its old pronunciation 'tu'.
The phoneme 'tu' (荼) later developed into 'te' in the Fujian dialect, and later 'tea', 'te'.
The first use of the word Cha instead of 'tu' for tea was in Lu Yu's Cha Jing, The Classic of Tea (Cha Jing 茶經) of 760 AD.
The Han Dynasty used tea as medicine. The use of tea as a beverage drunk for pleasure on social occasions dates from the Tang Dynasty or earlier.
Tea leaves were processed into compressed cakes form (brick-tea) , which was ground in a stone mortar. Hot water was added to the powdered teacake, or the powdered teacake was boiled in earthenware kettles then consumed as a hot beverage.
A form of compressed tea referred to as white tea was being produced as far back as the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). This special white tea of Tang was picked in early spring, when the tea bushes had abundant growths which resembled silver needles. These "first flushes" were used as the raw material to make the compressed tea.
from the wikipedia
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Are you drinking the right tea?
People who use their 'brain' to work or students who study hard day and night
--- should drink chrysanthemum tea.
People who need a lot of body energy to work or those people that do a lot of exercise everyday
People with high cholesterol and high blood pressure
Carnivore (those people who must eat meat) at least once a day, or feel sick or not feeling well
--- should drink Wu Loong Tea.
People who travel on a bike or work in dirty and polluted places
People who likes to sit down all day long and not doing anything even exercising
People who smoke and drink a lot of alcoholic drinks
People with high cholesterol and high blood pressure
--- should drink Green Tea.
People who go to the washroom too often or too less
--- should drink more Honey Tea.
Those who work with computers everyday --- need to drink a lot of tea (any tea will do). Whenever you are working with the computer, you should make some tea; drink it when you are free. Drinking tea is healthy --- it can protect and prevent the harmful ultraviolet light from harming us (when using computer). Furthermore, it can also cure us when we are tired and help making our body feel fresh again.
source: unknown, from forwarded email
read also:
powerful health benefits of green tea
--- should drink chrysanthemum tea.
People who need a lot of body energy to work or those people that do a lot of exercise everyday
People with high cholesterol and high blood pressure
Carnivore (those people who must eat meat) at least once a day, or feel sick or not feeling well
--- should drink Wu Loong Tea.
People who travel on a bike or work in dirty and polluted places
People who likes to sit down all day long and not doing anything even exercising
People who smoke and drink a lot of alcoholic drinks
People with high cholesterol and high blood pressure
--- should drink Green Tea.
People who go to the washroom too often or too less
--- should drink more Honey Tea.
Those who work with computers everyday --- need to drink a lot of tea (any tea will do). Whenever you are working with the computer, you should make some tea; drink it when you are free. Drinking tea is healthy --- it can protect and prevent the harmful ultraviolet light from harming us (when using computer). Furthermore, it can also cure us when we are tired and help making our body feel fresh again.
source: unknown, from forwarded email
read also:
powerful health benefits of green tea
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