Loose Leaf tea brewing

Buy mine in these little paper bags that you just pop into a cup and pour hot water over. Tetley British Blend. You must have them over there:)-).
 
I heard that it is a good idea to be buying teabags now and storing as there was a bad Kenyan tea harvest which I think goes into a lot of teabag blends.A stockbroker told me to invest in tea(maybe just because he had bought shares,haha)....might be time to fill the cupboard up though as some people said big price hikes could be coming.
 
All this talk of chai wallahs reminds me of the chai wallah in the Beeb comedy 'It ain't half hot mum'. Did the concert party drink his chai for it's taste or, as I think, for it's rehydrating properties?
 
I'm loving this thread.
Living in Manchester I enjoy a pink tea (kashmiri) at Mela sometimes., and being a fighter-kite player, Indian and Pakistani friends would bring me canisters of their family recipe masalas when we met on the continent in competition. On one occasion we strained a huge pot of masala chai through my sock, as french friends didn't fancy the bits!
A fact some may have missed, is that modern science has found that you need to steep tea for 4-7 minutes to extract maximum beneficial anti-oxidants. Granny knew best with her teacosy - keeping it hot to brew longer it seems. I've noticed a pleasant improvement since I heard this and put the saucer on my mug to brew longer (when having a quick mugful).
I've not seen it for a while, but I used to drink a lot of Nilgiri when I lived in Bath.
Interesting to see no-one differentiating between teas, tisanes and infusions.
love'n'joy
 
I'd say brewing time depends pretty heavily on the tea itself. Good quality Japanese green tea can certainly benefit from a little longer to mast especially with slightly cooler water, but I find any more than 3 minutes for a black tea makes it undrinkable.

I've heard you can leave white tea for 10+ minutes...but it still tastes like hot water to me. Or the ghost of tea.
 
Ok so what I'm going to invest in:

A strainer/infuser that sits inside my cup (for work)

A strainer for when using the pot, might even invest in a tea pot for one, to go in my home away from home.

And for the teas...

Some loose peppermint tea (my daily brew)
Some of that oolong tea (not sure which)
Maybe a nice breakfast blend
and to tie it into the topical thread of the moment some jubilee blend from Fortnum and Mason
 
White tea for three minutes is good - but it is the next infusions where the delicate and subtle flavours really come out.

You won't find leaves like these in tea bags!

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Darjeeling White Tea from RTC.

Beyond three minutes for a black tea and pretty much all you taste is the tanin. Tea dust in tea bags is designed to give strong tanin - which is why any old rubbish tea, milled to dust, goes into them - and is what Brits have come to love so much. With good (expensive) tea, we use cooler water, poured onto the leaf just before the roil, in order to avoid the tanins being released.

Tea making and drinking can be every bit as much a rutual, a meditation, a relaxing hobby as shaving. Both take mindfulness and presence along with a caring of oneself, an indulgence.

For those of you who like a stronger brew, the Rare Tea Co's Royal Air Force tea is a highly recommended blend - http://www.rareteacompany.com/shop/1/speciality-loose-leaf-tea/3/royal-air-force-raf-tea . No bags.
 
A tea bag link - some freebies, I think -

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=8fmp9fcab&v=001dd8yjkr0-rAHIAT9IFlPprl4kIiJ-MENdLzUdJLj4Ir0UCY3FH6Z9ncA5xQnkGxrFjRR6BhCkrlP8XEZDVS9y-qLLJ6eY8x-Km_uIWGoC6ynSDS-Coi9No7qOAY2sP6U_-eouyRnR8Q%3D

or

www.cupoftea.co.uk
 
Bechet45 said:
A tea bag link - some freebies, I think -

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=8fmp9fcab&v=001dd8yjkr0-rAHIAT9IFlPprl4kIiJ-MENdLzUdJLj4Ir0UCY3FH6Z9ncA5xQnkGxrFjRR6BhCkrlP8XEZDVS9y-qLLJ6eY8x-Km_uIWGoC6ynSDS-Coi9No7qOAY2sP6U_-eouyRnR8Q%3D

or

www.cupoftea.co.uk
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Very interesting stuff they do...thanks for the link
 
Placed an order with the rare tea company, what a fantastic company, I ordered 2 lots of their sample collection and they doubled it because it went to a military address, as well as putting a tin of their RAF tea in the order.

The best bit was changing the label on the RAF tin to 'Army blend' to save me the embarrassment of having 'RAF' tea on my desk.

Made me right chuckle it did!
 
Frankieabbott said:
I have fond memories as a bairn of the Ringtons van in it's black green and gold livery driving around the streets circa 1966 and bringing their teas to the door. Me kicking my football around in the street and the driver telling me to keep practicing...or else I would only be good enough to play for Sunderland!!!! Happy days.
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Ringtons van still shows up once a fortnight in these parts (Selby, North Yorkshire), they have a great range of biscuits.


I'm a out and out tea drinker all my life, in fact i have never made a cup of tea without the use of a teapot, for your daily cupper you can't go wrong with good old Yorkshire gold, a very refreshing full of flavour tea, my all time favourite with a shadow of a doubt, Tippy Assam, you can get it from Bettys tea rooms in Yorshire, it's the most wonderful flavoured tea imaginable, i always warm the teapot with a swirl of hot water then add the tea, one for the pot and one for the cup give a stir leave stand for around two minutes then pour.

Jamie.



I suspect Betty's uses Taylors tea, they always have it on sale. Very pleasant whatever it is.



Kevin
 
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