Tea is a state of mind best served undivided. To fully savor tea you must devote yourself to it entirely.
PREPARING TEA
You will need a kettle to heat the water, a teapot to brew the tea and a tea towel to handle the hot objects and wipe up any spills. The teacup you will be drinking from today is a sort of hybrid mug/cup. It has a small circular handle near the rim and it tapers toward the bottom: ample like a mug yet dainty like a cup.
WHAT IS TEA?
Tea comes from tea plants; tea plants grow as bushes. The harvested tea leaves are dried and cured to become one of six types of tea, four of which are commonly available: black, oolong, green and white. Naturally absorbent of aromas, tea leaves are frequently scented. You can make tea from other plants and herbs – chrysanthemum, hibiscus, redbush, dandelion – and still call it tea, in other words, not all tea is made from tea leaves. Red tea is not tea tea: rooibos is an herbal.
Teas are given names as though they were exotic perfumes: in a sense they are. Today we are drinking a green tea scented with jasmine called Phoenix Pearls. To savor a tea completely one must savor also its name. Fujian Silk, Silken Oolong, Snow White, Phoenix Pearls. Even hearing tea's name is soothing.
Rinse the teapot with hot water to warm it. Brewing time and temperature of water is based on the type of tea being brewed. For green teas, 3-4 minutes of almost boiling water will suffice. A good oolong or green tea may be infused more than once, in fact, the third infusion is often the most flavorful. Let's pause here to savor the fragrance of the tea as a bath of scalding water unleashes its aroma.
DRINKING TEA
The first time you drink plain hot tea there is less to it than you are expecting. It is not about fireworks; it is about the opposite of fireworks. Tea is delicate, that's tea's point. Tea is a liquid music for the parched ears of your mouth. It is astringent and will draw the walls of your mouth in with a pucker of dryness. Sugar and honey go well with heavy black teas, but with lighter greens and whites go easy on the sweeteners, they will only obscure a bitterness better welcomed and embraced.
