Author: Lani and Norm

I enjoy learning and sharing that knowledge. Sharing has been in many forms over the years, as a teaching assistant, university lecturer, Pilates instructor, math tutor and just sharing with friends and family. Throughout, summarizing what I have learnt in words has always been there and continues to through blog posts, articles, video and the ever growing forms of content out there!
Drinks Recipes Tea

How to make iced tea from lose leaf tea

cold brew
How do you make iced tea?
Estimated read time 6 min read

When you hear someone speak of tea you normally think of the hot drink and that hot drink comes in the form of bags or leaves. In the warmer season we don’t reach for a cup of hot tea. It’s more cool drinks, such as lemonade, soft drinks, iced coffee and iced tea. But when we think of iced tea, we don’t immediately think of tea bags, loose leaf tea, tea infusers and all the other fun accessories we associate with hot tea. We think of, iced tea, a golden coloured sugary drink in a glass pitcher with ice cubes floating in it and maybe some lemons or other things floating around that look summery. But how does that golden coloured drink get into the picture? Well, first it doesn’t always have to be sugary, nor does it always have to have summery things floating around in it. Nothing has to float in it. I came across three different ways to make iced tea.

Reference Tea

What is the tea tasting wheel?

Tea tasting wheel
tea wheel
Estimated read time 2 min read

Part of the Tea 101 course with the Academy of Tea, Canada, was the tea tasting portion. It’s hard to describe the flavour and aroma of a tea with a vocabulary. All teas taste the same, almost, unless they are very distinct. But even then, the words aren’t always there to describe the taste. This tea tasting wheel was mentioned during the course and it’s great. It gives a words to all those flavours your’re tasting and if not, then at least it gets you thinking along the lines of the flavours you’re tasting. Sweet just is sweet until you are reminded of the flavour of candy, burnt sugar, molasses, caramel, malty candies and more. Now you start thinking about caramelized sugars, and onions and more. You’d never think of smokey as a taste until it’s brought to your attention then you think of bbq’s, the ashy taste you get from a burnt bbq’d marshmallow. This wheel is great a tool when starting out on tea tasting.

Reference Tea

A brief and easy overview of tea grades

tea grades
Estimated read time 7 min read

The tea grading system is very inconsistent and not used in every country the produces tea. The criteria for grading tea is by the dry leaf, not taste or anything intuitive like that. Tea is divided into two categories, broken leaf grades and leaf grades. For example, when there is a “B” associated with a tea it is referring to the tea leaves and in this case means that smaller pieces of leaves are used. This means that there is a greater surface area of leaf to water implying a stronger brewed tea.

Reference Tea

The history of tea is millennia old. Read to learn more.

history of tea
Estimated read time 6 min read

One idea of how tea began was through Emperor Shen Nong in 2737BC. Apparently, he was boiling water; there was a breeze; it blew a few leaves into his pot of boiling water; the leaves brewed; a coloured liquor with a fragrant aroma formed. He tasted it. Like it. Tea was born. The tree the leaves came from were the first wild tea plant.

Reference Tea

What are different types of tea out there?

pu'erh
pu'erh
Estimated read time 5 min read

The white tea is the rarest and most exotic tea. It comes from the finest and youngest shoots of the Camellia sinensis plant. It is handpicked at the beginning of the season and the leaves or shoots used to brew this tea are very fine, silvery haired, almost fuzzy. The origin of this tea is from the Fujian province in China but can also be found from Sri Lanka, Kenya and the Darjeeling region of India. The leaves, once picked, are sun dried, gently steamed, oven dried at a low temperature of about 40C to remove all the water content and prevent oxidation. The flavour of the white tea is smooth, light and peachy, almost buttery with a slight sweetness. More can be found on White tea in a previous post.