Many people are wondering how to prepare the perfect cup of tea. I thought it might be nice to write a small paragraph about tea preparation.
Experts say that it is recommended to use 2.5 g of loose leaf tea to 250 ml of water. Leaving the scientific measurements aside, to make it simple for people who don’t have the time to weigh their tea and measure the water, you would need to use one teaspoon of loose leaf tea per cup. Generally, the tea leaves need to be brewed for 3 minutes for them to release all the flavours. However, I find some teas do not need as much time to release their flavours. With strong teas like Assam or our classic Earl Grey, the brewing time could be reduced, depending on how strong you like your cup of tea to be. A great advantage of using loose leaf tea is that you could use a corresponding amount of tea leaves to your taste. So, if you like a good, strong cup of tea, you could use a heaped teaspoon of tea leaves, and if you like a good, but not so strong cup of tea you could use smaller amounts of tea leaves to brew the tea according to your taste. That's just a suggestion according to my own experience of brewing tea. However, you can adjust the tea preparation to your own taste, which means you can experience until you find the right formula that works for you.
Did you know that in China the methods to prepare tea vary from region to region?
So imagine a territory that includes 1 million hectares of cultivated land and billions of people drinking tea! Tea is an essential element in the daily life of Chinese people and different provinces use different methods of preparing and serving tea. In some regions people ferment their tea in pieces of bamboo and then add it to vegetables, in other regions, people chew the tea as a snack. In some other regions people infuse their tea with walnuts and sugar and drink it from a gaiwan (i.e. Chinese container in which tea leaves can be infused in a small amount of water in order to concentrate the flavours).
To be continued...
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