Some people are just practical. I know this, I have friends who are. They always have tissues on them, they remember the safe places where they’ve put important document and they tend to put the lids back on things before they knock them over. I am not one of these people. So when I come up with a practical solution to a problem it’s cause for much celebration and publication on the internet.
My problem was caused by my love of two things. Loose leaf tea and pretty tea pots.
I have never found a tea infuser that works reliably and a lot of them won’t fit in to some of my pots. I have a tea strainer but you have to drink the entire pot at mouth scalding speed otherwise the last cup is hideously over steeped. I could buy one of those wonderful infuser tea pots but I’m poor and I don’t want to be limited to just the one pot.
The it came to me, the two pot method. You need two tea pots or you could even use a saucepan in place of one. Boil the kettle and fill the pot you want to serve the tea in with boiling water. Place the tea leaves in your other vessel and pour the water from your serving pot over them. Leave to brew for the perfect amount of time and then pour back in to your original pot through a tea strainer or a sieve if you’ve not got one.
Voilà!
You have a pre-warmed pot for your tea, the water has been cooled slightly from boiling so you don’t scald your leaves and you don’t need to worry about the tea over brewing. I am clearly a genius.
I know there will be simpler, more elegant and just generally better solutions to my problem that involve far less splashing about with boiling water but where’s the fun in that?
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My only concern with this is cooling the water too much from pouring it back and forth – and, well, my laziness. There are strainers you can place on the top of a tea cup to catch any loose leaves as you serve tea – this might be a bit more practical? You can just use the strainer for each cup, or buy several strainers. Either way, it is win!
I use a metal infuser that fits in the tea pot I already had. It wasn’t expensive and it tastes fine to me, though I probably should find a ceramic or glass one. I also tend to make “luke-warm” tea, where it’s half-way between hot and iced. I don’t like my tea scalding and while I can do iced tea I prefer it room temperature.
Anyway, I found the infuser to be worth the money and easier to clean than a full pot of loose tea.