The World of Loose Leaf Tea

Okay, here is the deal. I know that there are many different ways to make chai, anything from just plain milk and sugar to just drinking it straight. What I am looking for is some out of the box recipes for chai that I will list on my website, www.tropicalteaco.com. If I use your recipe I will send you a free 4oz bag of loose leaf tea, your choice and you will get all the credit on my website for the recipe. You can send my an email or just add a comment on this page. Well let me know and I will try any recipe that you send.

White tea-like the delicate silvery hairs on the backs of the young leaves and buds that comprise it-is cherished for its subtly and mildness. Today, you can occasionally find white teas from regions outside China, but the market is still largely dominated by the Chinese whites. The following are three whites-all produced in China-that are most commonly seen on the market:

White Peony- Sometimes referred to as Bai Mu Dan, White Peony is a classic. Mild like all whites but with less subtlety, it serves as a wonderful introduction to this gentle class of teas. It is made from the buds and surrounding two leaves. At once sweet and savory, White Peony expresses herbaceous and nutty notes in the cup.

Silver Needle- Alternately called Yin Zhen, Silver regarded white tea. It gets its name from the slender, needlelike appearance of the buds from a special tea bush varietal. Comprised entirely of buds picked in early spring, this prized tea is often more expensive and limited than other whites. In the cup, expect a natural sweetness to accompany subtle savory, slightly herbaceous notes.

Snow Bud- Xue Ya, or Snow Bud, is well regarded for its somewhat greener character than other whites. It does have the subtle sweet-savory character typical of this type of tea, but it also has vegetal notes akin to greens. Therefore, it makes a wonderful white for those who usually prefer greens.

Green Tea

Minimally processed, green teas have been traditional favorites in ma ny Asian tea drinking cultures. Not surprisingly, the nations consuming the most green tea-Japan and China-are also the most prominent producers. Occasionally, you'll run into a green tea from regions that traditionally produce black teas, like India or Sri Lanka. If you're familiar with the region's blacks, in most cases, these unique treats have fairly predictable flavor profiles. For example, a Sril Lankan (Ceylon) green is likely to display a crispness akin to its blacks, but with vegetal flavor notes. This tea should be steeped in water no greater than 180 degrees and should only be steeped from 1 to 3 min.

This powdered green tea is a top grade of Japanese green and is whisked into a frothy beverage during the tea ceremony. Like Gyokuro, matcha is produced from plants that are shaded for about 3 weeks prior to harvesting. Once plucked, the soft, young leaves are processed like other greens before the stems and veins are separated from the rest of the leaf. Then, the tender remaining leaf particles are ground to a fine powder. Intense and simultaneously slightyly sweet and astringent, this is a truly unique green tea. I think it is best as a Latte.

Oolongs

With hundreds of different oolongs made, this class of tea epitomizes tea's variety. And while you'll occasionally come across oolongs from other regions, the vast majority is produced either in mainland China or Taiwan. Oolongs tend to have characters somewhere between those of greens and blacks, with more-oxidized teas being more similar to blacks. Regardless of their relative degree of oxidation, oolongs tend to release uniquenuances of its flavor profile with each successive infusion.

Blacks

Whether it's taken black or with milk and sugar, black teas are the most commonly drunk teas in many Western societies. Black teas make up a large and fairly diverse class of teas, with most tea-producing regions creating at least some of these popular teas. The most commonly encountered blacks are made in China, India, and Sri Lanka. All black teas have been fully oxidized and tend to be fairly big-bodied. Black teas should be steeped in water at 212 degrees for 3 min.

Rooibos
(roy-bus)

Rooibos is sometimes referred to as Red Bush and marketed as a red tea. Rooibos comes from a red bush grown in South Africa's southwestern Cape region. A bush can grow up to 5 feet tall, and its prickly leaves and stems are harvested in summer-which in South Africa is from January to March. During harvesting, the plants are cut so they're just 1 foot tall. When brewed, rooibos is a stunning orange-red color. It tastes neither bitter nor sweet and is often blended with other herbs to create more body. Natives in South Africa add sugar and milk to rooibos, just as they do with black tea, but that's not commonly done here in the United States. No matter how long you steep it, rooibos won't become bitter like green, black and white tea.
Recent studies have revealed that rooibos has much of the same antioxidant benefits fo green tea but lacks caffeine because it's not from the Camellia sinensis plant. Because it comes from the red bush, it is naturally caffeine-free, and also contains only about 5 percent tannin content.) Rooibos is also the only known natural source of aspalathin, a potent antioxidant. Tea purveyors have suggested that rooibos can help with allergies, insomnia, digestive problems, and headaches, but there aren't yet any scientific studies to back this up. In South Africa, rooibos is suggested to soothe infant colic.
Fermentation causes the rooibos leaves to be orange-red in color. With fermented rooibos, the green leaves and stems have been bruised and fermented and then immediately dried in the sun to prevent oxidation. Commercially processed rooibos is done in the same matter as it was hundreds of years ago by indigenous people, with a few tweaks changed due to the availability of sophisticated tools.

Chai

Famous for its preference for combining tea with spices and milk, the Indian word for tea, chai, has become universal for tea doctored similarly. Piping hot Chai holds a warm place in the heart of India. Although it might sound odd that a scorching hot beverage be so widely enjoyed in one of the world's warmest countries, chai actually cools the body. It does this by raising core body temperature above ambient air temperature. But the best part of course is the exotic tapestry of spice that weaves through each flavorful sip.

Chai is heavily seasoned with a variety of spices, such as cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, anise, and clove.

Outside the five major tea types are tisanes, which are also referred to as the nonteas. No doubt you're familiar with chamomile, rooibos, peppermint, lavender, and fruit flavored (blueberry and strawberry, for example)teas. These are all tisanes. When talking about the history of tisanes, it's really more about the folklore in herbalism and apothecary. The interest in these two topics the monk population took during the Middle Ages helped to further the resources available to people, wether they were creating delicious infused drinks or trying to cure an illness. Monks studied intensely in Europe, balancing the transcription of ancient journals about herbs with the actual herbs they were encountering. The Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians were practicing herbal medicine 4,000 years ago. Knowledge later spread to the British, Romans, and Americans. Information was passed on through the practitioners' careful note-taking, and over time, these notes were printed into books. One of those first books was the Pen Tsao Ching (or The Classic of Herbs) by Emperor Shen Nong, also credited with discovering the Camellia sinensis plant around 2700 B.C.E. Locals considered him an expert in herbal medicine, and his book detailed 300 known herbal remedies (which other herbal experts added to over time) and also outlined principles of Chinese medicine.