My soon to be Tea Fairy...I got the color right, but I still have to work on her background...right now she looks like a mushroom fairy!
I know tea bags are easy and convenient. BUT, they are made up of the dust or sweepings make for bad tea.
Tea Houses have size categories for their leaves.
There is the whole leaf called OP or Orange Pekoe, which is the best if done correctly, by that I mean allow it enough room to open and move around. As many Tea Mistresses know, there are even better variances of OP. Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (TGFOP) is the top grade. During harvesting the top two leaves and bud are plucked by hand. The bud is actually the immature leaf tip which is not yet fully opened. When harvested during the slow growth periods, these young buds have a golden tip, hence the grade 'Flowery'. When these tips are in abundance the terms 'Tippy and Golden' are also attached. Occasionally the number "1" or "2" may be placed at the end of the letters to designate better grades among similar teas. Similarly the letter "F" may appear before the TGFOP to designate a "finer" grade and the letters "SF" designates a grade of "super fine".Thus a tea graded as "SFTGFOP1" is a Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe
There is the BOP or Broken Orange Pekoe leaves which are good, as they have more surface area exposed to the water, but and this is my opinion only, that the steeping time must be cut down because bitterness can occur.
Then you get to the F or Fannings, they are smaller than the BOP in that the pieces are no bigger than the heads of pins.
That having been said, D is the lowest grade of tea available if produced by CTC (Crush, Tear, Curl, but that is another post) method of manufacturing and Dust if produced by the Orthodox Method. This size is literally the smallest broken pieces left after siftings, sometimes called the "sweepings".
If you want to know if your tea bag is dust or not, look in the bottom of your teacup when you are drinking the last sip, there is usually a residue or dust in the bottom of the cup.
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Someone emailed me and asked how much tea is drank around here. Well, I will use that as a segue into this story and answer it as well.
Recently my favorite Iced Tea maker gave up its tenacious grip on the world of tea and I had to purchase a new one. Imagine my horror when I found that GE no longer makes the Iced Tea Maker. I had to get a Mr. Coffee brand tea maker. The problem with this maker is the 3qt pitchers. Once I get them filled with tea and water, they become very heavy for someone with FM to handle. After watching my struggle with the pitchers, my beloved hubbers came to my rescue. On his lunch break one day he asked me if I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant supply store. That is like asking a kid if he would like to go to the candy store!
While there I picked up my third silicone baking mat, (I now have an exopat, a silpat and a teflon baking mat!) my husband walked over to the restaurant dispensers and picked up the Iced Tea Dispenser shown below. This thing holds 3 gallons of iced tea and it has a slim design to fit into my fridge. It takes up less space than the huge pitchers did. The great thing is, my hubby helps me make the big 3qt pitchers and then dumps them into the dispenser! No lifting for me! I have not put 3 gallons in, just 6 quarts. I like the idea of fresh tea.
Now to answer your question, I hope you are sitting down, I put the 6 quarts of tea in the dispenser Tuesday...I will be making more tomorrow. The thing has enough for this evening.
Please remember my hubby doesn't drink this tea, he has to drink decaf tea, so all of this tea is going in me! Plus the hot teas I test for this site.
Like I said I love my tea!
I can't wait until someone gets me a shirt that says "Tea Mistress", I may actually get my favorite table at my favorite tea room without having to tip someone!
Brightest Tea Blessings!
Saphyre
2 comments:
Rose,
How do you make the iced tea with the mr coffee tea maker? I have the same one but I only use the bagged tea in it. Is there a way to use the loose tea in it? I bet that would make a wonderful iced tea!!! Please help!
Jen
OK, I have a Mr. Coffee 3 quart tea maker. It has the filter that sits on the top of the basket and the swing arm for the water to pour over the tea. I got the 'Carribean Blue" one.
What I do, I never use bags for this, I use loose Lipton black tea for the most part. I have used other types of tea, just not for the dispenser.
I used to be able to buy it at Wlmart Supercenters by the pound box, now I can only find the 1/2 pound box, and I can find them most anywhere.
I put the water like normal into the maker and then I use a 4 cup basket type filter and place it in the plastic basket, I add 4 scoops (It is a regular coffee measure) to the filter and then put it all together to brew. I usually add my sugar to the pitcher so the hot tea can melt it and makes it easier to blend.
After the brewing and the draining, I pitch the grounds into a potting soil bag, but that is just me, I use the tea inplace of perlite in my potting soil, and it breaks down unlike perlite.
Anyway, the water level in the pot after strring I fill up to the 3 quart level. I do not add ice to the pitcher. At this point I dump it into the big dispenser showed on my tea blog.
But before I had that, I just poured the tea into a glass, you can add ice if you want.
I do not use ice myself because I have very brittle teeth from the radiation I had during my cancer treatment, no amount of sensodyne toothpaste in the world will stop them from hurting from ice water or waterever. I usually ask for de-iced ice tea when we go into restaurants LOL!
I normally put 1/2 cup of sugar into the pitcher.
You can make the tea stronger or lighter depending on how you like your tea.
PS, a secret I use for ALL of my tea is oxygenated distilled water.
It keeps the tanic acid of tea at bay. The tanic acid is what causes tea to cloud.
Hope this helps!
Tea Blessings.
Saphyre
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