How to Brew Tea.

Long time no see. I quite busy with my job anyway I come back today I found new article that about tea to share all of you I though it usefull for you to do witch your cup of tea.


How To Brew Tea
Firstly, use filtered or spring water : your tea will only be as good as your water.

Black Tea : Heat water to a rolling boil
Use 1 level teaspoon/ 8 oz. cup
Flavored and small leaf teas : 3 min. steep
Full leaf teas: 3-5 min. steep.

Oolong Tea : Heat water to a rolling boil.
Use 1 level teaspoon/ 8 oz. cup.
Larger leaf teas : 7-12 min. steep.
Jade Oolongs: 5- 8 min. steep.

Green Tea : This step is very important !! : Heat water to
steam: not boiling !!! If your water does come
to a boil,allow it to settle for 45-60 sec. before
preparing your tea. This will prevent it from
becoming bitter….
Use 1 level teaspoon/ 8 oz. cup.
Steep for 2- 2 1/2 min.

White Tea is prepared like green tea except that it requires a 3-5 min. steep. Resteep 2-3 times.


Herbal Infusions: Bring water to a rolling boil.
Use 1 tablespoon/ 8 oz. cup or 1 oz./ qt. water.
Sipping tea require a 10 min. steep.
Medicinal and or root teas require a 15-30 min. steep.

Rooibos can be steeped from 10-20 minutes--it requires at least 10 minutes to release all it's stored Vitamin C (which on an ounce to ounce basis ,Rooibos has the same levels)

Info from: www.plymouthtea.com

ICE TEA

Iced tea (sometimes corrupted to ice tea) is a form of cold tea, often served in a glass with ice. It may or may not be sweetened. Iced tea is also a popular packaged drink. It can be mixed with flavored syrup, with common flavors including lemon, peach, raspberry, lime, and cherry. While most iced teas get their flavor from tea leaves (Camellia sinensis) , other herb-infused beverages are also sometimes served cold and referred to as iced tea. Unsweetened iced tea is sometimes made by a particularly long steeping of tea leaves at lower temperature (one hour in the sun versus 5 minutes at 80-100°C). Some people call this "sun tea". In addition, sometimes it is also left to stand overnight in the refrigerator.

Thailand
Thai iced tea or cha yen (Thai: ชาเย็น) in Thailand is a drink made from strongly brewed black tea ("red tea" in East Asia). Other ingredients may include added orange blossom water, star anise, crushed tamarind seed or red and yellow food coloring, and sometimes other spices as well. This tea is sweetened with sugar and condensed milk and served chilled. Evaporated milk, coconut milk or whole milk is generally poured over the tea and ice before serving to add taste and creamy appearance. However, in Thailand, condensed milk and sugar are mixed with the tea before it is poured over ice and then topped with evaporated milk. In Thai restaurants worldwide, it is served in a tall glass, though in Thailand it is more typically poured over the crushed ice in a clear (or translucent) plastic bag. It can also be made into a frappé at more westernised vendors.[citation needed]

It is popular in many American restaurants that serve Thai food. Although Thai tea is not the same as bubble tea, a Southeast and East Asian beverage that contains large tapioca pearls, Thai tea with tapioca pearls is a popular flavor of bubble tea.


Canada
In Canada, iced tea refers to sweetened iced tea, usually flavoured with lemon. In most provinces, unsweetened iced tea is almost unheard of. This tea is made at home from drink powder or obtained in cans or bottles. Water, sugar and flavourings may exceed tea in terms of quantity in these drinks. Sweetened Green teas and those flavoured with raspberry, peach, or pomegranate are also becoming more common via marketing efforts. Sweetened iced tea is often served as an alternative to other soft drinks, prepared by companies like Lipton, Arizona, Good Host and Nestea, although fresh-brewed iced tea is becoming somewhat popular, particularly in smaller independently owned restaurants. Powdered or frozen iced tea is a common preparation at home, due to its ease of use.

China
Although not a traditional way to serve tea, iced tea gained wide spread popularity in even rural areas since the 1980s with canned or bottled tea. Many varieties of tea, including green tea, are available packaged and sold in stores. Many families make their own iced tea by either putting lots of ice in a small amount of strong hot tea or by putting hot tea in a fridge for some time. Common types of iced tea are black, green, oolong, and lots of herbal types as well. Iced herbal tea is especially popular in the hot summers, where "yin" or cooling herbs are used to make tea such as chrysanthemum, kuding tea, etc. Cooled tea but still warm was already popular throughout ancient times but tea at cold temperatures was not as popular then.

Italy
Iced tea is a popular drink in Italy and is widely available, generally only in lemon- and peach-flavored incarnations. San Benedetto, as well as Lipton, are well-known brands. Apple is another favorite national flavour of tea.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iced_tea

The History of Iced Tea

Iced tea is a popular drink in the United States, and is becoming more popular in other countries, though it will probably never reach the level of consumption by Americans. Surveys have shown that around 2.2 billion gallons of tea are consumed in the USA every year, and at least 85 percent of the total is iced. With a host of choices for their iced drinks, such as powdered, canned, and bottled for a quick pick me up, and the traditional brewed drink using either bags or loose leaves, people in the United States have proven their love for this delicious beverage.

For many years, it was believed that iced tea was first introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. A man by the name of Richard Blechynden, who was the Commissioner of Tea for India, was also the director of the East Indian Pavilion at the fair. Mr. Blechynden had prepared samples of hot tea for fairgoers, and noticed that no one was taking advantage of them, as it was an unseasonably hot day and everyone was going for the coldest beverages they could find. He had the idea of icing down his hot mixture, and presented it to the public that way. The crowds loved it, and word spread of this delicious way to enjoy a healthy drink. Mr. Blechynden did not invent the iced version, but made it more popular with Americans.

This was not, however, the first time that the iced drink had been available in the United States. Rewind to the 1800s. Cookbooks from that era prove that the iced drink was popular served in punches and made with green leaves - not black leaves. Sugar and quite a bit of liquor were added to these, and they were given interesting names in line with the times. The popularity of these punches continued into the mid 19th century, and the names given to them begin to be regional and also patriotic in meaning.

The 18th century also saw the start of refrigeration as we know it today. First there was the ice house. Then came the ice box, the first refrigerator, which was patented in 1830. Slabs of ice kept the contents cold, and were delivered several times a week by an ice man. Ice tea became even more popular as the availability of ice and a form of refrigeration became available to all. "Tea Punch" was still popular for parties and gatherings, made now with black leaves and green leaves, white sugar, heavy cream, and either claret or champagne, and usually served cold.

In a Southern cookbook published in 1879, a recipe for the iced drink appears, and it is prepared in a way that is similar to the way many people prepare it today, except the sugar is not added while the mixture is hot from brewing, the time when it dissolves best. Other recipes from 1884 and 1890 make it plain that people had been enjoying the iced drink before 1890. Lemon was, and still is, hugely popular in the iced mixture.

In fact, lemon has been used in iced tea from the first glass of it served in this country! What we know today as "refrigerator tea" was known as "refrigerator tea" when it came into popularity around 1890. In 1893, the Chicago World's Fair sold the iced variety and also lemonade. Business was brisk, as more than $2000 was earned from the sales.

In 1904, the World's Fair was held in St. Louis. For a long time, historians thought that iced tea was invented at this fair, but further investigation in later years proved them wrong. The fair did make the iced drink more popular, as the crowds thoroughly enjoyed their free samples served by Richard Blechynden, and it is felt that fair goers went back to their homes and spread the word about how delicious and refreshing the iced tea at the fair had been. Since people from all over the country attended the fair, word traveled to both coasts and everywhere in between, for after 1904, the popularity of iced tea grew. By the time World War 1 became a reality, people were purchasing special tall glasses known as "iced tea" glasses, long spoons for stirring, and lemon forks.

During Prohibition, iced tea became even more popular as people had no choice but to locate alternative beverages to the beer, wine, and alcohol they had consumed. A recipe published in yet another Southern cookbook contained the recipe for iced tea that was used in the South for decades, and is still in use in some Southern kitchens today.

The bag was also invented in 1904. A merchant from Boston sent samples to his customers in little silk bags. When he discovered that people were brewing the leaves without removing them from the bags in order not to have to deal with the loose tea leaves, the bag as we know it today was born.

At the time of World War 2, Americans had no way to obtain green tea, as the usual sources had been banned from dealing with the United States. All leaves had to come from India, and they were black. When the war ended, the people of America were drinking almost 99% black, and that trend stayed the same until recently, when green came into vogue once more.

It has been estimated that fully 60% of all the tea drunk in America is consumed in the South, and about 90 percent of that is iced. In fact, iced tea is so beloved in the South that it has been fondly dubbed the "House Wine of the South". Southerners believe in sweetening their drink heavily, and the habit has spread to other parts of the country, where this concoction is known simply as "Sweet Tea". Lemon and mint, as well as whiskey, are popular additions to Southern style iced.

Iced tea has become popular in recent years as a mixed drink called an "Arnold Palmer" or a "Half and Half". This consists of half sweetened iced tea and half lemonade, which makes for an even sweeter drink than usual, but with a small note of sourness as well. A half and half can also be half unsweetened and half sweetened tea, which cuts the super sweet taste of most Southern drinks. In the Southeast, this is commonly called a "Chris Rock" as this comedian came from South Carolina.

Bags are still a popular means of brewing iced tea, mostly for the convenience factor and the low price. More and more, people are turning to loose leaves however for preparing their iced tea because of the wide range of flavors, and the fact that brews from loose leaves has a fuller, richer flavor, and is usually a higher quality as well.

By Jon Stout

How To Distinguish The Different Kinds Of Chinese Tea?

Author: Oolong Tea

If one drinks Chinese tea beverage just for its aroma and its taste, it might not be important. However, it is very important if one wants to drink tea for health protection because green tea has the highest level of tea antioxidants, and the black tea almost none, with the oolong tea level in-between.

In the past five years, most laboratory and experimental animal studies that supported the conclusion of a health benefit of Chinese tea drinking, especially in chemoprevention against cancer and obesity, have used fresh high-antioxidant green tea or the green tea antioxidant, (-)- epigallocatechin gallate, EGCG in short, as the bioactive testing material to conduct the research. Black tea is not that effective. While the epidemiological evidence is supportive of the benefits of drinking high-antioxidant green tea for cancer prevention, the data on black tea and oolong tea drinkers are not supportive of the benefits of tea drinking for this purpose.

There are three major kinds of Chinese tea, namely green tea, black tea and oolong tea, all derived from the same species of tea tree, commonly known as Camellia sinensis or as Thea sinensis on the FDA list of generally recognized as safe (GRAS) substances. Tea originated in China. As written in ancient medical texts, it was used as a health aid in 2737 BC. Tea became a major commodity in Tang Dynasty (617- 907 AD) when tea drinking gradually evolved into a form of art, but was still largely confined to the privileged elite of the society.

In the old days, fresh leaves directly plucked from the tea tree were boiled journey with constant agitation over the choppy warm ocean water in humid hot weather, the high quality "Pekoe" green tea probably had turned into half-black tea with its characteristic bitter taste as a result of oxidation and degradation when the ship arrived in Holland. It is no wonder that some Europeans would put sugar and milk into the bitter tea from China.

Shortly before and after the downfall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644,oolong tea that was purposely briefly oxidized (half-black tea) and the fully oxidized black tea were introduced for the often hungry peasants in the South as a calorie-preserving beverage and for foreign exports, in about 1650 A.D. As the society turmoil in China led to repeated famines, the poor peasants learned quickly that they should avoid drinking green tea which is an irritant to an emptystomach, and started to drink the half-degraded oolong tea or the fully oxidized black tea instead, in order to preserve the badly needed body fat tosurvive.

The fat-depleting effect of green tea was onlyrecently re-discovered in animal experiments. Theterms of oolong tea and black tea (red tea in Chinese)were introduced to the Chinese vocabulary in the mid 1600’s A.D. The Western tea drinking habit of adding sugar and milk into black tea was initiated by the British in about 1657 A.D. The Japanese and Chinese tea drinkers never put sugar or milk into their green tea.

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Chinese tea - Drink Oolong tea for a healthy life

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - How To Distinguish The Different Kinds Of Chinese Tea?

Tea spreads to the world

The earliest record of tea in a more occidental writing is said to be found in the statement of an Arabian traveler, that after the year 879 the main sources of revenue in Canton were the duties on salt and tea. Marco Polo records the deposition of a Chinese minister of finance in 1285 for his arbitrary augmentation of the tea taxes. The travelers Giovanni Batista Ramusio (1559), L. Almeida (1576), Maffei (1588), and Teixeira (1610) also mentioned tea. In 1557, Portugal established a trading port in Macau and word of the Chinese drink "chá" spread quickly, but there is no mention of them bringing any samples home. In the early 17th century, a ship of the Dutch East India Company brought the first green tea leaves to Amsterdam from China. Tea was known in France by 1636. It enjoyed a brief period of popularity in Paris around 1648. The history of tea in Russia can also be traced back to the seventeenth century. Tea was first offered by China as a gift to Czar Michael I in 1618. The Russian ambassador tried the drink; he did not care for it and rejected the offer, delaying tea's Russian introduction by fifty years. In 1689, tea was regularly imported from China to Russia via a caravan of hundreds of camels traveling the year-long journey, making it a precious commodity at the time. Tea was appearing in German apothecaries by 1657 but never gained much esteem except in coastal areas such as Ostfriesland.[39] Tea first appeared publicly in England during the 1650s, where it was introduced through coffee houses. From there it was introduced to British colonies in America and elsewhere.

From wikipedia.org