If you’re still in the market for a good teapot, I can’t say enough good things about Bee House.
I bought mine from a specialty tea shop over here in Canada, but a quick Google search turned up several US-based internet sellers besides Amazon.
I’ve had mine for over a year, and I just love it. It’s both pretty (in a Japanese Minimal sort of way) and functional (in that it has a built-in mesh basket for loose-leaf tea and keeps the tea hot for a surprisingly long time).
As far as tea goes, I’m a bit spoiled in that I have access to several wonderful shops that sell all sorts of teas and tea blends (I guess being part of the British Commonwealth does have a few perks after all). In a pinch, though, I’ll settle for Twinings… preferably loose, but bagged isn’t too bad either.
If you split your time in Chicago then there are a number of stores that sell good Irish and English blended teas (my favourite is Barry’s Tea). The promblem I have in Chicago is that the water appears to be very hard so that the tea gets very strong very quickly (I just call the water hard because I’m not sure how else to describe it).
I’d recommend you look into the fine selections available from Upton Tea Imports. If there’s any complaint to be had about Upton, it’s that their selection is far, far too vast, and there tends to be little to guide you in making a selection–just their copy and maybe, if you’re lucky, a terse customer review or two. They also carry tea accessories of various kinds, including electric kettles and Chatsford teapots. I’ve got one of their tea scales, and aside from the jokes I get regarding its similarity to drug paraphernalia, I’m delighted with it. (Though I still need to pick up a watch glass or something similar to make things a bit easier.)
Regarding keeping your loose tea in one general area: I rather like the disposable loose-tea bags such as these. Ample room to let the tea do its thing, and quite convenient to pick up and toss when you’re ready to sip. That said, I mostly make one cup at a time–more than a cup a sitting and I tend to get a bit sloshy when I walk. If you do prefer a strainer, Upton has those too.
My girlfriend discovered the joy of (hot) tea while here in Ireland. She bought a kettle (off ebay, they were a rip-off in her local stores) when she got home and I think she drinks Irish brands like Lyon’s and Barry’s she gets from an import store or world market. Her brother loves the kettle for heating water for pasta, rice etc. too.
Irish tea is very good. Barry’s Gold particularly. In the UK I like Tetley’s myself, even though it’s factory floor-sweepings.
Here’s my method for awesome tea, made with normal British teabags. A lot of Brits are frightened of this method because of the amount of time spent infusing, but when I make them tea they love it:
Boil the water.
Pour some hot water in the mug.
Reboil the kettle.
Pour out the water in the mug and add a teabag.
Pour the boiling water from the kettle onto the teabag, so as it rises, the boling water is constantly flowing through it.
Do not touch anything for FOUR minutes.
Gently lift the teabag out of the water. Don’t agitate it or squeeze it or anything. Drop in the bin.
Add milk to taste. Preferably lots of it.
No sugar. Stop that now.
Point 7 is the important one: you can steep the tea for a very long time without it going bitter, if you don’t agitate the leaves: the tannin stays in the bag, so you get very strong tea that just tastes of tea, not anything else.
Yeah, it’s not a problem with hardness. Chicago water is fairly neutral to slightly soft. The latest report I could find (2008) shows hardness ranges around 130 ppm of CaCO3 (70-140 ppm is considered “soft.”)
If you have Fresh Market stores locally, I’ve recently seen it being sold there.
I mostly agree with steps 1 - 8 of jjim’s instructions, except I was taught not to allow the water to come to a full boil. I let it come close to a boil, and then I use it to rinse/warm the teapot, and then add the teabag and nearly boiling water.
Also, I prefer to brew it in a teapot rather than the mug. Part of the reason for this is that I like to warm the milk for about 20 seconds in the microwave, then mix in a bit of demererra sugar, and then add the tea.
I developed my love of tea when I was in a summer program at Oxford University. We broke from class in the afternoon for tea. In the house we stayed in, they put out a pitcher of milk with the tea service in the morning and left it there throughout the day, so it was at room temperature. Being a girl from the South, I was horrified at the thought of not keeping the milk in the fridge, but it wasn’t a problem. Actually, I think the room temperature milk works better with the tea, since it doesn’t cool it off as much. That’s why I mimic that now by preheating my milk a bit before I add the sugar and tea.
I might add that no discussion of tea could be complete without mention of Elemental’s Cup of Brown Joy–truly a tea-drinkers’ anthem if ever there was one.
Regarding method, I tend to be a bit Monkish about my tea, as you might’ve inferred from my mention of a tea scale. I weigh my tea, I carefully monitor steeping time, I use an electric thermometer to ensure that I have the proper temperature of water if I’m drinking oolong or green. I fret over the drop in temperature across several minutes’ steeping and experiment with starting at a higher temperature to ensure that the average works out to the appropriate temperature for the variety. (This has no real effect that I could notice, by the way.)
I’m afraid that all that’s left of the science geek I used to be in high school is found in my approach to cooking.
Their regular tea is pretty consistently harsh. I don’t know about any of their other tea products. I usually get Bigelow English Teatime tea if I go to a regular supermarket. If I go to the Central Market, I’ll get the loose bulk tea, preferably the raspberry sage, which is heavenly. I like milk and honey in my hot tea. Since this is Texas, I’ll frequently get iced tea when I eat out, but I don’t even try to get a good cup of hot tea at a restaurant.
The woman who does electrolysis on me is from London, and she says that her favorite is PG Tips, when she can get it, but she’ll accept Bigelow brand if PG Tips isn’t available. I love going to her, because she will talk if I ask her questions, and she has the most enchanting accent…she’s lived in America since the early 80s, so she’s lost some of her accent, but she still sounds very distinguished.
I’d find a good, independant place to get tea from. It’s worked well for me. And is Lipton really that bad? I have a box of those pyramid bags, so if they turn out to suck, I’m going to be ticked.
Related question for those of us who insist on tea bags - is there some reliable protocol for preventing the tea bag from forming a kind of 'wet shield" that keeps all the air inside and the bag from getting completely soaked?
I had no trouble buying a brown-betty from a local shop catering to British food as well as various British teas. If I just want a cup then I use Twinings and my favorite tea with biscuits is Lapsang souchong (a smoked black tea). To make a proper cup of tea you boil enough water to pour into the tea pot to heat it up then pour it out and use the remaining water with loose tea. It should be lower than the boiling point of water. Under no circumstances should milk be added first unless you’ve let it cool to 182 degrees. OK, I made the exact temperature up but you should not pour boiling liquid on milk because you will curdle it. Tea should be made just below the boiling point and I find it best to let it rest a minute before adding milk. I find no chemical advantage to when sugar is added.
The reason you use a teapot is because the spout pulls liquid off the bottom and thus keeps the floating crud (from water impurities) away from your cup.
If I’m making ice tea I bring the water to a roil and turn down the heat a little while the tea steeps and then throw in fresh mint leaves.
You sir are an utter bounder,I wouldn’t be surprised if you also shoot foxes and mention a ladys name in the Gentlemans conversation after the Port has been passed round.
You total and utter cad,HOW COULD YOU?
(Bet you shout at your hounds aswell)
chique, you want more tea, you know who to ask! I really enjoyed that Ethiopian tea, it had very nice aromas.
I used to be a Yorkshire Gold devotee, but now my default is Typhoo. I am, however, really starting to lean towards Irish Breakfast tea. It’s got a pleasant earthy tone to it and is quite strong. Right now I’ve got a box of Twinings in the cupcoard which I’m grimly working my way through – can’t stand the stuff but it was on offer.
My way of making tea is much like jjimm’s.
Boil kettle. Don’t bother preheating mug because life is short.
Pour boiling water over teabag in mug, making certain the boiling water actually flows directly on the bag.
Wait four minutes.
Gently fish teabag out. Don’t squeeze it; makes the tea bitter. (Everyone around here likes squeezing it and will ask you how much you want it squeezed! Bleh!)
Pour in small gloop of milk, whole if you are splurging, skim if you aren’t.
Add about half a teaspoon of sugar, stir, and drink while it’s hot!
The sugar/no sugar debate gives me and my friends something to argue about when there’s nothing else to do. I think there’s an unpleasantly bitter taste that sugar takes the edge off of, but others think that you can only taste the sugar no matter how little you add. They are right – you can always taste the sugar – so really it’s a question of how much you actually like sugar, and a question of whether you find that bitterness pleasant.
As an American in England, people are almost always shocked that I drink tea and can’t stand coffee. People who drink coffee over here will usually drink instant coffee, made with water from the kettle and a dollop of milk. I can’t stand instant coffee at all, and I used to only drink tisanes until I had my first pot of Typhoo in an English tea shop in Arizona. Pure bliss!
