I love tea and all things tea, but I still have much to learn. In these pages, you will travel along with me as I prepare and taste different types of tea - white, green, oolong, black, in all kinds of formulations - loose leaf, pressed, even the elusive Bang Laa tea, a tea that is pressed into a baton shape and tied with twine. Coffee is never this cool!


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

An Introduction to the Journey

Let us begin the tea trek here...

I do not remember exactly how I got into tea, but I know I used to use teabags, and I spent many years happily dunking them in hot water and calling that concoction tea. Slowly, though, it dawned on me that loose leaf tea had a fanatical following, namely Jean-Luc Picard, who insisted on his "Earl Grey, hot," and Mr. Arthur Dent, who held forth on the tea estates of India, and the plucking of the tea leaves, and the proper steeping, to a computer who didn't care, and who produced the usual cup of swill, to Arthur Dent's dismay.

Of course, these are fictional people, but the idea is the same. Loose leaves of tea, I thought. What a mess. But people like it. So, I tried it. It was good. I tried more. I read books on the subject. I read about the tea estates in India, the proper steeping, all the accoutrements of tea. The kettle! The teapot! The strainer! The cozy! (I don't have a cozy. But apparently you are supposed to, to keep the teapot warm. I have not yet reached this stage.) And slowly became a fanatic myself. And produced something better than swill, I hope.

But all of this was haphazard. I tried what sounded good, and when I remember, I cut out the labels from the tea containers and glue them into a notebook so I know (if I should care to look it up later) what I have tasted.

I have read what I can about tea, and continue to read, but there is only so much you can learn by reading. Especially when it comes to eating and drinking. So. I decided, "enough reading!" and decided, "drink tea!" What I want to do now is to embark on a focused quest to learn about tea and build upon that knowledge.

The purpose of this blog, then, is to educate those who are interested in tea about what I have learned, both from reading and from preparing and drinking tea.