My last post explained why one should not make tea from tea bag. I am going to start talking about how I make good tea at work without hassle. Most people either use paper cup from the office kitchen or bring their own cup to make tea. I have tried both, but none of them really work well. The disadvantages (or advantages) of paper cups are pretty obvious, I won’t go into details here. A normal coffee mug or cup won’t work for me either since I don’t sit on my desk all the time. And as most tea lovers know, some teas need to steep (like Pu Erh) for a longer time in very hot water; a normal cup (especially without lid) just cannot keep the water temperature high long enough.
Then I tried one of these stainless steel vacuum coffee mug with a lid (actually, that was a giveaway from my previous company). It worked pretty well, much better than my old cup. I could roam around the office with it and it keeps the water pretty hot for a long time. This is not the mug I am currently using though. Before I show you what I am using today, let me talk about what other people use across the Pacific (China, that is).
Two most common styles of tea”cup” I have seen are tea jar and tea cup with lid . The tea jars are nothing more than a long cylindrical plastic or glass jar with a twist top. Actually, an used spaghetti sauce jar works just fine. I remember when I was a kid, bus and taxi drivers in Hong Kong simply use jars like that for tea. Back then, there was no cup holder in cars. The ceramic tea mugs with lids are classic. You can see them whenever you see Chinese government officials in Hollywood movies (remember the court scenes in Red Corner from Richard Gere?). Even today, they are the still used in the National Assembly meeting in China.
I guess I have side tracked too much :). Here is what I am using these days.
Nothing really fancy. It is very much like a normal thermal travel coffee mug, but with a water-tight screw top. For making black tea, I can close the lid and let the tea steep for a longer time in very hot water. For making green tea like Dragon Well, I can keep the lid open so the tea is not cooked. In any case, the screw top comes in handy since I like to shake the tea a little to make sure the tea has an even flavor. It is so water tight and sturdy that I have dropped the mug a couple times (with the lid on) and nothing spilled.
I would like to know what mug or cup other tea lovers out there use for making tea. Please send me a picture or leave a comment with a description.
Like most tea lovers, I used to make tea from tea bags when I want a cup of tea after lunch. It does not mean I did not appreciate a good cup of tea. However, I just found it very troublesome to make tea from loose leaves in an office setting. And unlike coffee, there is just no Starbucks equivalent around even if I am willing to drive down the street and pay $2 plus for a cup of tea. Most tea lovers associate enjoying good tea with making tea with gaiwan or yixing teapot from premium tea leaf at home. This is definitely true. June and I do that at home whenever we get a chance. After a couple years of trial and error, I finally figure out some ways to make good tea at work without spending too much time and without messing up my desk.
Before I go into the details of the technique that I use, let’s discuss why one does not want to drink tea made from tea bags. I bet most of the readers of this tea blog is sophisticated enough to figure that tea made from most tea bags taste horrible. This is mainly because tea leaves are all broken in tea bags. There are 2 problems with broken tea leaves. Broken tea leaves are generally low grade “tea dust” that is left behind after the bigger tea leaves are picked. In addition, much of the flavor in tea is from its oil on the tea leaves. Tea oil is easily dried up if the leaves are broken. There are some higher quality tea bags. Those higher quality tea bags use larger leaves with roomier tea bag and/or having individual tightly sealed packaging to avoid drying up of tea leaves. However, I have yet seen any decent quality tea bags for Chinese tea.
In the future blog, I will share with you more about what works and what doesn’t when coming to making tea at work.
It took me a while to think throughly when it comes to market my teas. I don’t have much budgets to market my teas as a small business owner, but I have 200% confident on my teas and I’ve been told by many people how much they like my teas.
Therefore, I invite you Tea or Foodie Bloggers to try my teas. I believe that your honest opinions actually worth a lot more than all of these flashy advisements. If you want to support local small business and love to try a relaxing cup of Just4tea for free, please fill out your info and I will send you the teas.
I received a lot of love and hate comments about my roasted style Tie Guan Yin (TGY). I am not surprise at all after reading reviews and it’s my honor to get to know my tea lovers what they like and dislike on certain style of teas. The Chaozhou (Chiu Chow) style TGY is my signature tea and you definitely need to be very open minded if you want to check it out. It’s truly an acquired taste.
Comparing to other non-roasted or lightly roasted TGY in US or even in China, our family still carry the tradition of roasting and blending our TGY. My papa always serve this TGY to his Chaozhou friends. Gong Fu (Kung Fu) Tea was synonyms to TGY to me when I was a kid till I realized it’s a tea ceremony recently after doing more research on my own. It was a popular tea choice in the old days; but it becomes an ancient tea and rarely any people know about it except older generations from ChaoZhou.
Papa and my brother mentioned that this is not a popular tea as it used to be with a long sigh. Despite knowing that this is a fading way of making tea, it is very labor intensive and knowing that they should have spent more time to market the tea store instead, they can’t help to admit that they both love to feel and smell the teas by roasting and blending the teas. I was watching them doing it all the time when I was a kid and they would get really mad and yelled at me if I messed around their teas and tools. The roasting part and hand blending requires extremely high concentration and they usually shut themselves at the backstage of our store to do the work. They would come out with their bodies full of tea dust and sweat, then they would make a pot of hot water immediately to taste their newly made tea. Like any good tea maker, they would discuss and write down details of the tea features and the differences between this one and the previous teas and the changes of the new season teas. Like wine that each barrel taste differently, each batch of our Tie Guan yin also does not taste the same.
I am surprise when Alex, Martin and Maria told me that they love this tea especially Alex can describe how the tea transformed from each brewing and my jaw was dropped completely. I am proud that my family has been crafting tea for so many years and I intent to carry this tradition to my next generation too with my ridiculous stubbornness.
Since we started the website, we heard a lot of encouragement words from different people. Thanks again for all the support. My sister, Anna Chiu, (a register dietitian in Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong) is so nice that she did some research on her own and send us her findings. I think it is worthwhile to share this with all the tea loving folks.
I actually would like to share with u some info on the tea as one of the functional foods, which is
“a food similar in appearance to a conventional food, consumed as part of the usual, with demonstrated physiological benefits to reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions”
As u mentioned about the reduced risk of Cardiovascular disease with the intake of tea, u could also find out more info regarding the protective effects of the phytochemicals, i.e., Polyphenols & Catechin in the tea extracts.
From: Position Paper on Functional Foods, American Dietetic Association, Journal of American Dietetic Assoc., May, 2004
Catechins in green tea, reduce risk of certain types of cancers, recommended that green tea 4 - 6 cups daily
Polyphenols in black tea, reduce risk coronary heart disease
From: Sonenshein G et al. Cancer Research. October 2007; 67(19):9018-23
Green Tea and Breast Cancer Therapy
World Cancer Research Fund - supported research has shown that a component of green tea known as EGCG can stop the growth of certain breast tumours in an animal model. …suggests that EGCG, in combination with conventional antibody therapies, may represent a new way to target these specific breast tumours.
I hope there would be happy experience to promote the beneficial effects of your nice tea!!
I always carry a huge lime green bag with my portable tea can or big Thermos with Pu-erh everywhere. My friends always laugh at me whenever I take out my big Thermos and pull myself a cup of teas. It’s kind of funny, but a nice cup of tea could lighten up the food especially the grease Chinese food. Do you know the Chinese dim sum restaurant would waive your tea beverage surcharge if you bring your own tea leaves? You could ask the waiter to brew it for you; or you could simply ask for an empty tea pot and some hot water and you could brew it yourself.
In case you already upgrade yourself from drinking low quality of tea bags to premium teas, and you don’t want to waste the unwanted teas in your cabin, here are the things you could do to make use of them:
Tea is a great absorbent and it could naturally absorb any smell. If you have a stinky refrigerator, you could put the tea bags and several slice of lemon peels on a small dishes and let it sit inside your refrigerator for several days. The smell would be gone and replaced by refreshing lemon teas smell.
Got a tired, achy or puffy eyes? You could soak tea bags into warm water and place it over your eyes for 10 minutes. It has a very soothing effect and it take out the tiredness.
Your plants enjoy tea too. When you water the plants with tea, the nutrients from the tea will be released into the soil, spurring growth. most plants love the tannic acid that occurs naturally in tea. Please remember don’t over fertilize it.
Heal rash. Simply dip a towel into the tea and place it over rash area for a while.
Say goodbye to your athlete’s foot (Hong Kong Foot). Just take a daily tea bath and soak your foot in strongly brewed tea for 20 minutes a day and say good-bye to offensive odors.
Speaking of the athlete’s foot, so don’t forget to put a couple of tea bags inside the shoes and take the smell out.
Heal pollen allergy. Simply dip a cotton ball into the tea, dab it on nostrils area and let it dry. Repeat as needed. My mother and I both have a allergy, and we both agree the Lu On tea has a better effect. So I take some out and use it while consuming it.
Make tea eggs and it’s a great and cheap party snack. http://www.recipezaar.com/127310
David and I went to watch “All in This Tea” at Roxie in SF this Sunday. It’s a documentary by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht about American tea importer David Lee Hoffman who traveled to tea plantations in China and imported organic tea from local farmers to US directly. I was not impressed honestly when I watched the trailer at the beginning because I did not think it is a big deal for an American to import teas to United State.
But Mr. Hoffman seems like a cool guy and he could smells the chemical treated teas out without using laboratory testing . Speaking of the old days, coloring the teas are fairly common tactic used among those dishonest tea farms, so my parents often teach customers to identify these chemical treated teas is by putting dry leaves into the cold water. If you see the color coming out from the cold water, this is a sure thing of chemical treated teas. Don’t drink it.
Anyway, I want to check out this movie and see how many tea lovers are out there in bay area. I want to blog about it later and pass around to my readers if I learn any valuable knowledge from this movie. It’s a beautiful made movie and it revealed the artisan tea making process from picking teas in misty early morning, withering, pan frying teas and etc.
The director did a phenomenal job capturing the simple life of local farmers and tea factory workers. We are living in such a rich materialistic society, but our spirit is much poorer than the those farmers in China. Considering their minimal and scarcely living condition, their innocent smile and unpretentious bluntly attitude make me wonder if we need so much luxury things in our life.
Although, I do not get to learn Mr. Hoffman’s magic skill of smelling chemical treated teas after watching movie, I am touched by his passion toward teas and his courage of trying to break through existing rigorous tea export system in China. He also raised a very good environmental concern that the excessive used chemical fertilizer could damage the environment and our health. We all need to learn how to love our earth and we should act ASAP. It’s a very sincere movie and I highly recommend tea lovers to watch it.
I become a regular customer of post office since I launched just4tea.com. I was at the post office last Thursday afternoon and put my tea samples on the counter. The post office staff looked at the sender address with www.just4tea.com on the packages and smiled to me and asked if there are teas inside. I smiled back proudly and told him that those are tea samples for my favorite tea bloggers.
I love to read food and tea blogs especially the ones with review and recommendation on it. Tea bloggers are very passionate about the teas and they often hunt for the goodie and give out a very honest and independent review. I am so happy that my favorite bloggers Alex from http://anotherteablog.blogspot.com and Marty from http://www.martea.com agreed to be the first reviewers to try out my teas. If you read their blogs, they shared a lot of cool tea information and I bet you will enjoy.
At the end of the conversation, the staff smiled again and said ‘See you next time’. I guess he is right, I will definitely see him again.
I am planning to launch a campaign to give out free samples for tea bloggers. Stay tuned!
David and I met up my friend Gordon for Dim Sum at Saigon Seafood Restaurant to catch up old times. The dim sum is very authentic Hong Kong style, but you have to be there before 11:30am or after 1:00pm to get a table. I have not met Gordon for many years since he got married and he is still the nicest dupe ever. I was stunned after he told me about his high cholesterol. A couple of my friends asked me what type of tea could lower their cholesterol from the past and I pointed them some well known herbal teas. They tried it for a while, but they gave up on them afterwards because they are either very hard to prepare or very bitter. For instance, both bitter melon tea (苦瓜茶) and Gynostemma pentaphyllum (絞股藍茶) are primarily used to manage cholesterol level, but they are extremely bitter.
The cholesterol problem never run into my family even my parents are at retirement age now and their cholesterol are perfectly normal. Comparing to these bitter taste herbal teas, drinking tea regularly could also reduce blood cholesterol and it’s more enjoyable. Drinking pu-erh tea is purported to improve digestion and reduce blood cholesterol. It has been shown that rats experience reduction in body weight, blood triglycerides, and blood cholesterol following a diet containing Pu-Erh.
I enjoy life by drinking nice teas and wines, eating my home-cooking fresh food and go hiking, swimming and exercise regularly; I choose to live healthy by enjoying it.
In case you are not threaten by bitter taste of bitter melon, you might like Pan Fried Bitter Melon with Eggs :
Ingredients:
1. 1 medium size of bitter melon
2. 2 eggs
3. chopped minced garlic
4. salt and white pepper
Method:
1.Cut the bitter melon in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and slice each half crosswise in thin pieces.
2.Beat the eggs in a bowl with a dash of ground white pepper and salt.
3.Heat a wok until its surface begins to smoke. Swirl in the olive oil and let heat 10 to 15 seconds. Pan fried the bitter melon and minced garlic around 1-2 minutes until the melon becomes brownish and soften.
4.Spread the melon pieces thinly over the wok surface and pour the beaten eggs evenly over the melon pieces. Flip the mixture over to cook the other side. Cook until eggs are set and lightly browned.
Wish you all have a happy healthy life.
Being a careless person definitely needs to pay off your due eventually. I mentioned the red date ginger soup with you folks a few weeks ago and I made myself a pot of red date ginger soup in my favorite Pu-Erh Thermos the other day since the weather is so cold in San Francisco, CA. I thought it would be nice to drink this soup to warm me up especially my very cold feet. I forget to mention one thing on my previous blog that you should buy the red date with a seed inside it and it has a better herbal effect than seedless ones. The only hassle part is that you need to use scissor to prune the seed out. Many of my American friends asked me about the red date from emails, the red date is jujube indeed, a member of the Rhamnaceae - the buckthorn family. The jujube fruit, which originated in China more than 4,000 years ago, is believed to invigorate the body, increase metabolism, give strength to the heart and slow down the aging process. In China, it is considered a daily dietary must.
After making my caffeine free red date ginger soup, I made PuErh tea the following day and the ginger smell was still lingering in the pot. Well, you could image I am drinking the Ginger Pu-Erh tea a whole day.
The taste is not really that bad and my husband David even joked to me that I should encourage tea lovers to try it out. Anyway, I don’t think the ginger and Pu-erh go well together, but you could definitely try to mix the Pu-erh with chrysanthemum and it add a very light and fresh fragrance to the tea liquor. Many Chinese from older generation know this recipe and they like pair this tea with dim sum. If you go to Dim Sum restaurant next time, you could tell the waiter or waitress to prepare you a nice pot of Pu-erh with chrysanthemum or just simply say guk bou (菊普; pinyin: jú pǔ).
X’mas is coming soon and I will get a new Thermos from David. Hehee.
(actually, that was a giveaway from my previous company). It worked pretty well, much better than my old cup. I could roam around the office with it and it keeps the water pretty hot for a long time. This is not the mug I am currently using though. Before I show you what I am using today, let me talk about what other people use across the Pacific (China, that is).
and tea cup with lid 
. The tea jars are nothing more than a long cylindrical plastic or glass jar with a twist top. Actually, an used spaghetti sauce jar works just fine. I remember when I was a kid, bus and taxi drivers in Hong Kong simply use jars like that for tea. Back then, there was no cup holder in cars. The ceramic tea mugs with lids are classic. You can see them whenever you see Chinese government officials in Hollywood movies (remember the court scenes in Red Corner from Richard Gere?). Even today, they are the still used in the National Assembly meeting in China.
David and I met up my friend Gordon for Dim Sum at Saigon Seafood Restaurant to catch up old times. The dim sum is very authentic Hong Kong style, but you have to be there before 11:30am or after 1:00pm to get a table. I have not met Gordon for many years since he got married and he is still the nicest dupe ever. I was stunned after he told me about his high cholesterol. A couple of my friends asked me what type of tea could lower their cholesterol from the past and I pointed them some well known herbal teas. They tried it for a while, but they gave up on them afterwards because they are either very hard to prepare or very bitter. For instance, both bitter melon tea (苦瓜茶) and Gynostemma pentaphyllum (絞股藍茶) are primarily used to manage cholesterol level, but they are extremely bitter.
Being a careless person definitely needs to pay off your due eventually. I mentioned the red date ginger soup with you folks a few weeks ago and I made myself a pot of red date ginger soup in my favorite 
