Tea Tastings

Please be aware of my giveaway still going on.  You can read about how to enter here.

Recently I reread this book on tea that I got a few years ago – The Tea Companion by Jane Pettigrew.

I have become obsessed with good tea.  I am a tea connoisseur in the making.

See, I used to be a pot-a-day coffee drinker.  Seriously, if I didn’t have a half a pot by noon, I developed a migraine.  I was that severally addicted to the stuff.

And then I had real tea.

I’m not talking the kind that is wrapped in gauze and hangs by a string on the side of your cup.  I’m talking about loose leaf tea.  The kind you put in a pot with a filter and steep at just the right temperature and then pour into your cup.

Big difference.

I thought it might be fun to document some of the new teas I’m trying.  Thus the new section of my blog -Tea Tastings.

First let me introduce you to tea.

You might be interested to know that all tea – green, black, oolong, and white teas are all made from the same plant – the Camellia sinensis bush and the difference in taste, color or style comes about on how the tea is processed (by climate, soil, altitude, conditions, when and how it is plucked and processed, or the blending, packaging, transportation and storage of the tea.

The bush has dark green shiny leaves and small white flowers.

Most people are familiar with the tea inside their teabag – in the past that would typically have been black tea – like Lipton tea bags.   Black tea is actually the most processed, actually using four processing steps to make the tea.  This includes, withering, rolling, fermenting and firing of the leaves.  The firing results in a darker, blacker tea – thus black tea.

Other continents have been huge tea drinkers in the past.  The tea phenomenon has just recently began to creep its way across the United States.  Tea is currently the most drunk beverage besides water and the tea industry is growing by billions each year.

Yes, I may be a bit obsessed, but I truly do love the stuff.