BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 11:36 AM

John...your method is, of course, the classic way to brew tea. Warming a good ceramic pot (I have 5-6) and then tea & 'just' boiling water....not water that has boiled for several minutes, as this removes oxygen and tends to make the tea 'flat'.
The only thing I do is add the fine mesh infuser, as I often make a large pot and drink several cups. Leaving the leaves in, even at the bottom, can make later cups too strong or bitter.... and I forget and pour that last cup and get leaves in my cup.
I do have one pot with a ceramic 'filter' that sits just below the lid, but this requires making a full pot to bring the water level up to it, and it has rather large holes, allowing leaves to escape....unless they are very large leaves- way beyond the pekoe size. I currently have some Royal Golden Yunnan that works well in the ceramic infuser.

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 11:53 AM

I suppose I ought to note that tea is rated by a more complex system than just size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_pekoe

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 02:05 PM

I have a couple of 19th C. perforated silver 'spoons' that were used when the tea (made the classic UK-Irish way, see John's post, above) was poured into the cup from the pot. Any stray bits of leaf stirred up if the pot was handled carelessly would be filtered out by this device.

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: GUEST,Stan
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 02:13 PM

Boiling water on the tea is for black tea only. If you use that method on green or white tea you get a very bitter drink. Allow the water to cool a little first for green and white. Loose tea before bags every time.

With regard to the milk first or tea first controversy;

Tea drinking was encouraged for UK mill workers as a non intoxicating beverage. The cheap cups used would crack if the water was too hot so milk was put in first.

The aristocracy could afford porcelain which could withstand the higher temperatures. Therefor they put the tea in first.

Your preference reveals your class!

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: meself
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 02:49 PM

I remember reading about the Prince Charles's chagrin at the White House in Time Magazine shortly after the incident (see above: Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:23 PM). Apparently he mentioned that he didn't know what he was supposed to do with the 'baggy thing'. Time Magazine made a sneering comment about how out of touch Charles was with the real world or real people, or something to that effect. I was surprised, because I had been struck by how out of touch the White House was with international tea etiquette. And I recalled as a young lad asking my mother what a person should do with the tea-bag, if served tea with the bag in the cup. My mother's response was that if someone was crude enough to serve you tea that way, it didn't much matter what you did with the bag - throwing it against the wall being one option.

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 03:04 PM

I think that milk-tea business with cheap cups is urban (or British?) legend.
English crockery and stoneware cups had no problem with hot water. We use cheap crockery for everyday use, and reserve our expensive porcelain (and bone china) for more formal or guest events, both are equally resistant.

We have silver, porcelain and stoneware pots (longtime collectors of stuff). We prefer the brown betty stoneware pot for everyday use.

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: Penny S.
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 04:20 PM

Lynne, gypsy tart is made with evaporated milk and soft brown sugar, whisked together until thick before being baked in a pastry case, not condensed, which would have a different flavour.

The thing about why milk is or is not first is more likely to be part of the Victorian obsession with setting up irrational table "etiquette" purely in order for people of one class to make those of another feel excluded, than for any sensible reason like scalding the milk in hot regions (the Raj), or not scalding it by adding it first, so the taste did not change.

Tea strainers, the hemispherical punched metal "spoons" (most of the images on the net of old ones have two small handles and bowls to rest in, but ours always had a flat handle and a projection the other side so it could rest on the cup) used to be ubiquitous.

I remember reading a book about Jutish grave goods, in which women might be buried with something which looked for all the world like a tea strainer. The male author put forward the idea that the Jutes did not understand the purpose of spoons, and so made them useless by adding patterns of holes. Obviously he never took tea with his mother or aunts. What the Jutes were drinking cannot, of course have been proper tea.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:24 AM

Loose tea - brewed properly, and drunk from bone china cups or mugs.

Not just at home, but in all tea-serving establishment.

Bring back the tea strainer!

Spokesperson
CamPot - Campaign for real tea.

Subject: RE: BS: Tea Bags or Loose Tea?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 10:19 AM

I buy loose Gunpowder Green tea from an Indian deli. A comfortable handlful of tea into a stainless steel coffee pot. 20 seconds after boiled water has gone silent it is added to the tea. 3 to 5 mins to brew and I pour it through a sieve into a glass cafetiere. I drink it out of a glass cup. Certainly no milk but perhaps a little sugar. Modern pyrex type glass is so much better than ceramic because you get to see how good it looks.

You might like to try this. Half a cupful of the above tea, add a teaspoonful of sugar or sweetener of choice, a drop or two of lemon essence (real lemon if you wish) then top up with carbonated water.

Lovely. I think I'll go and make a brew.