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Tea - The last great bastion of Britishness
Junpei
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Tea.
"The entire British Empire was built on cups of tea ... and if you think I'm going to war without one, mate, you're mistaken." - Eddie
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot." - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Nothing else in the world quite elicits the idea of Britishness than the humble cup of tea. Cricket comes close but at least tea is easier to understand for people not from any of the commonwealth countries. There are many hundreds of varieties of tea but this post will concentrate on the British cuppa, the Black Tea. To give you an idea of how popular tea is in the UK, we consume around 10 times as much tea in a year compared to the US. 2.2kg per capita annually compared to .2kg. That is a lot of tea, we love it and the rest of the world knows it.
The first thing to understanding and enjoying black tea is knowing of the varieties. While there are around 100 producing regions of black tea, mostly in China, India and Sri Lanka, most tea that is consumed in the world comes from India and surprisingly Kenya. The two most popular brands of tea in the UK (PG Tips and Twinings) are a black blended tea made from a mixture of Kenyan and Indian tea leaves.
Leaf varieties:
China:
Tanyang Gongfu - The king of the Fujian Artisan Red Teas. One of the three Famous Fujian Reds. Very strong flavoured with slight sweetness and lasting aftertaste
Zhenghe Gongfu - One of the three Famous Fujian Reds, with a slight honey flavor.
Bailin Gongfu - One of the three Famous Fujian Reds.
Zhengshan xiaozhong (Lapsang souchong) - Dried over burning pine, thereby developing a strong smoky flavour.
Yin Junmei - A higher grade version of Zhengshan xiaozhong (aka. Lapsang Souchong)
Jin Junmei - One of the highest grade red teas in mainland China.
Keemun - The aroma of tea is fruity, with hints of pine, dried plum and floweriness.
Dian Hong - Well known for dark malty teas and golden bud teas.
Ying De Hong - The tea has a cocoa-like aroma and a sweet aftertaste, one can find a peppery note.
Jiu Qu Hong Mei - This tea is characterised by tight fishhook-like leaves with a lustrous black color. The infusion is brightly reddish and has a long smooth aftertaste.
Tibeti - A unique tea that can also be called brick tea; it is well known as "Tibetan tea" for centuries.
India:
Assam - Full bodied, strong and distinctively malty tea from the lowlands of Assam.
Darjeeling - Thin bodied, floral and fruity tea from Darjeeling with defining muscatel tones. Today often processed as a mixture of black, green and oolong elements, though still classed as black.
Munnar
Kangra
Nilgiri - Intensely aromatic, strong, and fragrant tea from the Nilgiri Hills of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Sri Lanka:
Ceylon - Strong yet light with tones of crisp citrus.
Kenya produces only one type of tea typically just called Kenyan tea, it's generally considered a strong tea with a touch of sweetness, most commonly used in blends. Other producing regions include Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan though their teas tend to be very dark and have quite a strange taste, not quite as floral as other teas.
If you are not drinking one of the above you are usually drinking a blended tea and the most common in the UK are listed below:
Earl Grey which is a black tea made from a blend of Chinese leaves and the oil from a bergamot orange. It has been around since about 1830 or so and is one of the biggest sellers for Twinings
English Breakfast is a full bodied and very aromatic tea blended to be had with milk and sugar. It is a common blend of Assam and Kenyan leaves though more expensive blends will also include Kangra which is a much rarer leaf.
English Afternoon is a counterpart to the Breakfast tea and includes Ceylon leaves in the blend to add the bite of citrus to the infusion.
Irish Breakfast is similar to English Breakfast however forgoes the Kenyan blend to concentrate on Chinese teas such as Zhenghe or Bailin to give a more distinctive sharp taste. A variety called Irish Long Breakfast uses an Oolong tea leaf in the blend which significantly changes the flavour and gives it a lot of vigor.
Masala chai combines black tea and various spices to produce the most common blend in India. It is highly popular in most western european countries but not so much in the UK.
Once you have decided on a tea, the second most important decision in your tea drinking life comes next and unfortunately for you, there is only 1 right answer, the rest are for peasants and other low lifes.
Loose or Bagged.
It goes without saying in the greater British Empire that good quality tea is always loose. If you are brewing tea with bags then you are really letting the side down. Loose leaf teas infuse better to get the most out of the leaves, the flavour is able to be absorbed into the water at a much higher rate resulting in a cup that is as close to how it should taste as possible. I can understand in these economic times that it may not be financially fiscal to acquire loose leaf tea but do try to make some savings somewhere and truly experience tea.
Not all bagged teas are automatically bad, most high quality tea sellers will also provide bagged versions of their loose leaf tea but you won't get quite the same flavour out of it. In some cases it has proven better to have a bagged tea to restrain some of the stronger flavourants, this is particularly good for teas like Ying de Hong which can have an overpowering mint flavour when brewed loose.
Now that you've made these decisions it's time to buy your tea and really this comes down to a) personal preferance and b) tea grade.
Personal preference is pretty easy, I'm very partial to English Breakfast myself or a good quality Ceylon. But grade of tea is more difficult and in fact a large amount of people do not know about the various gradings! Shocking, I know but worry not pets, I am here to educate you!
Here are the grades of tea, don't be discouraged by the names as they don't mean that everything tastes like oranges. Pekoe is pronounced Peck-oh. Generally this is related to the size of the leaf that has been picked, the smaller the leaf the better the tea. Not always true but generally a good guideline when selecting tea.
Orange Pekoe (OP) - A good quality tea, consisting of large leaf pieces. Used for teas from Sri Lanka or south India.
Flowery Orange Pekoe (FOP) - Similar to OP, but used for teas from the rest of India or other regions.
Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (GFOP) - A higher quality tea, that includes the golden tips of the young buds leaves.
Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (TGFOP) - Similar to GFOP, but with an even higher proportion of golden tips.
Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (FTGFOP) - Extremely high quality TGFOP. Probably the best but most expensive tea you will ever drink.
Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP) - Tea with many small or broken pieces of leaves.
Fannings / Dust - The tiny bits and pieces, usually leftovers from processing. Commonly found in tea bags.
So you've bought your tea and you're happy with your purchase, but what now? Now comes the preparation and I'll leave it in the hands of my esteemed colleague Mr. George Orwell.
So go forth, drink tea and enjoy it.
And for the Queens sake stop throwing into the harbour!
Thread also known as words words words words
"The entire British Empire was built on cups of tea ... and if you think I'm going to war without one, mate, you're mistaken." - Eddie
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot." - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Nothing else in the world quite elicits the idea of Britishness than the humble cup of tea. Cricket comes close but at least tea is easier to understand for people not from any of the commonwealth countries. There are many hundreds of varieties of tea but this post will concentrate on the British cuppa, the Black Tea. To give you an idea of how popular tea is in the UK, we consume around 10 times as much tea in a year compared to the US. 2.2kg per capita annually compared to .2kg. That is a lot of tea, we love it and the rest of the world knows it.
The first thing to understanding and enjoying black tea is knowing of the varieties. While there are around 100 producing regions of black tea, mostly in China, India and Sri Lanka, most tea that is consumed in the world comes from India and surprisingly Kenya. The two most popular brands of tea in the UK (PG Tips and Twinings) are a black blended tea made from a mixture of Kenyan and Indian tea leaves.
Leaf varieties:
China:
Tanyang Gongfu - The king of the Fujian Artisan Red Teas. One of the three Famous Fujian Reds. Very strong flavoured with slight sweetness and lasting aftertaste
Zhenghe Gongfu - One of the three Famous Fujian Reds, with a slight honey flavor.
Bailin Gongfu - One of the three Famous Fujian Reds.
Zhengshan xiaozhong (Lapsang souchong) - Dried over burning pine, thereby developing a strong smoky flavour.
Yin Junmei - A higher grade version of Zhengshan xiaozhong (aka. Lapsang Souchong)
Jin Junmei - One of the highest grade red teas in mainland China.
Keemun - The aroma of tea is fruity, with hints of pine, dried plum and floweriness.
Dian Hong - Well known for dark malty teas and golden bud teas.
Ying De Hong - The tea has a cocoa-like aroma and a sweet aftertaste, one can find a peppery note.
Jiu Qu Hong Mei - This tea is characterised by tight fishhook-like leaves with a lustrous black color. The infusion is brightly reddish and has a long smooth aftertaste.
Tibeti - A unique tea that can also be called brick tea; it is well known as "Tibetan tea" for centuries.
India:
Assam - Full bodied, strong and distinctively malty tea from the lowlands of Assam.
Darjeeling - Thin bodied, floral and fruity tea from Darjeeling with defining muscatel tones. Today often processed as a mixture of black, green and oolong elements, though still classed as black.
Munnar
Kangra
Nilgiri - Intensely aromatic, strong, and fragrant tea from the Nilgiri Hills of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Sri Lanka:
Ceylon - Strong yet light with tones of crisp citrus.
Kenya produces only one type of tea typically just called Kenyan tea, it's generally considered a strong tea with a touch of sweetness, most commonly used in blends. Other producing regions include Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan though their teas tend to be very dark and have quite a strange taste, not quite as floral as other teas.
If you are not drinking one of the above you are usually drinking a blended tea and the most common in the UK are listed below:
Earl Grey which is a black tea made from a blend of Chinese leaves and the oil from a bergamot orange. It has been around since about 1830 or so and is one of the biggest sellers for Twinings
English Breakfast is a full bodied and very aromatic tea blended to be had with milk and sugar. It is a common blend of Assam and Kenyan leaves though more expensive blends will also include Kangra which is a much rarer leaf.
English Afternoon is a counterpart to the Breakfast tea and includes Ceylon leaves in the blend to add the bite of citrus to the infusion.
Irish Breakfast is similar to English Breakfast however forgoes the Kenyan blend to concentrate on Chinese teas such as Zhenghe or Bailin to give a more distinctive sharp taste. A variety called Irish Long Breakfast uses an Oolong tea leaf in the blend which significantly changes the flavour and gives it a lot of vigor.
Masala chai combines black tea and various spices to produce the most common blend in India. It is highly popular in most western european countries but not so much in the UK.
Once you have decided on a tea, the second most important decision in your tea drinking life comes next and unfortunately for you, there is only 1 right answer, the rest are for peasants and other low lifes.
Loose or Bagged.
It goes without saying in the greater British Empire that good quality tea is always loose. If you are brewing tea with bags then you are really letting the side down. Loose leaf teas infuse better to get the most out of the leaves, the flavour is able to be absorbed into the water at a much higher rate resulting in a cup that is as close to how it should taste as possible. I can understand in these economic times that it may not be financially fiscal to acquire loose leaf tea but do try to make some savings somewhere and truly experience tea.
Not all bagged teas are automatically bad, most high quality tea sellers will also provide bagged versions of their loose leaf tea but you won't get quite the same flavour out of it. In some cases it has proven better to have a bagged tea to restrain some of the stronger flavourants, this is particularly good for teas like Ying de Hong which can have an overpowering mint flavour when brewed loose.
Now that you've made these decisions it's time to buy your tea and really this comes down to a) personal preferance and b) tea grade.
Personal preference is pretty easy, I'm very partial to English Breakfast myself or a good quality Ceylon. But grade of tea is more difficult and in fact a large amount of people do not know about the various gradings! Shocking, I know but worry not pets, I am here to educate you!
Here are the grades of tea, don't be discouraged by the names as they don't mean that everything tastes like oranges. Pekoe is pronounced Peck-oh. Generally this is related to the size of the leaf that has been picked, the smaller the leaf the better the tea. Not always true but generally a good guideline when selecting tea.
Orange Pekoe (OP) - A good quality tea, consisting of large leaf pieces. Used for teas from Sri Lanka or south India.
Flowery Orange Pekoe (FOP) - Similar to OP, but used for teas from the rest of India or other regions.
Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (GFOP) - A higher quality tea, that includes the golden tips of the young buds leaves.
Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (TGFOP) - Similar to GFOP, but with an even higher proportion of golden tips.
Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (FTGFOP) - Extremely high quality TGFOP. Probably the best but most expensive tea you will ever drink.
Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP) - Tea with many small or broken pieces of leaves.
Fannings / Dust - The tiny bits and pieces, usually leftovers from processing. Commonly found in tea bags.
So you've bought your tea and you're happy with your purchase, but what now? Now comes the preparation and I'll leave it in the hands of my esteemed colleague Mr. George Orwell.
George Orwell wrote:If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:
First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.
So go forth, drink tea and enjoy it.
And for the Queens sake stop throwing into the harbour!
Junpei on
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Posts
I think they're made up.
Satans..... hints.....
Afternoon tea is quite nice too but not as flavoursome. Which is the entire point, but it means I tend to drink Breakfast in the afternoon too. SHOCKING
And for that, we thank it!
As I'm sure, @Liiya will agree with me.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
I don't even know what kind of tea I drink.
I think it comes in like, gold foil bags from Marks and Spencers, because that's my mum's favourite, or something.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Ed, I can't let her take over the world before me. I know her weakness and I will use it.
Any way, as I said do not order sweet tea unless you are south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
You mad fool, you've escalated this battle to a level where I will be unable to help you
You will reap the whirlwind
but basically I can never be fucked. Also Caffeine is not very good for me.
Although the girls at work are always offering to make me some tea so maybe I'll take in a box of English Breakfast and start having one in the morning.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
I laughed.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I drank so much tea when I was at work. It got to the point that people would just bring me back a cup because I always wanted one
Admittedly I brought in milk most of the time but I always felt everyone else did more for the noble tea break than I did
I have a robot that shoots tornadoes, I fear nothing.
Covered in bees
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Satans..... hints.....
14 years old?
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Satans..... hints.....