Sunday, August 10, 2008

Four steps to a great cup of tea

Did you know that there are tea blogs out there just like there are knitting blogs? I don't know why this cracks me up... Probably because I am picturing somewhere right now in the whole wide universe, there is a tea blogger discovering a knit blog and thinking the same thing.

The tea I brewed today is called Umegashima Sencha. I got a bit of it on my whirlwind and fantastic trip to NYC from a tea shop and restaurant near Central Park called Kai. We had originally planned to have dinner there, but decided on a delicious Indonisian spread instead. After our visit to the Natural History Museum we were in the neighborhood, so we stopped in to buy some ready made cold tea and some souvenir teas for me to bring home.

I will readily admit that I know next to nothing about proper brewing and protocols. I just did what the nice lady at the tea shop told me to do.

Step 1: Bring water to an almost boil. If it starts to boil accidentally, let it cool off before pouring over the leaves.

step 1: heat water

Step 2: Measure out the tea. (I didn't do this at all, I just dumped some out. This is akin to knitting without a swatch on the Tea Blogs.) The sencha is dark green and needly. It has a strong green/moss/pine smell--to my unschooled nose.

step 2: measure out tea

Step 3: Steep the tea. I have this lovely little tea-for-one set and brewed my sencha for about a minute and a half (as per instructions).

step 3: steep

Step 4: Sip and enjoy. This tea has a very strong flavor that gets bitter with just the slightest over brew. It also seems to have a lot of caffeine, cause I feel like I did an espresso shot after I sip a cup.

step 4: strain and drink

(I don't use a strainer; I pour and sip slowly enough that I can avoid the odd leaf or two. Plus then there is no metally taste or lil canvas bag to wash out.)

How is everyone's Olympics going?

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