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| photo credit: rivertea.com |
It’s cold now, and the go-to caffeinated hot drink for college students is, of course, coffee. However, too many students ignore the bean-based beverage’s leafy rival: tea.
Some people have the perception that brewing loose-leaf tea is somehow complicated and expensive, requiring esoteric materials and herbal expertise. In fact, it’s remarkably easy and cheap. All you need to brew loose-leaf tea is hot water, a tea kettle or infuser and the tea itself.
Most people first encounter tea through the Lipton bag, a satanic symbol if there ever was one. There are a few good tea bags out there; Lipton does not make any of them. The problem with tea bags is that they’re filled with broken tea leaves, and when tea leaves break, they lose most of their essential oils and aromas. When steeped, broken tea leaves release more tannins, a type of molecule that tastes bitter. Because of this, bagged teas often misrepresent the flavor of full teas, and only with loose-leaf tea can you brew full tea leaves. In fact, bagged tea is usually made from the dust and fannings from tea leaves. In other words: the garbage. If you’re drinking Lipton, you’re literally drinking garbage juice.
Fortunately, Wegmans (where else?) offers a nice selection of loose-leaf teas. In addition to tins of varying sizes from various brands, Wegmans carries bins of store-brand tea of which you can take as much as you’d like, perfect for trying out different flavors — a pinch for one serving, or a whole pouch for a year. If you want to venture beyond the store brands,You can opt for Twinings and Harney & Sons. Twinings is great because its leaves seem inexhaustible. You can probably brew at least 10 cups with just a pinch of their Earl Grey; it’s ridiculous. Harney & Sons also excels at the staples and offers other fun flavors as well. (If you’re ever in Manhattan, visit their flagship store in SoHo, where you can sample a wide variety.)
When buying tea, be sure you’re buying tea. Some products out there claims 'tea' but you're not actually drinking the real deal. There are also some who claims too much of a good thing! Perhaps it does contain rose petals, orange peels and even hibiscus, but none of the listed ingredients are tea. As boiled fruit flower water it tastes wonderful, but not a molecule of Camellia sinensis or Lavender can be found (did you even consider the price of what you just bought?).
Now that you have your tea, make sure you have access to hot water. And then we seek the help of a good tea infuser.
A tea infuser is kind of like a roomy, refillable tea bag. They’re usually made of steel or silicone, and have a perforated compartment that you can open and fill with tea leaves. Once you do that, drop the infuser into a mug and fill it with hot water, then let it steep until it’s as dark as you like it, just as you would with a tea bag.
You put in whatever amount of tea you want, and then add hot water. When you pour the tea into your mug, the holes on the exterior of your tea infuser will let the liquid pass through while keeping most of the leaves inside. Make sure you put the tea leaves in first and then pour water over them. If you put the tea leaves on top of hot water, you’ll be just standing there with tea leaves floating on top, hoping that no one saw.
As for the amount of tea: it depends. Tea companies like to recommend a specific tea leaf-to-water ratio steeped for a precise amount of time. That’s nonsense. It’s just a ruse to get you to use up your tea faster and buy tea more often. You just need to remember that the more tea you put in, the faster it’ll become dark. So if you put in a tablespoon of tea into your kettle and pour a cup of boiling water over it, it’ll probably get really dark in less than a minute. If you put a pinch of dry tea, it might take 10. The amount of time it takes also depends on what kind of tea you have and how dark you like it.
Or you can just use your kettle. Whichever may, the most important thing to remember when having tea is that it is best taken with digestives and a good hearty conversation.
Enjoy!
post credit: http://goo.gl/ge7ycn
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