MetaChat - TeaTalk.

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05 March 2009

TeaTalk. Hey, long time, no tea talk, eh? →[More:]

A few items:

I bought a china teacup that has an infuser that sits inside, and now that I'm using loose tea instead of bags, it's making me happy in a small way every day. Making a single cup in a regular pot just isn't elegant; making two cups means the second cup tastes like butt, and I just don't like tea balls.

Here's one at amazon that is much prettier than mine, but mine was only 2 euros at the street market.

Item the second: Twinings. How to pronounce? Is it "twine-ings" or "twinnings"?

Item the third: BBC says milk goes first, George Orwell spins in grave.

Item the fourth: This just in... SCIENCE! says drink your three cups of tea a day.

Item the last: Alton Brown offers temp. and brewing times for various kinds of tea.

Talk to me, baby. Talk to me about tea.

post by: taz at: 09:49 | 45 comments

So, on Monday when we were recovering from our snow/ice attack here in Atlanta, I had to get a lift to the train station because the parking brake on my car froze and wouldn't disengage. That afternoon, I walked home from the train station (about 1/5 miles), stopping first at a coffee shop by the station to get a large hot tea to warm me during the walk.

I got something called orange English Breakfast tea. It was great, and did the trick. Is "English Breakfast" tea like "French fries," something named here in the U.S., or is it a real type of tea in the U.K.? (This wasn't my first exposure to English Breakfast tea, but the question only occurred to me then.)

posted by BoringPostcards 05 March | 09:58

Twine-ings

posted by gaspode 05 March | 10:17

Yeah, English Breakfast is a real type of tea. It's a name for certain blends of black teas (usually Assam, Ceylon and Kenya). There's also a tea called Irish Breakfast, which is a blend of Assam teas. And I think I've also seen Scottish Breakfast on sale somewhere.

posted by Daniel Charms 05 March | 10:17

Taz—it’s Twine-ings: listen to Stephen Fry pronounce it.

BP: 'English Breakfast' is a term understood in the UK, and I think one can buy tea labelled thus there, but more often it's used to denote 'regular' English style tea outside the UK.

I'm getting into Chinese Oolong teas in a big way. The ones stocked by Jing teas are fantastic.

posted by misteraitch 05 March | 10:18

I don't have much to add, but I am going to admit to giggling at the phrase "tea balls".

posted by richat 05 March | 10:18

I usually have a few cups of tea a day, and never have fewer than 10 or so varieties at home. My favourite comfort tea is yogi chai redbush tea, which is what I have when I am cold and grumpy. I sweeten it with honey and drink it with milk.

My regular everyday teas are usually twinings ones. Either darjeeling or lady grey. I like the delicate taste of them. In the morning I'll have an english or irish breakfast though.

(I drink one cup of coffee a day, at 10.30am. Except on Fridays when I have two, one when I get home from work as well. I am a creature of habit with my hot beverages.)

posted by gaspode 05 March | 10:21

(Lady grey is a variation of Earl Grey tea. In addition to bergamot flavouring, it also has lemon peel flavors.)

posted by gaspode 05 March | 10:24

I love lady grey. So mild, so nice.

posted by typewriter 05 March | 10:25

The RSC endorses no more than a single spoon of leaves.

Are the BBC sure these guys they interviewed were British? Because the liquid you get when you use only one spoonful of tea per litre is not tea - it's coloured water.

posted by Daniel Charms 05 March | 10:27

Bentley's Earl Grey is my daily tea. I buy it in bulk on Amazon (not kidding). I've tried Twining's Earl Grey, which I can find locally, but it doesn't have the same snap to it.

posted by BoringPostcards 05 March | 10:29

I love tea flowers, both for their subtle flavour and to watch them open. Other tea, meh, I can take it or leave it. Coffee's my drink.

There's a tea place in Chelsea Market in NYC run by this complete madwoman which sells lots of tea flowers, as well as disposable tea filters. Diane bought some of the filters when we were in NYC last summer and raved about them - she's a big tea drinker.

posted by essexjan 05 March | 10:50

Twine-ings (the French call it Tweenings, which is cute, but not English).

I'm English and drink very little tea, though I will sometimes have a cup of green tea (fairtrade from Oxfam) mid-morning and another in the afternoon.

I do like my coffee, though I find my mood is much more stable when I either don't have any (though this causes withdrawal problems) or if I have half a cup of the treacle-like stovetop 'espresso' that mr alto favours topped up with water from the kettle. I stick to a maximum of two cups a day (usually I have one), in the morning, though I might have one in the afternoon if I'm desperately tired.

posted by altolinguistic 05 March | 10:57

I'd never heard of tea flowers. That video was fascinating.

posted by BoringPostcards 05 March | 11:05

I think I love Japanese green teas the most. Unfortunately, even the most common sorts (like Sencha and Bancha) are a tad too expensive to drink every day. My daily teas are Earl Grey/English Breakfast (Tetley) and ordinary green tea (Dilmah): I drink black tea in the morning and green tea in the afternoon and evening.

posted by Daniel Charms 05 March | 11:22

I like Snapple.

posted by jonmc 05 March | 11:26

Douglas Adams on tea.

I love love love tea, and make a wicked cuppa, if I do say so. Back home I buy my tea from Murchie's, and make it using a tea sock, three heaping spoons of leaves to a pot, following my gran's rule of steeping no more than 4-5 minutes (depending on the tea), as longer steeping increases the tannic acid and makes it taste like ass. Bitter ass. And I think tea balls squeeze the tea (at least they do if you make your tea as strong as I do), also making it taste like ass.

With all due respect to George Orwell, I (again following the Tea Rules of My Sainted Gran) agree with the BBC article re: putting the milk in first. I've heard this is a class thing. Is that true? All I know is that it tastes better. Since coming to B'ham I've been stuck using tea bags, which work okay but aren't nearly as tasty as Murchie's loose tea. I thought I was being terribly decadent buying from them until I did the math and realized that a pound of loose tea (at around $25) lasts me about 1.5-2 months, whereas a box of decent tea (at around $3-4 for 25 bags) lasts 3-4 days.

Oh, how I miss Murchie's tea. They sell one with lavender and an orange spice tea, both of which make fantastic iced tea. Their Irish Breakfast is a great kick in the ass in the morning. *sigh* I'm thinking of ordering some of these teas to see if they measure up.

Yay, tea! Thanks, taz.

posted by elizard 05 March | 11:48

Earl Grey is my go-to. I have a cup every afternoon 'round 2, which allows me to remain at my desk until 5. Also, it's something to look forward to.

And where's the love for jasmine tea?

posted by mudpuppie 05 March | 11:54

I drink tea every day from about November to March and always have several kinds on hand. This year White Butterfly has been my favorite. I got this tea pot for Christmas a couple of years back.

Right now I have a cuppa gunpowder.

I take no stand on the great milk debate as I never use the stuff.

posted by arse_hat 05 March | 12:06

Oh and every spring and fall, like right now, we have a period of big fluctuations in barometric pressure, temp, and humidity that always messes up my sinuses. I find Peppermint tea helps relieve the pain.

I haven't had any jasmine tea for a long time. I ought to pick some up.

posted by arse_hat 05 March | 12:11

The first time I heard the correct pronunciation of Twinings was in London in at a historic Twinings store. I'm glad I didn't go around saying "Twin-nings" to my tour mates.

I have nothing special to report about tea. I love Twinings Earl Grey and Lady Earl Grey. At work I drink jasmine tea. A patient brings in a big baggie full and we all drink it.

posted by LoriFLA 05 March | 13:13

OK, I gotta ask, what would make (the generic) you think it's pronounced "twinnings"? There's only one N!

posted by gaspode 05 March | 13:23

Probably because I'm not too bright and I always thought there were two Ns until somewhat recently. :-)

posted by LoriFLA 05 March | 13:34

Yeah, I thought there were two Ns for a really long time, too. I think we extrapolate the extra N because that's how most -ing words formed from --n words are spelled.

posted by mudpuppie 05 March | 13:42

"I don't have a ding-a-ling, I'm British." First laugh of the morning. Thanks, misteraitch!

Orwell is nuts:
- Milk does go first, it's less apt to get a spoiled taste that way.
- And cream is better than milk.

I use milk or cream only when I'm sick. I prefer lemon in hot and iced tea. And the only time I use a sweetener is when I'm sick and I use honey, not sugar. And as for tea itself, I prefer orange pekoe or Irish Breakfast.

I got four out of six answers correct in the tea quiz.

posted by deborah 05 March | 13:42

Ah, well if you think there's another N that makes all the difference. I am satisfied.

milk goes after the tea has steeped

/argumentative.

posted by gaspode 05 March | 13:50

You put your milk in the teapot?

/obnoxious tea snob can't imagine steeping tea in any other container

posted by elizard 05 March | 13:54

No, I pour the tea from the teapot and add milk to the cup.

/confused

posted by gaspode 05 March | 13:58

Ewwwwwwww! Blech! Ptui!

/not as grossed out as she's pretending to be

posted by elizard 05 March | 14:04

I thought it was pronounced twine-ings, but then heard somebody say twinnings, and realized I'd never heard it spoken aloud before... and wondered if I was wrong.

I don't like cream in tea. Love it in coffee, but I use low(ish) fat milk in tea because a heavy creamy-milk taste in tea sort of overpowers it.

posted by taz 05 March | 14:06

Once you've decided to befoul your tea with milk, I think the specifics of how you do it are pretty trivial!

posted by BoringPostcards 05 March | 14:06

harumph! :)

posted by taz 05 March | 14:07

heh heh. I gotta put milk in my breakfast teas, otherwise they are too strong for me. no milk in the earl/lady greys or the darjeeling.

posted by gaspode 05 March | 14:09

Oh, yeah. Gotta have milk in my black tea (but put in first, dammit, first!), otherwise it makes me queasy (probably the acidity), and it seems to stain my teeth more without the milk. I also think it does something good to the flavour...softens it, brings out subtleties, I dunno. It's good, anyway. So to you, BoPo, I say :P" and :P" again.

posted by elizard 05 March | 14:38

And speaking of loose tea, does anyone have recommendations for good mail-order loose tea that doesn't cost around $20 per 1/2 lb?

posted by elizard 05 March | 14:43

*makes the French "hand under chin" gesture*

posted by BoringPostcards 05 March | 14:45

Egyptian tea is really, really good. The tea is often boiled into the water a bit so it's sometimes almost black; it comes in a glass tumbler with lots of sugar swirled in to offset the mouth-pursing tannicity. I think it's from Kenya and Sri Lanka. The tea itself sinks to the bottom of the glass.

And then there are tisanes like karkady (hibiscus). Yum.

posted by Hugh Janus 05 March | 15:02

The worst tea I ever had was chai at the home of an Indian friend (in east London) years ago.

Into a big metal pot on the stove went cold water, spices, loose black tea, milk and sugar, and it was all boiled up together. It was vile and it gave me explosive diarrhea. I thought it was just a peculiarity of their household but it's not.

posted by essexjan 05 March | 15:23

And speaking of loose tea, does anyone have recommendations for good mail-order loose tea that doesn't cost around $20 per 1/2 lb?

Yes. I HIGHLY recommend Vital T-Leaf. They have a shop in San Francisco and another in Seattle. The prices range from cheap to really expensive, but they always round up and throw in some extras for me. If you go into the store, you can sit there for hours while they let you try every tea. I even tried one that was $800/lb.

I recommend Ginger Pine.
www.vitaltleaf.com

posted by sakura 05 March | 16:02

My current favorite tea joke comes from this exchange from the fourth episode of "Commodore Hustle":

Kathleen: I have a London Fog...
Graham: Ah yes, London Fog...
Kathleen: ...and a Dublin Fog.
Graham: What's a Dublin Fog?
Paul: Well you've got Earl Grey, I have Irish Breakfast. Also, my tea harbors a dislike for yours.

Or something like that. I don't have the ep on my iPod anymore.

posted by TrishaLynn 05 March | 17:50

This thread needs a soundtrack.

posted by danf 05 March | 18:08

elizard, if you want I could pick up some Murchie's tea and send it to you. I live in Victoria and wouldn't mind at all. Just let me know what kind and where to send it and I'd be happy to help. My email is my username at shaw.ca.

Oh and my favourite tea is chai. I have a chai latte every night at dinner but drink regular black tea throughout the day.

posted by nelvana 05 March | 20:47

I just started having my first cup of Tea a few days ago, it's Tea with a dollop of ice-cream, and the whole thing is really cold. I loved it. It was Cold Tea or Iced-Tea I think, very nice indeed...

posted by hadjiboy 06 March | 04:55

huh. Tea with ice cream? It sounds possibly strangely delicious. But what do you mean when you say you just started having your first cup of tea? You've never had tea before?

posted by taz 06 March | 06:08

Wow, nelvana, that's very kind of you. I've been considering ordering from them anyway, as they ship internationally, but was worried about getting dinged with a big customs fee or something. I just heard from a friend in Seattle who says when he ordered from them (a few years back) that wasn't a problem, so I may go that route. Thank you so much, though. I may take you up on it if that route doesn't work out.

I love the chai, too, but find (as ej did) that if the milk is boiled it does nasty things to my belly. However, I've had some success steeping the whole thing on low for longer; something to do with what happens to the milk proteins when it's boiled, I believe.

posted by elizard 06 March | 15:14

Sure elizard, if you ever want me to send some just shout. I would be happy to.

I cheat on the chai and use a concentrate (Tazo; they sell it in Starbuck's, Costco and grocery stores here). It gets mixed half and half with milk and then I stick in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Yum. I've had the homemade though at a yoga retreat on Saltspring and it was even better. Luckily it doesn't bother my stomach because mine can be touchy.

posted by nelvana 06 March | 16:23

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