Thread: Tea?

Originally Posted by PetersCreek

I call the Lapsang "campfire in a cup" since I grew up with pine campfires.

I do the same.

Another Lapsang fan here. The smokiness reminds me of a campfire and it's always good to wake up to a mug of Lapsang.

I took the family camping last weekend in the Cotswolds and we visited Snowshill lavender farm. The café there was serving English cream tea with a difference: the scone was baked with lavender, and the tea was also mixed with lavender. It was fantastic. The scone was delicious slathered with clotted cream and jam, and the tea was a light blend with a hint of lavender (imagine Earl Grey but instead of orange/bergamot it has lavender).

Unfortunately there was no lavender shaving cream there.

I learned about PG TIPS from an englishmen years ago and LUUUV the stuff. Good straight cuppa with cream n sug mmmmmmm ! Also the Russians are good tea drinkers.They like to mix fruit teas or jam with good strong black tea. And I tell you this.A good cuppa tea with some pancakes slathered with jam and sourcream russian style is soooooooo good ! But then a good cuppa with anything slathered in cream,n jam is good......cept maybe a volkswagon tire or a dirty spark plug............what ?!!! P.S. Speakin of russian tea...Kusmi tea out of France is excellent. They Fled russia during the Revolution and have been making outstanding russian tea ever since.

Originally Posted by LawsonStone

Actually "chai" originally comes from India, specifically Hindi and is the generic word in that language simply for "tea."

The typical way tea was made in India was to boil whole (i.e. fresh from the cow!) milk and then simmer it with the tea leaves in it and add some spices and sugar. In India it is often called "chai masala." When I lived in Kenya this means of preparing tea was the typical way out in the rural areas, having come there through the workers from India who built the railway.

Because this traditional eastern way of preparing tea, in milk with spices and sugar, was so different from the usual English means, with water, and just off the boil, not boiling, with milk and sugar optional, "chai" came to refer to spiced tea while "tea" referred to the steeping of tea leaves in water fresh off the boil, but with no continuing heat applied.

I like's 'em both, but obviously the English style is easier, and here in the US, where actual whole cows milk is hard to find, it's just not the same made in the "chai" manner.

You beat me to it and did a better job of it as well. I love Chai, even though it is a bit of a pain in the arse to prepare, at least compared to the more usual tea-bags in this country. I also like the twinings tea, Bushells brand and the best way to have tea of all, boil the water from a billabong on an open fire in your billy until it has a nice rolling boil, chuck in a handful of tea leaves and a gum leaf or two, pull it off the fire using a stick, pad the hand with a snot rag, grab the billy by the handle and swing it around in a big circular arm motion several times to settle the tea, pour into a tin pannikin that's had some ash from the fire fall into it and bobs yer aunty.

Fair dinkum!
Mick

All this tea talk....makes me wish we could all be sittin round together havin a cup and talkin razor speak eh. Get that Billy a brewin Mick !

Boil that billy...Not get that billy a brewin'. I had a small giggle, but just a small one mind you. And I hid it behind my hand...I knew what you meant though, and it's on the fire as we speak.


Mick

Fair enough.....My err. We need food for tea...Hmm shortbread meebbe ?! Or maybe some o those russian style pancakes .......with a few sausages on the side just because !

I drink japanese green tea practically as water. I usually order first-harvest green tea directly from Japan in a website called o-cha. I'm the official pusher of my office floor. I had the chance to be taught the traditionnal tea ceremony two times when i went to Korea. I'm so into good fresh green tea. The traditionnal way to do it actually requires res lot of skills which i'm humbly trying to reproduce. Kind of linked to the same spirit of shaving with a straight razor.

I also had the incredible chance to received some naturally grown black tea from a stay in a recluded buddist temple in Korea's backcountry. It was the best tea experience of my life for sure.

There is also a particular tea i really enjoy called "Labrador Tea". I come from up the 50th parallel in Canada and the climate here is sub-artic. There's is a naturally grown tea everywhere in the forest. It was traditionnaly used by natives here, especially by pregnant women since it's a really effective pain killer. It is also said to have over a dozen of benefic effects on health. Really tasty, sweet like honey. Probably the forgotten natural miraculous universal remedy for any mankind's health concerns :P

J-P

Nothing beats green tea for me.

Originally Posted by HNSB

The tea I drink most often is Lapsang Souchong.

There are several others that I enjoy, depending on my mood. In the morning I like irish tea brewed as strong as I can brew it. Sometimes in the afternoon a cup of Earl Grey hits the spot. I have also found some darjeelings that I really like.
Teavana sells a tea called Matevana, which is a really nice dessert tea.

Lapsang Souchong, Earl Grey, and ocassionally Darjeeling.

I drink Earl Grey the most. Can't wait until I infuse bergamont essential oil in some unscented soap (thanks for the "recipe" CarrieM) to shave with while I drink a cup.

Lapsang Souchong calls for cold weather sitting around a camp fire. Anyone remember it from Mitchener's Centenial?