Archive for the 'Tea Culture' Category
Easily the most popular of the English tea blends (our organic Earl Grey is certainly one of our most popular!), Earl Grey may seem as timeless as tea itself, but this tea is a surprisingly young blend with a checkered history that few can seem to agree on.
The Tea Itself
Traditional Earl Grey is a blend of black tea flavored with the essence of Bergamot rind, though the name may also be used to refer to any tea—black or otherwise—that uses bergamot as a flavoring (such as our organic green Earl Grey, and our organic Earl Grey rooibos blends). Bergamots are small tart oranges native to southern Vietnam that research suggests are a cross between the sweet lemon, Citrus limetta, and the sour orange, C. aurantium, and the essential oils from their rinds are what give Earl Grey its characteristic flavor. Consequently, the tea often sees use in all manner of confectionary, lending a subtle, citrusy zest to chocolates (like our tea-infused truffles!), cakes, or sauces.
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January 11 2011 | Organic Tea Facts and Tea Culture | 2 Comments »
There is an incredible amount of Chinese lore surrounding dragonwell tea, with each tale more mystifying than the last. Recently I came across one of these stories that I thought might be particularly worth sharing, because it seems to relate to our culture’s custom of giving around the winter holiday season. This story is translated from the work of a Chinese blog writer named 刘胜权, and it goes something like this:
A long long time ago there was an old lady who lived by a dragon well (a type of large mortar). Near her house and the mortar grew eighteen wild tea trees of the type that usually grew in mountainous regions. Right outside her front door ran the busiest part of a street that the NanShan farmers used to travel to Xi’Hu. When travelers passed by, they always wanted to take a break at this spot, so the old lady set up a single table and a wooden bench for passerbys. At the same time, she thought she could use some of the wild tea leaves and water from the old mortar to brew up some tea. It would be a great place for members of her community to rest before making the journey to Xi’Hu. Little did she know, some day this spot would become known throughout the world.
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January 08 2011 | Tea Culture | 1 Comment »
According to the Tea Association of the USA, tea is the most widely consumed beverage around the world, next to water. Naturally, different tea drinking cultures have developed in different parts of the world based on varying needs, tastes and types of tea available in those regions. Today, we start our journey around the world of tea with a look at “butter tea” from Tibet.
Butter tea, known as Po cha in Tibet, is made from churning tea, salt and yak butter. The tea used is a particularly potent, smoky type of brick tea from Pemagul, Tibet. A portion of this brick tea is crumbled into water and boiled for hours to produce a smoky, bitter brew called chaku. This is then stored until used to make butter tea. To make a serving of Po cha, some of the chaku is poured in a wooden cylindrical churn called a chandong, along with a hunk of yak butter and salt and churned for a couple of minutes before serving.
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December 05 2010 | Cooking with Tea and Tea Culture | 1 Comment »
Easily the most popular of the English tea blends (our organic Earl Grey is certainly one of our most popular!), Earl Grey may seem as timeless as tea itself, but this tea is a surprisingly young blend with a checkered history that few can seem to agree on.