Barb and myself generally watch the food channel a lot during the day and sometimes at night to get away from the silly crap that's on TV so much. And besides Food is another world wide Language!!!!
I was watching an episode of "Good Eats" the other week or day
and the host did a show on tea. As usually the show was very well done and tea was excellently explained.
There were several different kinds represented and I will need to see the episode a couple of more times to really know much more than I do now, but........ I did remember a little....
Green Tea is picked and dried, some green leaves are rolled into little balls and dried for a tiny difference in flavor IIRC.
Black Tea is fermented and dried and I can't recall about the Orange Pekoe and Earl Grey.
I didn't know there were as many varities of tea grown as there is!!!!! And Darjeeling was mentioned as well, but there were so many it was hard to remember everything, 'specially for an old phart.
But there were a couple of outstanding processes that are absolutely neccesary to make really good tea the host said........
.......Never Use Tea Bags......
#-1 Buy Tea that's stored only in "tin" containers, steel probably...
#-1-a- Buy your Tea from a reputable Tea Merchant if at all possible..
#-1-b- Tea can be kept in Airtight "Tins" as long as 2 years and still be good!!!!
#-2 Tea bags are a no-no as the tea cannot swell enough... Really!!!!
I was very surprised at this and just how much the loose teas swelled after brewing!!!!.....
#-2-a- Always put loose tea into the pot without any wrappings of any kind!!!! It is strained when it's poured into the cup.
#-2-b- Always put your tea into the pot before adding the hot water!!!!.
#-3 Always use fresh COLD Water to start with and bring it to just below the boiling point. Never let the water for tea boil as the water loses its flavor and goes flat.
#-3-a- ALWAYS Warm your teapot with hot water before putting your tea and water in!!!!
#-4- Use about 1 teaspoon, the kind in your silverware drawer, per 1 cup of tea. Steep for 2 minutes. I forget where the time starts to make the tea bitter.
Oh and if you use cream it goes in the cup first, again, I can't recall why. I tried cream in tea once and that was enough for me.:barf:
Just some interesting things that I sure didn't know before.
An interesting article about coffee was done by National Geographic a few years back.
And there's as many exotic coffees as there is tea it seems.
One of the big wigs that was showing the gal around was talking about a coffee that's considered a rare delicacy.
It seems there is a small South American Mammal that loves to eat the cherries that has the coffee bean inside as the seed.
As the coffee bean is passed through the animals system it sorta roasts the bean chemically. After the animal passes the beans they are gathered and carefully washed and saved until there is enough to make a pot or several pots of coffee.
As the gentleman was telling the gal about this highly prized coffee they were drinking coffee.
The gal said, "That's very interesting. The next time I'm down this way I will have to try it."
The gentleman laughed and said, "But you already are!!!! It's the coffee we're drinking now."
No doubt more than she wanted to know.........
