Following on from Part 1, this instalment uses two other teapots I came across in the British Museum as a starting point to reflect on the journey of tea culture across the world; the history of tea drinking is a diaspora of teapots as much as a diaspora of tea. The teapots pictured below are …
Month: June 2013
When Did Tea Time Become the Cocktail Hour?
More and more tea times at posh restaurants are featuring champagne and other alcoholic beverages. So much for tearooms being refuges (as they first started out to be) from places serving such drinks. It raises the question of when this transformation started taking place. Once upon a time in Great Britain and other European countries, …
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Americans Love Tea – Sez the British Press
We Americans sure love our tea. Or so the British say. Wait. Excuse me? Isn't that supposed to be the other way around? Aren't we Yanks supposed to be blabbing on about how much the British love their tea? I think so. To be quite honest, I've been guilty of doing just that more than …
Tea Developments, Monthly Report June 2013
June is iced tea month, but there’s been a lot more going on than that in terms of tea developments. Here’s a quick look at some that may not necessarily be new but are still not in the mainstream of tea drinkers’ awareness. 20 Teas Selected as Best for Serving Iced Iced tea can be …
How to Row a Tea Boat – A Quick Guide
A tea boat is a small size “tea table” that is usually no more than around 10cm high and has about the dimensions of a regular serving tray in width and length. It is thereby not really a table in the narrower sense, but in fact is rather put on a (real) table for use. …
5 Things That Can Make Your Tea Taste Awful
The list of articles that address the issue of how to prepare a proper cup of tea, be it British-style, gongfu style, or other, would probably fill a book as large as the phone directory for New York City, including the Burroughs. That’s a lot! There are also lots of articles about how not to …
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Tea vs. Coffee in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka may not be a massive tea-growing region, at least not on the same order as China, India or Africa, but they actually rank rather high on the list, after those aforementioned areas. Like its neighbor immediately to the West - India - the island is best known for its black tea. It is …
Baking, Roasting, Frying — Tea Gets the Heat Treatment
Tea leaves undergo various processing steps, and an important one in the drying step. It “cures” the tea for sale, that is, halts any further oxidation or moisture loss and can even add flavor to the tea. Higher curing temperature can add honeyed-like sweetness or smoky caramel to the aroma. The curing temperature is also …
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Tea, Canadian Style
As far as I can tell, when it comes to matters of tea, our good neighbors to the north are much like us here in the United States. In the overall scheme of things we Yanks don't really drink all that much tea. Our consumption of just over a pound per person per year ranks …
Teapot Styles — Asian Traditions
Awhile back I posted some info about a very Asian style of teapot: the Kyusu. I have also written about a distinctive style of clay teapot from the Yixing area of China. But others abound. They speak of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years of craftsmanship building up and being preserved as an object of …
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