How to Brewing Black Tea?

Generally, 2.25 grams of tea per 180 ml of water, or about a teaspoon of black tea per 6 oz. cup, should be used. 

Unlike green teas, which turn bitter when brewed at higher temperatures, black tea should be steeped in freshly boiled water. The more delicate black teas, such as Darjeeling, should be steeped for 3 to 4 minutes. 

The same holds for broken leaf teas, which have more surface area and need less brewing time than whole leaves. Whole leaf black teas, and black teas that will be served with milk or lemon, should be steeped 4 to 5 minutes. 

Longer steeping times make the tea bitter (at this point, in the UK it is referred to as being “stewed”). When the tea has brewed long enough to suit the tastes of the drinker, it should be strained while serving.

How To Store Chinese Tea

After the purchase of a valued Chinese tea, the first thing to take into consideration is proper storage.

Tea is vulnerable to four spoilers: air, light, heat and moisture. It will lose its flavor and aroma quickly if stored improperly. Even some merchants make the mistake of using unsuitable storage by keeping tea in clear glass containers for reasons of aesthetics, but light alone can steal the freshness. Also, don’t count on some of the fancy, single-top covered tins which might look great but do not seal tightly enough to be effective. Tea kept in such tins will run the risk of getting stale and losing its aroma, or absorbing odors from spices, cooking – even other teas.

From http://www.trythistea.com/product/tea-storage/

Storing loose tea leaves

Tea boxes

Careful storing of your teas are important to keep quality loss to a minimum. Here are a few guidelines :

1. Use vacuum-sealed bags or containers.

2. Keep away from sunlight and heat. Tea should be stored in a cool, dark place.

3. Keep away from places with strong odors.

4. Keep tea packaged in small quantities as dampness (e.g. steam) can damage it while you are measuring out.

It is also important to know that each type of tea has a different shelf life. The taste of Green tea begin to deteriorate within a year while Black and Oolong teas can be stored for several years with little loss of quality.

Cooler box is a good place to store your teas. Wrap the tea leaves in 2 layers of paper (use a thicker material for the outer layer) before storing it in the cooler box. It can keep the tea leaves fresh for months.

Storing Pu-erh tea

Pu-erh is special in that the quality and value improves with age. The older it is, the better. This is especially true with Green (Raw) Pu-erh. After going through the slow post fermentation from years of aging, this tea develops a very desirable and special kind of taste and fragrance found only in aged Pu-erh.

If you are interested in storing and aging your Pu-erh, we recommend you choose the compressed type (tea cake, brick, tou cha etc). It is not difficult to store Pu-erh tea at all. Here are a few guidelines :

1. Keep away from sunlight and heat.

2. Clean and dry environment.

3. Keep away from places with strong odors.

4. Provides good ventilation. Unlike other types of tea, Pu-erh requires ventilation in order to age.

Lemon tea - good for weight loss, and it's easy to make, just add some water.

Lemon tea from trythistea.com

Lemon tea is good for Summer !
It tastes good but with no calories,

From trythistea.com

It has many benefits like weight loss
How about take this healthy tea instead of other soft drinks?

It's to make this tea,

just put a lemon slice into your cup, and add some water!

How To Grow Tea

I’m obsessed with the idea of growing my own caffeine!  I’m addicted, there are no two ways about it.  And I really love my coffee and tea.  But it’s not grown locally, to be sure.  I ordered seeds last year, but we moved right after I planted them.  And they never came up.  So this weekend, I bought a seedling to plant with my mother’s ornamentals.  As a camellia, it should fit right in!

I thought I’d share some of the research I did last year about growing tea….

Types of Tea

Green Tea, Black Tea, Oolong Tea and White Tea all come from the same plant.  Surprise!  They all come from the leaves of Camellia sinensis.  There are two different varieties of the plant:  Sinensis sinensis and sinensis assamica.  The former has smaller leaves and thrives in cool, high mountains (eg, central China and Japan); the latter is a much taller plant and thrives in the lower elevations of moist, tropical regions (eg, Northeast India, and the Szechuan and Yunnan provinces of China).  There are also hybrids of the two varieties.

Where Does It Grow?

Camellia sinensis is indigenous to China, Tibet, and northern India.  The major tea growing regions today include India, China, Sri Lanka, Japan, Taiwan, Kenya, Turkey, Argentina, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe…. and more.

That said, you can grow it outdoors in Zone 8 or above.  Or if you’re colder than that, you can grow it in a greenhouse or a pot that you bring indoors in the winter.  They’re a camellia, so if you grow camellias, chances are you can grow tea!

What Does It Look Like?

The fragrant flowers are white with yellow stamens inside (above).  The leaves are shiny and dark green, with new growth being much lighter. The fruits are small and hard, looking similar to a hazelnut (below).  The seeds are about 1/4” in diameter.  The sinensis variety can reach a maximum height of 10 feet or so; the assamica variety (think Assam tea) are much larger:  up to 65 feet tall.  So, for a garden plant, you’re probably going to want to go for the sinensis.

How Do You Grow It?

Propagation

You can propagate tea from cuttings or from seeds.  According to the flier I received with my seeds from Whatcom Seed Company: “Sow seeds 3/4” deep in standard soil mix with coarse sand added.  Keep damp.  Ideal night temperature of 55F, day 68F.  High humidity and filtered sun.  Fertilize often.  Ideal pH 5-6.”

Cultivation

Plants should be placed approximately 3 feet apart in a sunny to semi-shaded area.  Plant them so that a house, wall, tree, or something else will protect them from strong wind.  They should be pruned back every four years to rejuvenate the bush and keep it at a convenient height.

Harvest

Tea plants have a growth phase and a dormant phase.  The dormant phase is in the winter, so as soon as shoots (“flush”) emerge in the spring, the new growth is plucked for tea.  In hotter climates, there may be several flushes per year.  The two uppermost leaves and the new buds are picked during each flush.

Here’s the tricky part for the home gardener: propagating a tea plant from seed is like propagating asparagus, rhubarb, or a number of other perennials from seed.  It takes time.  If you grow a tea plant from seed, it can take three years before your plant is ready to harvest.  So until then, think of it as an investment, and experiment, or just a nice plant.  If that sounds like too long for you, you can buy a plant or propagate from a cutting.

Given the right conditions, a tea plant can grow and produce for 50-100 years.  Wild tea plants have been found to be as old as 1,700 years.

Shelf life of tea

There is a shelf life of tea, but the varieties of tea, different kinds of tea shelf life is not the same. Like brick tea of Yunnan Pu’er tea, ethnic minorities, aging but better shelf life of up to 10 to 20 years. Again Wuyi Rock Tea, the next year Chen tea but aroma fragrance, mellow taste; Hunan black tea, Fu brick tea in Hubei, Guangxi six tea, as long as stored properly, not only will not be bad, or even to improve the quality of tea.

General tea fresh is better. Such as green tea, the shelf life at room temperature is generally about a year. However, the factors that affect the quality of tea, temperature, light, and humidity. If you store the right way, to reduce or eliminate these factors, the tea can be a long shelf life.

To judge whether the tea expired, the following main aspects: it is not moldy, and or appear Chen taste; green tea is not red, brown soup, dark; concentration of taste, convergence and fresh decreased, in addition to see if it packaging on shelf life, the other tea in bulk, preferably not more than 18 months and then brewed into tea.

Black Tea

I want to introduce the black tea for everyone.

Black tea is a type of tea that is more oxidized than the oolong, green, and white teas. Tea Ancestor in China, the world’s first black tea from China Fujian Wuyishan tea area tea grower invention, called” Lapsang souchong”. Belongs to the fermented tea, tea is tea leaves as raw material, after wilt, rolled ( cut), fermentation, drying and other typical refining process. Do because of their color and brewing tea in the red as a main tuning, named Black tea. More types of black tea, Qimen tea producing area is wide, the famous congou black tea, and tea is fragrant, in addition, from the introduction of China developed India, Sri Lanka tea is also very famous origin.

Generally, unblended black teas are named after the region in which they are produced. Often, different regions are known for producing teas with characteristic flavors.

Souchong tea is one of the oldest tea, but also other tea ancestor, other black tea are small tea evolved. It is divided into Lapsang and small mountains, all originated from Wuyishan region.