Year: 1871

Coffee needs a chapter by itself; but
how few women care precisely for the
best tea that can be made from the or
binary qualities! Every thing with
them depends on whether their tea cost
one doller and twenty-five cents or two
dollars pound, and they will not try
to make the best of inferior grades.
Oolong at seventy-five cents pound
may be made moro grateful than Flow
cry Pekoe neglected, smoked, or soaked,
instead of infused. Use an earthen
teapot rather than tin or silver, If you
want the finest flavor of your te,. 1t
may be set in metal holder filled with
water, and lamp beneath to keep it
hot. Put the tea, one spoonful foreach
person, in saucer, moisten with cold wa
ter, not enough to cover it by any means,
and set it in hot oven two or three min
utes, till the leaves uncurl and steam
Rinse the teapot with scalding water
to heat it through, put in The tea, and
pour on boiling water, just half as much
as you expect to want, and cover
quickly, placing piece of thick flannel
or felt under the lid and over the spout
to retain all the perfume. A delicate
secret which / have to tell is, that the
charming flavor of fine tea may be CIV
en- to poorer sorts by adding the petals
of apple, orange, or lemon blossoms to
the canister, letting them dry among
the tea, but covering close for week.
The flavor of Flowery Pekoe, that
rarest of teas, which can only be had
in this country by favor, is due to the
l. ~f Al, 90, ,>Ionk x,,,val
the leaves. You may have seen
the genuine tea-plant In hot
houses. There is one in the
Experimental Garden at Washing
ton, most beautiful window plant
dwarf, tiny thing that it is-with glossy
dark leaves, callow at the top of the
three-inch shrub, where the young
shoots put forth, and waxen-white
blossom to which belongs the soul of
odor, rich, vague, and delicate, like ap-
ple-buds, with the faintest suspicion of
tea, mere refined than anything but the
white rose To drink tea with such
fragrance inspires one; and no wonder,
for the rare tea which Russians love,
and buy at. four dollars pound, is
made of these callow shoots and odor-
Gus flowers. We will be content to
perfume our canisters with such of the
rosacea as come to our hand, strewing
the tenderest strips of cherry bark in
the bottom, to yield In time their wine
like breath to the contents. This must
be stripped from young twigs of the
second year in spring or fall, when the
sap runs freest; but beware how you
put any thing more of them than their
perfume into the teapot.


When the water is added, let the pot
stand for five minutes where it will be
hot as can be without boiling, in a ket-
tie of water kept just at the boiling
point by pouring in acup of cold water
when the ebullition grows fierce. Then
ill with boiling water, and take to the
table in porcelain. After this keep it
hot, so that sugar and milk will have
just time to combine with the beverage
while it cools enough to. drink. The
veriest kitchen maid Will not want to
steep those tea leaves afterward the
soul is out of them, and not lost In
sighs, but caught in your egg-shell
dragon-cups. Again, say, keep the
tea hot. A cup that comes from the
seA pot In fit state to drink at once,
should be rejected.