Posted by - Linda Henderson
- Tammy Yenalavitch
- Heather Rae
Congratulations!
As I mentioned in my last post, when I first moved to Toronto, I met some of my best friends by joining a tea-drinking club. The group also taught me a lot. From visiting various shops and tea lounges around the city to attending seminars and events to tasting all manner of teas, I’ve become something of a tea fanatic. Between my shelves at home and my drawers at work, I have forty to fifty varieties at my disposal. But what is it about tea that I love so much?
 The drawer at work… |
 New shelves at home. Oh, look, space for more tea! |
Well, here’s a very quick lesson: all tea comes from one type of plant, the camellia sinensis. Depending on how oxidized the leaves are, you get white tea, green tea, oolong tea, or black tea; if the tea is fermented in a certain way, you get pu-erh tea (while red infusions like rooibos or herbals like lavender or peppermint are actually tisanes, not teas). Each tastes different, and within each type is a rainbow of flavour differences depending on where it was grown and when it was picked. And then you get the fun of combining tea with other flavours: fruits, flowers, spices, you name it. From vanilla chai to orchid oolong, from single-estate ceylon to ever-so-precious (and expensive!) silver needle white tea, citrus to smoky to delicate to dense, I have every flavour I could possibly want at my disposal.
What’s nice about tea is that you can enjoy it alone, curled up with a perfect pot of bancha and a great book, or with friends, at afternoon (or “high”) tea if you want to be fancy, or in someone’s kitchen, with great conversation to accompany it. Tea comforts you when you’re sad, helps you celebrate when you’re happy. It’s perfect for serious news, reunions with family and friends, coming in from the cold, or trying to cool off (iced tea in the summer, of course!).
Since this is a valentine to tea, my constant companion, here are a few of the tea-related things I love most:
Meng Song pu-erh from Jalam Teas
Ti Kwan Yin oolong from Tea Emporium
Afternoon Tea at the Windsor Arms
The Tea Duck infuser
Tea art by Jeff Fuchs
Tea jewelry by CrafTea Designs
So that’s my great love: all things tea. Do you love tea too? What’s your favourite? What else are you celebrating as your valentine this year?
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I really enjoy a good cup of tea. I love Red Rose tea. It will always be my favorite. I also enjoy Earl Gray, Orange Spice, Lapsang Souchong and lots of others. When I have a cold coming on I enjoy ginger tea.
I love your duck tea infuser.
Recently I read an article about using tea leaves in baking, If I still baked, I would try it.
My husband and I are going to my sister’s farm , 2 hours driving time away, and taking her and her husband out for lunch, another 1/2 hour of driving. Then we hope to buy an orchid and take it to my husband’s almost 91 year old aunt on the way home.
I’m starting to get into tea again. It’s nice because its relaxing.
No way am I a tea drinker on such a scale as you. I enjoy a good cup of Earl Grey and Green Tea, but that’s about it. No grand plans for Valentine’s Day either. Hubs had surgery and is on the mend. Oh, unless taking him to the Doc for his first check-up from surgery counts as a date! But I don’t think he’ll like that very much.
We’ll have to put all plans on hold for now.
My favorite is a black spiced chai tea, I buy it by the case on Amazon.
And thank you for the Blazes.
What kind do you get? I love black spicy chai and am always looking for new ones to try.
So I was just on Teavana’s web site. I’m curious does anyone have a cast iron tea pot? I was a bit upset that Teaopia was bought out by Teavana
I am loving tea right now. It seems the more I drink, the more varieties I try, the more I end up liking tea in general. My favorite is a spicy chai – Rishi Masala chai for loose tea, the instant chai that I make at home, and the concentrate that is made by the Homer Brewing Company (two varieties – Alaska and Zen). Second favorite right now is an Earl Grey that I get at a seasonal tea shop here in town. For a bagged tea, I love Yogi Chai Green. And when I want something with no caffeine, there are a few Rooibos chais that are darned soothing.
I’m part of a bookswap site that has a group of tea drinkers. We each send some tea to one of the other members each month. It is a way to try new teas without having to buy a whole box/tin! I’ve tried so many I wouldn’t otherwise have run across.
I grew up drinking tea. In my family as soon as you can hold a cup, a dash of hot tea is added to your cup of milk. It just takes the chill off it really.
I still prefer a cup of hot black tea with a dash of milk over any other.
My grandmother is from Scotland, so I tease that I had tea in my bottle! Although, to be fair, I probably did have tea in my bottle because according to my Gran, it cured everything. I’m not huge on flavored teas, because well, you just didn’t do that. You could have some cream and a wee bit of sugar and maybe lemon if you were lucky and American tea had nothing on English tea. I do love Earl Grey though and occasionally can drink Chai. I’ve tried some of the expensive teas you can get in the mall and they just don’t do much for me at all. Give me a cup of black pekoe tea with sugar and no cream and I’m a happy girl.