On the Utility of Teabags

Teabags are not the perfect tea delivery mechanisms. In the first place, I have yet to see a teabag that allows the tea contained inside to spread out as much as it ought to spread out during the brewing process. During brewing, tea is rehydrated, and it can expand to three or four times is dry volume. There simply isn't enough room in a teabag to accommodate that degree of expansion, and that inhibits the infusion of the hot water with all of the tea-y goodness. Secondly, top-quality tea rarely goes into teabags. You're not going to find whole-leaf teas in bags, and it's likely that there will be a non-trivial quantity of finings in the blend. The word "finings" is just a nice euphemism for tea dust, and the more tea dust and tiny tea pieces in the bag, the more bitterness the brew will have.

Still, anyone who likes tea sooner or later will have to reconcile himself to using teabags sometimes. Restaurants that serve loose tea are few and far between, and there are places (such as the office) where it isn't practical to have the full loose tea-brewing rig. If you're going to use teabags sometimes, you ought to spend the extra money to get teabags produced by quality vendors. The Republic of Tea and Harney & Sons are two such. Their bags are large, not overstuffed, and are made from unbleached paper (well, Republic of Tea's certainly are; I'm not sure about Harney & Sons) to reduce off flavors. And the tea that goes in the bags doesn't contain many finings. I'd still rather have loose tea, of course, but I can get by with bags such as these when necessary.

Last Night's Tipple

This isn't really a tipple, of course, and I didn't have any last night. But I've taken a hiatus from whiskey on account of a cold that I've been fighting, and I need material to put on the blog. So let's talk about tea.

Recently, I have had a hankering for warm beverages during the day at work. I rarely drink coffee because I don't like the feeling of being wired, and I have been reluctant to bring the full loose-leaf tea-making rig to work because of the mess and hassle inherent with it when done in an environment that's not really set up for it. So I was left with tea bags. The company that I work for provides free Lipton tea bags in the break room, but they make vile tea. I suppose that I have become a tea snob, but I tried them once and could not take more than a couple of sips from the resulting tea. It tasted like cardboard. And so I was left with having to buy my own.

What I was really after was something that was actual tea and that was fruity and gave the impression of sweetness without any actual sugar in it. In other words, a flavored or infused tea. I also wanted something that would not really suffer from being brewed with water slightly off the boil (the only kind available at work) or from being brewed a bit too long. The not-quite-boiling-water part of the equation suggested green tea. The actual tea and fruity parts suggested The Republic of Tea, which puts out a ton of fruit-flavored teas that aren't just nasty finings. What I ended up with was Açaí Green Tea from The Republic of Tea. Açaí is the fruit of the Açaí palm tree, native to Central and South America, and it has gotten a lot of attention recently because it supposedly is extremely high in antioxidants. I don't really know what antioxidants are, and I'm too lazy and too indifferent to look it up. I can honestly say that the fact that The Republic of Tea labeled this as "Superfruit Tea" because of açaí antioxidant properties played no part in my decision to purchase it. What did play a part was the description of what açaí tasted like: "This deep purple fruit has the rich flavors of concord grape and ripe blueberries." I'm all in favor of concord grapes and blueberries.

The tea brews up deep purple in color, and, sure enough, it tastes like concord grapes and blueberries. In fact, the açaí successfully masks the grassy flavor of green tea that I don't like. I don't think that I can claim that this is great tea, but I enjoy it; and it gives me exactly what I'm after during the day at the office.

More Jasmine Tea

I firmly believe that if some is good, more is better. Accordingly, since I liked the Fujian Butterfly Label jasmine tea that I wrote about a couple of days ago, it seemed prudent to buy some more. From a quick perusal of the interweb, it appears that there are two major varieties of jasmine tea: the regular kind, which is just plain old pouchang tea with jasmine blossoms interspersed in it, and the kind pictured to the right. Each of those little balls is called a dragon pearl, and each one is apparently hand-balled and is composed the same mixture of tea and jasmine petals. A number of different sources sell them, but they're rather expensive. I'm willing to shell out decent money for tea, but not without trying it first. Therefore, I went to Central Market to see what they had. They had two different options: one from the Republic of Tea at $160 per pound and one from Rishi Tea at $58 a pound. Shockingly enough, I chose the Rishi Tea version and bought about an ounce.

There is no doubt that this version of jasmine tea has a more potent jasmine aroma than the Fujian Butterfly that I tried earlier this week. That's to be expected since the Rishi is fresh and the Fujian is not and since it seems highly unlikely that the Fujian sells for $58 a pound. However, the problem with the Rishi version is that it's all aroma. It doesn't have much body, and there's not a whole lot of flavor there. Maybe that's due to the fact that the Rishi appears to be made from green tea instead of pouchang tea, I don't know. But it was disappointing.

Today's Tea

I haven't written about Scotch, Bourbon, or other liquor of any kind for the past few days because I've had a cold and haven't felt like drinking. So it's time to start putting up tea reviews!

Today's tea is a jasmine-suffused pouchang (I think) from Fujian Tea Import & Export Co., Ltd. What's pouchang, you ask? Well, I didn't know until this morning, either. The big division in the tea world is between green tea and black tea. According to the Harney and Sons website,

To make green tea , the fresh tea is briefly cooked using either steam or dry heat. This process "fixes" the green colors and fresh flavors. For black tea, the tea is left outside and becomes limp (withered), then put into machines that roll the leaves and damage them. The damaged leaves change color to brown, then black. This natural process is called oxidation and is similar to the ripening of a banana (from yellow to brown and finally becoming black.)

Oolong tea, for the most part a Taiwanese specialty, is halfway between black tea and green tea: it's been oxidized, but only partially. Pouchang tea, which apparently is halfway between green tea and oolong tea; in other words, it's only slightly oxidized. To make jasmine tea, fresh jasmine flowers are packed with pouchang tea; every night, the jasmine flowers open and their scent suffuses into the tea. The grade of the tea is partially determined by how many nights this process is allowed to continue. I have no idea what grade this particular tea (Butterfly brand, ref. 1030, if you're curious) is because most of the text on the tin is in Chinese and the website has next to no information, but I can tell you that I like it. It brews fairly light and doesn't have a whole lot of body. What it does have is a whole lot of jasmine aroma. I happen to like jasmine, and I like this tea. I didn't think that I would, but I do.

The tea was a gift from Mamacita's friend Letitia, who apparently found it while purging her linen closet (why there was tea in her linen closet is good question, but perhaps it is better not to ask) and realized that she would never use it. Well, I thank her, and I can promise that I will use it.

Earl Grey

Unless you've been living under a rock recently, you must have heard the new commercials from Snapple flogging their Earl Grey flavored bottled iced tea. This may seem a little bit odd until you consider that Earl Grey tea is black tea flavored with bergamot oil and that bergamot is a type of citrus. You like lemon in your iced tea, don't you? Why not bergamot? I have not tried the Snapple product and I probably will not. However, I have made iced tea out of Earl Grey tea. It was okay, although probably too strongly-flavored for an iced tea. It probably would have been better if I had used cheap-ass weak Earl Grey tea, but, alas, I did not. There might be hope for the Snapple product after all.

Tea is Still Cool

In his comment to my post about tea, Ben links to a short essay about tea by George Orwell. Thank you, Ben. I did find it both interesting to read and possessed of very good advice about tea-making. I only have a few points of disagreement with Orwell, which I gather is something of a rarity when discussing the subject. First, his blanket statement that Chinese tea has "not much stimulation in it" is overbroad and incorrect. I will admit that Indian and Ceylonese black teas taste more "normal" to me, probably because Lipton and other cheap, commonly-available blends are based on them rather than on Chinese black teas. However, that is not to say that there aren't a number of excellent Chinese black teas out there that could give the best Indian black teas a run for their money (I'm excluding Ceylonese here because the best thing I can say about any Ceylonese tea that I've tried is that it was pleasant). Hao Ya A, for example, is intense, pleasant, and excellent. Second, he says that one should not use bags or strainers of any sort because "if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly". Perhaps this was true in his day, but modern wire mesh straining baskets are large enough to let water interact freely with the tea and to let the tea expand as it rehydrates. In addition, such baskets allow you to remove the tea at the end of the steeping period, which is important because over-steeped tea gets bitter and nasty. Finally, I don't understand at all why one would ruin good tea by putting milk in it. It makes about as much sense to me as putting pepper on ice cream.

Here's how I make tea. It appeals to my meticulous side because it's very formulaic and doesn't leave a whole lot of room for crippling mistakes of judgment.

1. Heat 1.5 L of water in an electric kettle. Some books that I've read say that the water should be filtered, and I suppose it should be. However, I haven't noticed any problems with tap water, and tap water is certainly easier and quicker to use. Since I always or almost always use black tea instead of green, this water should be heated to boiling.
2. Scoop two teaspoons of loose tea into the aforementioned wire mesh strainer. The standard measure is one teaspoon per cup of tea, and my teapot holds two cups.
3. After the water reaches a boil, fill the teapot with said boiling water, wait a couple of seconds, and dump it out. This has the effect of warming the teapot.
4. Put the wire mesh strainer into the pot and refill the pot with the boiling water.
5. Set your timer for 5 minutes.
6. At the end of 5 minutes, take out the wire mesh strainer, empty, and pour your tea.
7. Enjoy.

It's worth mentioning that tea made from teabags is almost certainly going to be inferior for two reasons. First, manufacturers usually use a lower grade of tea in teabags. Frequently, it's nothing but tea dust, and the resultant cup of tea will often be bitter and nasty. Secondly, there's not enough room in the bag for the tea to expand fully as it rehydrates. It's really amazing to me how great this expansion can be. But if the tea is packed in there, there won't be room for water to circulate through it, and you won't get a good infusion.

Tea is Cool

I typically drink hot tea instead of coffee. Some of my reasons for this are negative: I don't like the way that coffee makes me feel, I don't know how to make a decent cup, dealing with a grinder seems like too much mess and trouble, etc. Most of them, however, are positive.

• Great accouterments. Sure, you could drink coffee from that Tiffany Federal teacup shown above, but to do so would be abusive. It's a teacup, not a coffee cup, after all. And the fancy dishes aren't all. You also can get an electric kettle (the better to heat your water with, of course), any of a variety of fancy scoops (horn, bone, sterling, whatever you want -- and yes, a common teaspoon would work as well, but it wouldn't have nearly as much style), and teapots galore.
• The ritual. I like putting the electric kettle on in the morning and making myself a pot of tea. I like websurfing while I drink the tea that I've made for myself. It's a comforting routine. Sure, I could do that with coffee, but I don't really like coffee. Which brings me to:
• The tea. There is an almost infinite variety of good tea available, either at bricks-and-mortar stores like Central Market or over the internet (I like Harney & Sons and Adagio, myself, but there seem to be lots of other options, too). Like green tea? It's easy enough to find dozens of different kinds from several regions of China and Japan. Black tea? Probably even more options. It appeals to my collector's mentality.
• The cost. This might sound funny after posting pictures of $90 teacups, but tea really is an affordable luxury. A standard 4 oz. tin of tea makes around 50 cups, and most 4 oz. tins of really good tea can be had for less than $15. Heck, less than $10. Even when I'm drinking something very expensive like Keemun Hao Ya A, my morning's tea still costs less than a soda.
  

And if anyone out there really wants to give me Tiffany Federal teacups (or Assam or Keemun tea for you cheapskates), I would be more than happy to accept your offerings.