Fun and FlirTea

More than anything else, the number one reason most people I know aren’t “tea fans” is because they haven’t been brewing it correctly. Most notably is my friend who now is writing her own blog about her tea adventures as she makes her way through 175 different teas in 365 days. This time last year, if I offered tea to her, she would have wrinkled her nose in disgust and turned it down solidly.

Around 6 months ago, she decided to try tea again, but this time she paid more attention to how it was made. Instead of putting a tea bag in a cup of scalding hot water and leaving it for, oh… 10 minutes… she used water that was hot, but not boiling, and she removed the tea from the water after the recommended time frame. And lo and behold… it tasted good!

Shocking, I know.

Now, before I really get into this, I just want to note that there are a number of different methods for brewing tea. Today, we’ll keep it simple and about as basic as possible – with a typical Western-style brewing in a teapot (or infuser in mug) that most of you are likely to use.

The main thing to remember when brewing tea is that the temperature of the water and the time the leaf is left in the water can be extremely important. In fact, let’s start there… with the water. (more…)

Let me just say one thing… I honestly tried to figure out a better “White Tea” pun for this post title. My brother wanted me to make a reference to “Whitey”, like the character from 8 Crazy Nights or some other movies. But I wasn’t quite familiar enough to make the reference count. In the end, all I could think of was The Offspring. Ha!

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not as well-versed in white tea as I am in other types. Of all the tea types, I think I’ve had the fewest white teas of the options. As much as I haven’t cared as much for green teas, they’re more readily available, so I’ve had more opportunities to try them. All I really knew about white tea in advance of my studying tea was what I learned from that one commercial that I think Lipton created years ago. It was related to their bottled white tea. They talked about how white tea is so special because it is only the fresh young leaf bud that is used to achieve such a mild flavor.

Seriously, does anyone else remember that commercial, or am I crazy?

In any case, I have to admit I was a little surprised to discover that this vague memory of a brief commercial really did help me on the road to understanding white tea more clearly. While not all white tea today is made with purely the unopened leaf bud, that is how it was first created and only in more recent years (okay, the 1920’s… but that’s recent for tea!) were slightly open-leafed varieties created.

White tea has been primarily made in China (Fujian Province most particularly), but is now also being produced in some areas of India and Sri Lanka. Of all the tea types, it probably has the least variety within the category. The production is quite simple for white tea, so the options are more limited. (Don’t get the idea that there is no variance among white teas when tasting options from different places. The individual bush, the location of it, when it’s plucked, etc. all still have an impact on the tea, just as they do with any tea.)

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Introduction to Tea In Review

Each Saturday, I will be posting a list of links to each tea, tea vendor, and any teaware I may have reviewed in the past week. Some of these links will be internal to previous posts, but others will be to other sites, like Steepster (for those of you unfamiliar, Steepster is like the Twitter of tea reviews… with more than 140 characters per note).

I will also make an effort to feature at least one of the teas I enjoyed in the course of the week. This will likely result in at least one image that is less amazing than what normally appears on the site, as it will have been taken by myself with the only camera I’ve got… a lowly point-and-shoot Canon!

The Reviews!

First, allow me to share with you the list of links so I hope you enjoy the tea reviews from this week!

• White Peony from Two Leaves and a Bud – Thank you so much to Naomi at Two Leaves and a Bud for sending along the free sample of this and the other TLaaB teas from this week!
• Tropical Goji Green Tea from Two Leaves and a Bud
• Organic Jade Oolong from Two Leaves and a Bud
• Dragonwell from The Tea Spot
• Green Tea Tropical from Mighty Leaf
• Organic Earl Grey from Two Leaves and a Bud
• White Peony (Bai Mu Dan) from Tea Vivre – Thank you to Angel at Tea Vivre for this and other TV samples!
• Zealong Black from Ya-Ya’s House of Excellent Teas
• Iron Goddess King from Vital Tea Leaf
• Ripened Aged Pu-erh Mini Tuocha from Tea Vivre

Featured Review

To get things rolling, I would like to feature the Zealong Black tea I was able to sample as an early release tea from Ya-Ya’s House of Excellent Teas. This tea is from a plantation that is somewhat renowned for its oolong teas, and this is their first real black tea produced, as far as I understand (please correct me if I’m wrong, Jo!). Zealong, by the way, is a New Zealand tea plantation (since they’re known for their oolong teas, now you can see where the name comes from, right?)

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