A Bud N One Leaf

• 8 grams of black tea
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken to pieces
• 5 pieces of ginger slice
• 2 whole star anises
• 500ml water
• Sugar to taste
• Condensed milk (optional)

Put cinnamon stick, ginger and star anise into boiling water; simmer for 5-6 minutes.  Strain and quickly pour over black tea, steep for 3-5 minutes, pour into tea cups, add sugar to taste.  Could also add condensed milk to make a creamy cup. 

Above is a very simple recipe of Chai.  A more traditional Indian Chai contains more spices.  e.g. peppercorn, cardamon, clove, allspice...and all spices need to be crushed/grounded before boiling in water.  Preparation Time is a inseparable flavor in most old time delicacies.  

When Chinese talk about basic groceries or things needed in order to live, they would often use the proverb "the Seven Necessities", which refers to firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea.  This proverb has the same meaning as "Bread and Butter" in English.

The earliest mentioned of such words was in a Yuan Dynasty play (Yuan Dynasty, 1206-1368, a empire started by Genghis Khan), in which a dialogue saying, "Get up in the morning, open the door first, and think about the seven necessities, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea".  So the proverb could also been said as "Open Door Seven Necessities".

From this proverb we could understand that tea was a popular drink in old China.  In the past, tea was consumed as a daily drink, when people talked about poverty, they would say such thing as "the household even couldn't afford tea, and have to drink plain water."  A host/hostess would apology to his/her guests if they could not serve tea to them.

In Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a man married a concubine despite his wife's objection. - In old China, men were allowed to marry concubines without the consent from his wife.  Those married concubines have lesser legal rights and lower social status, and so does their children.  Those women were called "Qie" in Chinese, while the wife was called "Qi"- Back to our story, the angry wife wrote a poem upon his husbands' marriage with the "Qie" as a wedding gift. 

"Congratulation on your getting a new bride
  I will wash my hands off household works 
  Pass to her all those open door necessities
  Firewood, Rice, Oil, Salt, Sauce and Tea" 

In this poem, when the wife talked about passing those open door necessities to the concubine, she purposefully left out the item "Vinegar".  In Chinese, the connotation of jealousy is "drinking vinegar", she was express her jealous by indicating that she kept the vinegar for her own consumption.

Emerald Peony, a green rosette extended into a full peony when brewed, is a speciality green tea from Anhui Province of China.  The tea is created in the mid-80th of last century, and was selected by Chinese President Hu, together with another 3 green teas from his hometown, as a gift to Russian President Putin on 27th March 2007. 

Peony is one of the most favorite flowers in China, in a 1994 state poll for national flower, peony got the most votes.  However, to date, China still doesn't designate official national flower.  The large flowers of peony are often seen in red, pink, white and yellow color, and are a symbol of prosperity and wealth.  

   The Peony Flower

Fine tips of spring green tea are hand made into the shape of peony flower, pressed flat and dried.  After brewing, the rosette unfolded into a spectacular tea peony.  The tea is a vigorous full-bodied green tea with slight spicy tone.

               Emerald Peony - Dry Tea        

Emerald Peony - a spectacular green peony when brewed 

In this hot summer, you could try to brew this tea cold by steep it into cold water for couple of hours, it's interesting to see the tea slowly unfold... to present a green peony.  Add in a few drops of mint to enjoy a cool drink.

Tea twisted into different types of knots, this is a relatively new group of tea commodity, which fill creativities into green tea drinking experience. Often the tea are scented with jasmine before making into attractive shapes.

Some of my students love the shapes, albeit the taste is a bit weak compare with same amount of traditional shape tea.  The tea will extend into normal shape after steeping in water for couple of minutes. 

It is more suitable for beginners of green tea or as an exotic souvenir. 

Sichuan is a large province in southwestern China, the famous giant panda lives in this province.  Most part of it is located in the Sichuan Basin, and the western part on Sichuan plateau.  Chengdu is the municipal capital of Sichuan.  Chengdu is historically known as the "land of heaven" after the construction of a sophisticated irrigation system "Du Jiang Yan" built in 256 BC.

  Du Jiang Yan separate the Min Jiang River

The construction of "Du Jiang Yan" separated Min Jiang River into two steams: the outer river continueing its normal course and the inner river being diverted to irrigate farmland in Chengdu plain.  Thus, it conquered the flooding of Min Jiang River in summer seasons, and ensured plenty of irrigation to the Chengdu plain, made Sichan plain a productive agricultural province.

Free from annual flooding and abundance in agriculture nurished a unique teahouse culture in Chengdu.  Chengdu teahouse has similar function as a bar in the West, it is a place for socializing and relaxing.  A traditional Chengdu teahouse  must equip three items: Bamboo Armchair, porcelain Gaiwan (a Chinese tea ware consists of saucer, bowl and lid), and copper water kettle with long spout.  A tea waiter (called "Cha Bo Shi") mastered the skill of pouring water with the special copper kettle is the soul of such a teahouse.  He could easily fill up a Gaiwan in a packed teahouse without pushing through crowds of tea drinkers. 

 Fill in water with the long spout copper kettle

Puerh tea was not popular in China untill the 80th of last century.  Historically, it was mainly supplied to the Chinese ethnic minorities living in Northwestern borders, and exported to Southeastern Asia.  Even local Yunnan people prefer green tea or black tea than the Puerh they produced.

The situation changed in mid 90th of last century, while hot money from Hongkong and Taiwan rushed into the domestic Puerh market.  Local people began to realize how much money these people spent on puerh, and how much they made by selling them.  Coupled with the gimmick of "the older the better value" (Puerh tea does enhance through years of good keeping, albeit "age" alone is not the guarantee of quality and value, other factors like standard of raw materials, year of harvesting, processing knon-how, etc all jointly decides the final value of Puerh), local people sensed a "fool-proof", get rich faster opportunity.  More money and even more people flocked into the market. 

In April this year, the price of Puerh reaches a new height, branded Puerh for the high-end market raised 50-80% in value compared with last year's November price, as raw materials price raised due to late harvest this year.  Only after one month, the price of high-end Puerh dropped drastically to around half of its April price. 

"A young and attractive office lady sits on her desk, typing in her computer.  Her boss came, dumped a thick stack of document on her des.  The overburdened lady turned scarlet in face, and her smooth long hair stood up like being hit by a thunder bolt.  Right at the moment, an arm holding a bottle of RTD tea comes into sight, the lady takes over and gulps down the bottle of tea.  The environment flashes to an ice world, with the lady shakes off ices from her head, and returns to her cool self." this is a scene from a TV commercial advertises a "Suntory" brand RTD ice mint tea. 

Lucky I don't have a boss dumping document on me, yet another incident made me feel that I strongly need some thing to keep my hair on:  Recently I had to transfer my blog to another service provider as I was not able to view my blog.  Yet shortly after the laborious moving, the same tragedy happened, again I was not able to view my blog at the new site.

Before I settle for a third site, and start the IT toil again, I need some break, and need some thing really cool.

Here is my mint green tea recipe, which is much cooler and more refreshing than the RTD bottled ones.

Ingredients:   
800 ml chilled green tea
6 ml lime juice
6 ml mint syrup
ice cube
half-cut fresh limes

Mix the chilled green tea with lime juice and mint syrup, pour the mixture into tall glasses, input some ice cube, and squeeze fresh lime juice in the cup.

Pic.1. White Tea: White Silvery Needle

The name White Tea now refers to two different concepts.

One refers to a tea classification: white tea is the least processed tea, the tea is originated from Fujian, China. It is slightly oxidized during withering, the dry tea is coated with white hairs, that is how the name white tea is called. There are two outstanding white tea: white peony (made from a bud and one leaf, and a bud and two leaves), and white slivery needle (made from buds only, see picture). Due to the strict requirement on tea species, plucking, and external environment during processing, the amount of white tea produced is lesser as compared with green tea.

Researches found white tea contains natural antioxidants and other nutrients. The tea taste delicately sweet, and slowly gain the attention of more consumers. Even India and Sri Lanka now produce such white tea, but on a very marginal quantity.

Another white tea refers to a particular green tea, it's full name is Anji White Tea. According to tea classification ( processing methods), it is not the white tea mentioned above, but belong to green tea group. It's made from a low chlorophyll tea species (called white tea bush), undergoing the normal green tea processing steps, the dry tea has a lighter green color as compared with green tea from normal tea bush.

Pic.2. Green Tea: Anji White Tea