The thing I like about chai as opposed to other kinds of flavored teas is that it involves real spices not just painted on flavors.
The tea planets were alligned in my favor on Thursday. The same day that Jenks gave me all those teas and set images of iced peach tea dancing in my head, I found my mailbox at home amazingly fragrant. My sister had sent me chai and some chai spices along with a book for my birthday. (Yes, belated. We don't sweat it too much in my family.)
My favorite is the bag of Indian spices. Yum. I used a teaspoon along with two teaspoons of Assam today in my three cup pot. She also sent extra whole cloves and allspice. I bought some whole cinnamon, and I have fennel and peppercorns, so I may experiment with my own blends soon.
Tea and writing are closely connected for me. I almost always brew a pot before I sit down to write. The act of preparing it separates the moment from other moments of the day, and it feels like a treat.
3 comments:
OK, I have a tea story to tell too. About a month ago, we had a bit of time to kill between dinner and the play, so we stopped in at Whole Foods to browse. We ended up with an impulse buy -- a bag of jasmine tea. I don't even like jasmine tea, but this smelled SO good when I whiffed it (at $80/lb, it better be good). It's called Pearl Jasmine, but in Chinese, it's called Shrimp Eye, because they're rolled up into little balls and look like shrimp eyes. Although they apparently look like pearls in English.
Since then, I've become addicted to this stuff. We ran out last night, but fortunately, it was play night tonight again, so stopped in at Whole Foods again. This time, we bought a bit of the Silk Road Pearl Jasmine, a bit of the Tao of Tea Pearl Jasmine, and a bit of the Rishi Pearl Jasmine; we're going to do a bit of taste test.
We tried the Rishi and the Tao of Tea tonight. The Rishi is way more fragrant, and the Tao of Tea has a bit of a fruity taste, which might be good depending on your taste. We personally prefer the Rishi though. Tomorrow, Rishi and Silk Road...
Ooh, thanks for telling me. I like green teas, but find them a little touchier to brew. Seems there's a finer balance between not strong enough and bitter.
Unlike black tea (which is red in Chinese, right?), green teas can be re-infused several times. I read somewhere that there are even poems written about the seven different infusions that can be extracted from a good green tea.
I'm partial to Dragon Well. I think partly because the leaves are hand toasted in big wok-like pans, kept moving while they toast. Also Gen Mai Cha, with bits of toasted puffed rice. Mmm.
Actually, black teas are only 'red teas' in Chinese when they're referring to an English black tea (Earl Gray, English Breakfast, etc). Otherwise, they're called 'cooked teas' (xhou zha), but mostly you just refer to them by their varieties. At least this is true in Taiwan; I'm less familiar with teas on the mainland. Green teas are called 'raw teas' (xhen zha) or clear teas.
When I was bagging up the teas last night, I noticed that the instructions said to use 1 tsp/cup and brew for 3-4 minutes. This I find to be way to long. I use probably twice as much tea and brew for about 1/2 that time, for the 1st cup.
There are all these different styles of brewing tea that use different amounts of tea and brewing times. The one I'm most familiar with (for brewing up a pot of oolong) uses a ton of leaves, but brews for very short times (20 seconds, 30 seconds) for the first couple of pots. Those are the best cups. After that, the taste starts to suffer a bit as you brew it for longer and longer.
For every day drinking, this is not very economical, you can use up $25 worth of tea in one pot. So that's mostly for when you have special company, or if you're at a tea house and you intend to stay for the afternoon drinking your pot of tea with your best friends. Then it's the best!
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