a teapot and friendly tea talk

why not a Disney teapot?

Visiting family is often a pleasure, and even more so if members of your family are tea drinkers. I wrote about my tea party with Amelia last year about this time. Although we've enjoyed some prodigious tea drinking hereabouts, the home I'm visiting was sorely lacking a proper teapot. Well, until today that is.

Some of you might view a Snow White teapot with a bit of suspicion. 'Is that really a proper teapot?' you're asking yourself. Well, of course it is. And all the more appealing to the little girls new to tea. Hence the design. I've actually made pot after pot of tea in it today. This teapot has been christened and then some.

Oh, there was a relatively small article in the New York Times yesterday entitled Flying as a Time for Sleep, Or Friendly Tea Talk about David DeCandia, who's a master blender for Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. It was an article near to my heart, because it's ostensibly about tea, but deals with periphery topics and draws them in.

In case you can't (or don't want to) get behind the Times pay wall, I'll include my favourite part of it. He's talking about travelling in general and in tea growing regions in particular. Here's what he says:

'A great seatmate is anyone who lets me sleep. That doesn't mean I don't talk to people, on occasion. I'm a friendly guy, and it's always fun to talk to people about tea...I drink about 20 to 25 cups a day. People are very well informed about tea, and aren't opposed to trying new types. So if someone asks me for a recommendation, I'm happy to give them some suggestions. 
Then there are those seat-mates I wish I never spoke with. 
I sat next to one gentleman recently who would not shut up. He was older, and I wanted to be polite...'

Really love this. As a rule I'm polite but curt with people sitting next to me on the plane (or the train, but that's somehow different). But flying from Germany recently, I had a fantastic experience where my seat-mate and I talked nearly the whole flight. It wasn't planned or anything. We simply had a lot of common interests, and one thing led to another and there we were at our destination.

Goes to show: you really don't know what's going to happen next. I could've been a jerk, and said, 'I really want to read my book,' and missed out on a fantastic connection.

Am really glad I didn't do that.

it's not a tea problem, it's a Darjeeling problem

a kilo of the good stuff

A while back I talked about how impressed I was with Günter Faltin and his Teekampagne. Actually, in the US it's called the Boston Tea Campaign, and I wrote about it in tea entrepreneur. While I promised I'd come back to the topic, I couldn't talk about it in any way but theoretically. The unavoidable truth was that I'd not had the tea. No matter how good it might be, I couldn't say so without personal experience.

The thing is I have quite a bit of Darjeeling in my possession. People know this stuff is my weakness, so they send it to me. Even when I already have plenty of Darjeeling, the thought of more increases my heart rate and I'm pretty sure my eyes even dilate. I don't have a tea problem. I have a Darjeeling problem.

That's why as excited as I might be about this extraordinary company, the thought of actually going out of my way to get this stuff was really impractical. Just didn't make any sense. That is until my friend Dermot reminded me that he's been ordering this tea for nearly as long as they've been sending it. If you want to know about the Boston Tea Campaign, go take a look at their American website. Really, go check it out. The vision as well as the history of this organisation is very well explained.

Decided to take this opportunity to do a very informal interview with Dermot and ask him how he learned about Teekampagne, as well as some other tea-related things that you might enjoy reading. It's not a very German name my friend has. If you guessed that he was Irish, you'd be right. You've likely heard this, but the Irish drink a lot of tea.

His description of how tea was prepared when he was a child in Ireland would make some of you tea obsessives recoil in horror, but we have to go there. This teablog doesn't just deal with the light and pretty aspects of tea. When it's ugly, I intend to show it in all of its gory detail. If you're sensitive about steep times and such matters, you may want to avert your eyes right now.

It's actually very simple really. Add tea leaves and boiling water to teapot, let it steep, and then drink the tea till it's gone. Don't take the leaves out. They stay in the pot to the bitter end. Literally.

I asked him if the tea was a sludgy abomination by the end of the pot, he insisted that no. It never took that long to finish said pot of tea. That made sense. Not so gory. Those who looked away can come back now.

How did Dermot learn about this source of Darjeeling goodness? He said he moved into a Wohngemeinschaft (shared flat) years ago, and that they already ordered their tea from Teekampagne. Even when he moved away, his taste for this stuff had developed.

Evidently, he has a tea problem, as well.

He told a funny story about going to his doctor years ago, and devising which medications he could take while still drinking coffee. He came to the conclusion that it was easier just to switch to drinking this above-average Darjeeling than have to worry about duelling medications.

He insisted that what he liked most at the outset was Teekampagne's economical price and convenience. If it'd cost more for the fair-trade status, he truly doubted that he'd have become such a loyal customer. I got the impression that only later he realised that the quality of the tea was so noteworthy.

What about the fact that the tea changes from year to year? That each season's tea really has it's own character? 

He smiled from ear to ear, and assured me that that was in fact the very best part.

overly satisfied customer

basic tea gear for a tea newcomer

Several weeks ago, I received a question from someone new to my blog.  It was just a general 'What's the best way to brew this stuff?' question, but my heart sank a bit when she indicated that she, her name's Elizabeth, only had teabags and really only wanted to brew up a cup at a time.

Nothing wrong with that, despite what Robert Godden might tell you, but once you've really been convinced about loose-leaf tea, it's difficult to get excited about teabags.  I've been suitably polite about how some teabags from some brands aren't that bad, but even I have a hard time actually believing it most of the time.

Today, I got another question from Elizabeth.  It was more along the lines of, 'How do I get into tea?'  Which really means, 'What sort of stuff do I need to do this right?'

I'm going to keep this blogpost as short as I can.  I 'd like to keep it as simple as possible.  One of the things I try to do with this blog is to pass exactly this sort of information on to people relatively new to tea.  Well, loose-leaf tea especially.

Firstly, I'll ask you loyal readers how you'd answer this question.  How would you introduce drinking tea brewed from whole leaf?

I use filter bags quite a lot.  Especially when I travel.  And I like to have them around for everyday use.  Especially with most black tea, I don't think it really matters.

But with any whole leaf tea, some enjoy watching the full leaves open up as they steep almost as much as they like actually drinking the tea.  For that, a glass teapot where the leaves can swim around freely would be ideal.  If you don't already have one, I'm not sure I'd recommend going out and getting one.

Let's make sure you like this tea drinking lark first, ok?

So my advice is to get a Finum Brewing Basket. The largest size is ideal because then you can make both smaller and larger amounts.  There are certainly other brands.  This is simply the one I know.  And I'd get that permanent tea filter basket first before choosing a teapot.  Just to make sure they fit one another.

Here's my Finum Brewing Basket

And what sort of pot?  I don't know what the rest of you think about this, but the simplest ceramic pot should be good for starting out.  Why not?

I'm sure you can find a Brown Betty or something similar from a variety of sources.  I'm not a teapot fanatic, so maybe one of the rest of you has better advice for this question.

Ok Elizabeth, once you have a few basic pieces of tea gear, we'll move on to the actual tea.  Curious how easy this is for you specifically and if anyone else reading this has additional ideas generally.

layers of leftover tea

See that orange flask over on the right there? Got back last weekend from several weeks on the road, and that flask served me well. Quite well.

There was a patina left over from all that tea, and I was faced with a dilemma. Many people believe you never clean a teapot. That the caked on remains of earlier tea supposedly enhances your newly brewed tea. Ok, I'm still undecided on this, but that's a teapot. What about a thermos? Is it the same thing?

I've used different products on the German market and good old vinegar is sometimes the most effective at taking away the old tea. But once again, is cleaning my teapot or my flask actually hurting the taste of my tea?

Do you clean your teapot? With what?