Tea Blog - Learn All About Tea

85% of tea consumed in the United States is consumed as iced tea, according to Wikipedia.  This is quite a departure from tea culture in the rest of the world.  Aside from America, Canada, and Thailand, the majority of the world drinks it’s tea hot.  In China, until recently, when Lipton broke into the market, tea is consumed hot, even in the summer.  In India, tea is traditionally served not only hot, but hot and spiced.  And in Japan, tea is served hot regardless of season.  Why, then, do American drink so much iced tea?  There are a few possible...

Terroir is a term used to describe the general conditions of a certain place, like the soil, climate, water, location and altitude, all which affect the final taste and aroma of wine.  The term can also be applied to the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. If you like wine, there is a big chance that you will like drinking loose leaf tea because of the complex flavors created by terroir. Rain is an important terroir factor that hugely influences the characteristics of tea and wine.  A rainy season may create large tea leaves and plump grapes, but with a much diluted flavor....

What do you think of when you think of loose tea?  Do you think of piles of soft, dried leaves which pour out of jars and into pots?  What if we told you that there were loose teas which are slightly less loose? Blooming teas are carefully arranged bundles of delicate, young white tea needles and flowers.  The leaves are curled into dense balls around careful arrangements of dried flowers, picked at exactly the fullest moment of their bloom.  Then, the whole thing is carefully sewn into place, by hand, in order to ensure that, when it is immersed in...

Black currant tea is the thing to drink in the summer.  In Britain, at least. Black currant tea  is a type of black tea, usually made from a base of Assam, which is a black tea with medium astringency and bitterness, and dried currants.  The fruit in this bright, summery tea doesn’t mask those traditional black tea flavors, but it does absolutely stand up to it.  Black currants are intensely flavorful fruits.  Their flavor is somewhere between grapes and blueberries, but tangier.  They add a tangy, fruity flavor to this traditional black tea which makes it just as summery as...