Tea

I've become interested in tea recently. I've always been a tea drinker, starting with Lipton as a girl and moving on up to Stash and Twinings later. I've always liked "dust" teas, probably because my first tea drinking was typical American tea-bag tea, which for many years tended to be what was left over when the Chinese and English and French (more on them later) had taken the whole leaves off the top. This kind of tea needs to be doctored with milk and sugar to be drinkable.

Then I discovered quality tea and especially oolong and flavored teas. High quality tea can now be had in a teabag - especially those pyramid bags that allow the water to reach more surfaces. Really good tea doesn't need to be masked by milk and sugar but I've continued to use them even with double bergamot.

However, I bought some Mariage "Eros" a while ago and have moved up a step in tea-drinking. This morning I made tea in a pot with loose tea. The French have been tea-drinkers for as long as the English and they are very particular about their tea. The best of the French tea purveyors is Mariage Freres. One of their most popular teas, "Eros," is flavored and if you think about the French artistry with perfume you will get an idea of the subtlety of this flowery tea.

I used a ceramic pot and filtered the tea leaves out with a strainer. For my second and third cups I put a little hot water into the cup after I poured the increasingly strong tea. I should probably get one of those pots that have a built-in strainer so that I can remove it after the tea has steeped properly (three to four minutes for a black tea aromatic with 1 tsp of tea per six-ounces of water.)