The summer weather has come back. We have 15 flavoured teas in stock - black and green etas. All perfect for iced tea. Check out the range today.

Blending. Maybe the most critical tea skill. Only a select few are truly expert tea blenders. Most so called blenders I have known during my many years in the industry are just following laid down blend formulas. Of all the tea tasters I have known, my old mate Phil Moody is one of the very best. A passionate tea expert...taster.

 

I was surfing though YouTube and came across this video all about tea blending. From the Lipton tea site. It is a great 5 minute clip.

It is a good summary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CezYHsqzW0w

 

In the southern USA iced tea is a hugely popular drink. In fact 85% of tea drunk in the USA is iced. I've never figured out why we in Australia haven't taken to iced tea in a big way. The British influence maybe?

Right now is a perfect time to make a jug of iced tea as the mercury climbs to 40 degrees C tomorrow in much of Australia.

Easiest way to make iced tea ?

Make a mug of concentrated tea - add 4 or 5 tea spoons of tea to a mug, then nfuse with boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes. Pour the resulting concentrated tea into a jug. Top up with cold water. By only adding a mug of hot tea to the jug, the overall temperature can be lowered more quickly.

Place the jug of tea in the fridge.


When you want a serving of iced tea, only half fill your glass with the tea and then top up with ice to the brim. This is the reason why you want to make the tea stronger than normal when making the concentrate. It is going to be diluted a lot by the ice. And the ice is oh so critical !

Try one of our flavoured teas. Or one of the Breakfast varieties. Yummy. Thirst quenching. And much more healthy than a soft drink. And you can garnish with pieces of fruit as you desire.

Enjoy !

It has been great witnessing the rise of tea - premium tea - in the western world these last 10 years or so. Having started in the tea industry in 1980, I only wish this 'born again' tea thing had happened earlier. But I'm not complaining.

Wonderful to see people trying all types of tea, from every corner of the globe. Even non Camellia Sinensis teas, like Rooibos. In the 1980's my old company, Lipton, was selling a lot of this in South Africa. But none of my non Southern Africa friends had heard of it. Now it seems to be everywhere.

Clearly consumers are getting more adventurous.

But I do get a bit peeved at some of the mis-information that seems to go around. I still hear about teabags being filled with sweepings from the floor. Oh dear. I am certainly not one to defend the large teabag packers - Lipton, Tetley, Twinings et al - but this is a total myth. Sure, they use the fibrous part of the tea plant and dust grades. But sweepings? No !

And I hear about 'broken' tea leaf. And how whole leaf is the one and only high quality tea. This too is myth. Or should I say 'simply wrong'?

Initially a few thousand years ago, tea leaves were dried in the sun...and drunk. Very simple. And whole leaf. Green tea was prepared by hand - as it still is in much of China. It was when black tea was first commercially grown in India by the British in the early mid 1800's that tea manufacturing became 'industrialised'. Black tea lent itself to such a process. Also, black tea is less delicate than green tea, and was better suited to being farmed in Assam in remote north west India, and then being brought down to Calcutta for shipment to the UK many months later.

The British developed a manufacturing process called CTC (crush, tear and curl). This involved a CTC machine - which cuts and crushes the softened green leaf between two rotating toothed steel rollers. A lot of the juices get released. There is a lot of oxidation, and chemical and physical changes within the tea leaf.

It is a complicated chemical process. But the point is this....the resulting teas are strong and have a thick mouth feel. Much more robust than any orthodox manufactured tea.

I like strong - but flavoury, and that is critical - teas. Sometimes I like drinking lots of teas to quench my thirst. And tea is hydrating, has heaps of flavour, and is really healthy. What better way to quench one's thirst? These teas can be a tad bitter for some, but a little milk will offset that taste.

So please, don't believe that only whole leaf teas are premium quality. Think of it more along the lines of wine. White wines, red wines, fortified wines, dessert wines - they are all very different. But they can all be superb in quality. And think of black tea as red wine. There are delicate types, thicker types, and types in between. In Australia we drink a lot of Shiraz grape wines. And the same goes for tea - most Australians, and Brits, prefer thick teas for most of their every day drinking..

So carry on being adventurous. Drink good tea. But try not to be tea snobs. Just appreciate the differences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My last blog emphasised the crux of getting green tea right. Basically all about the brewing temperature. And starting with good green tea leaves !

The common green tea failing in the West is using boiling water, like when we prepare black tea. Big mistake.

Anyway, today I want to talk about black tea. How can one enjoy this drink to the max ? Black tea has dominated Western tea drinking since the commercial Indian tea industry took root in the 1840’s. So lets get black tea preparation - and drinking - optimised.

What’s critical ? Temperature. And good tea leaves. Same as green tea you might say ! Well, in a way…yes. But…

With black tea the water preparation is easy. Easy, but don’t over boil the water. When the water comes to a rolling ball, kill the kettle. You want to maximise the oxygen in the water. And never ever reboil the water. Always use freshly drawn cold water in the kettle - it’s full of oxygen.

Brewing times vary. It really is up to your personal taste preference. For some 2 minutes might work. For most 3 to 4 minutes is good. Beyond 5 minutes the tea might get stewy. TIP - if you want extra strong tea, select a good strong variety/origin. Assam, African or Ceylon low grown tea is gutty. Or else just use more tea leaf. Standard is around 2 grams - a teaspoon - for each 200 ml mug or cup of water. But you can use more if you like it that way.

Whole leaf black teas can be brewed for 4 or 5 minutes and stay smooth. And you can extract a second brew.Even a third if you like the resulting liquor.

But my main gripe with black tea is watching people blowing over the surface in an effort to cool it down. Just so they can get in a very early sip, really soon after they finish brewing the tea. This is a shame.

TIP - let the tea cool down. 10 minutes after you finish brewing the tea. I myself like to wait closer to 15 minutes ! Go on, try it next time.

Brew some interesting Assam, Ceylon or top African tea. Add some milk Not too much if you really want to taste the nuances of a great tea as the milk will dominate. 1 or 2 teaspoons of milk in a mug is usually good. No milk is best with a light flavory black tea - like a Darjeeling or Uva.

Take a sip after 2 or 3 minutes. Then wait and try it again after 6 or 7 minutes. And again after 10, and then15 minutes or so. Notice anything?

When the tea has cooled down to 70 degrees C, or even 50 C, you can identify far more of the taste. You can distinguish between the complex tastes that make up the liquor.

Also, take in a bit of air as you taste the tea. That is how we professional tea tasters were taught to slurp tea - with a large tablespoon, filling it with the tea from the tasting bowl, putting the spoon to one’s lips, and then, a big noisy slurp ! It really works ! try it. Not just on tea, but on wines too.

At the first tea firm I worked at - for 27 years, phew - we tea tasters ended up not tasting batches of tea until the they had fallen to 80 degrees Celsius. This way we could discriminate more between the various subtle tastes, be they good or yucky.

So do as the professional tea tasters do. Wait patiently until the temperature has cooled down. You’ll notice a huge difference. You will really taste the tea.

Tea. Enjoy. It’s all in the taste.