Review: Tea 101
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 28, 2013
I've enjoyed tea for many years, especially after I learned that a bag of black tea wasn't my only option.  In THE GREEN GOURMET: PERFECT CUP OF TEA BOOK, Lori Jane Stewart provides a concise encyclopedia of tea: Its history.  Where and how it's grown and processed.  Matching tea and food.  How to make the perfect cup of tea.She begins with the original tea bushes in the eastern Himalayan mountains and tells of the other places it is grown and enjoyed.  She explains the four different basic types of tea: black, green, oolong, and white as well as herbal teas and the differences among them.To process and harvest tea, the leaves must be withered, rolled, fermented, fired, and graded.  Grading, she explains, does not indicate quality.Many people want a specific tea to always taste the same.  Since tea flavors are affected by where the tea is grown, the weather, and when it is plucked, many teas are blended to provide uniformity.  Blended teas are also less expensive.Tea connoisseurs, on the other hand, like the differences and may want to figure out exactly where and when a particular tea originated.  Pure teas, as those are called, are more expensive.The tea grading system includes six levels of  Orange Pekoe based on the part of the leaf used.  It can vary among different locations.  What's left over from the leaves, called fannings and dustings are used in tea bags and flavored, bottled tea.She compares loose leaf versus tea bags but notes that some tea bags are larger now so they can hold larger leafs.  She says which to choose is a personal option.She explains the differences between from China, India, Japan, Formosa, Ceylon, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania and the variations with each county.  When she writes about herbal teas, she discusses the Native American teas, which are really not teas but are tisanes.  (Tea comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant.  Herbal teas may have many sources.  When buying peppermint tea, for example, peppermint tea is made from tea leaves with peppermint flavoring added.  Peppermint tisane is made from the leaves of a peppermint plant.)She explains that the British use of lemon and milk in tea began because sugar was expensive.She discusses the use of various tisanes for medicinal purposes and gives instructions for making them, warning that "mixing the wrong herbs can be quite dangerous."She recommends drinking caffeinated tea to wake up and get going because it doesn't make people jittery.I found the chapter on what type of tea to use with what type of food very interesting.  I had known about what wine goes with what but never considered what tea goes best with what food.As in most books and articles about tea, she writes about brewing the perfect cup.  She goes further, though, and talks about reusing tea bags.  I realized the flavor is likely to get weaker but hadn't thought about the bag growing bacteria.One tip she doesn't offer is what to do with tea besides drinking it.  For example, I use it instead of water in recipes.  For example, orange spice tea in orange gelatin.  I'd also heard that to get rid of the caffeine in a cup of tea, to steep it for 30 seconds, dump the water, and start again.The book was a good, basic introduction for people interested in learning more about tea.I got this book as a free Amazon download.