How To Make Sweet Tea
Sweet tea is one of the most popular tea drinks, especially in the South, but many people don't know how to make sweet tea. However, it's also one of the most difficult to make. First off, sweet tea is different from the regular steeped and brewed tea you get from your own tea bags. Tea in general is very bitter, and it has a more natural taste. Sweet tea requires the addition of sugar after the initial tea is brewed. You'll see that it really is a different sort of tea to make.
First off, let's take a look at regular tea. I've already noted that tea is different in taste from the modified sweet tea. Tea isn't actually 'bitter', per se, but it has a more natural flavor. I remember once that I went out to a tea place with my family, and it had this super bitter tea that nobody could ever handle. There's just so many things that are difficult to handle for first time tea drinkers, mainly because tea is just so natural. After all, the first tea was discovered after a man was boiling some water and a tea leaf fell in. He drank the new concoction and then the tea trade began. Tea, somehow, through centuries of travel and trade has now become one of the most popular drinks in the world. But please notice that the first tea was probably very light. Something happened to the idea of making tea that changed it from a single, organic loose tea leaf to a bag of tea leaves. People were probably interested in making the tea stronger. This is just the same as the other industries, where tastes in general are becoming more and more potent. As teas were made in newer and more interesting flavors, the tea leaves weren't quite changed, but just picked at new times. Also, people began adding their own flavoring to make new tastes of tea.
One of these is sweet tea. To make absolutely basic sweet tea, one would probably think that it just takes a few grains of salt and you're done. In fact, it's much more difficult to make sweet tea, which is why you're here. Normally, if you make green tea, you just use some tea leaves made especially for that purpose. It's just the same if you want to make black tea. You use tea leaves picked at the right time to give the correct taste we all identify as black tea. If you want to make white tea, it's once again the same thing. Tea leaves, although picked early to call it white tea leaves, defined as white tea leaves. Sweet tea can use any type of tea leaf that exists. The main difference is altering the taste of the tea, NOT altering the tea leaves. It's just the process that changes when you make the tea itself.
One of them is that you steep the tea leaves longer. When anyone shows you how to make sweet tea, you'll notice that it won't be done for a very long time. What happens when you steep your tea leaves for an extremely long time includes a variety of things. The first is the color. Notice how it gets deeper and deeper? Well that just happens with any drink with a potent taste. The second is the tea leaves efficiency after you're done with making sweet tea. Make a cup of tea for yourself and you'll see that you can reuse the tea leaves over and over, making more and more cups, if you have steeped for the regular time of a few minutes to 5 minutes. You can just pour in more water and wait the same period of time. The taste very rarely will disappear drastically. However, when you make sweet tea, you're going to hit a few snags if you like to be efficient with your tea leaves. The South loves to have everything done to the extreme in food and drink, and tea is no exception. Sweet tea, which again is a Southern favorite, is considered extreme because it completely drains the tea leaves of all taste. You're definitely not going to be able to use those tea leaves again. Let me explain.
When I was straight in the middle of school, my family took a trip down to Georgia where the South is the South. There's no doubt about it; we could see it everywhere. We could also see it in the sweet tea that they were making. We asked around the kitchens and they showed us how to make sweet tea the Southern way. In their words, it was not only how to make sweet tea, but also how to make a cup of tea. Just a simple cup of tea. It tasted very strong and very good, I'll admit, but then I asked to see the tea leaves again. I tried making another run of normal tea, which took a few minutes. The result was the colored water effect that I always explain. What used to take me three days to do was done in a matter of minutes. If you want to make a cup of tea but still have the tea leaves available for a few more times of drinking before you have to switch them, I wouldn't quite learn how to make sweet tea 'cause the process sort of sticks with you in every single cup of tea you make. To this day, years later from Georgia, I keep making my teas strong. Not normally like that, but I'm also wasting so many tea leaves because of it.
Make Ice Tea to Make Sweet Tea
There's something I have to admit, however. You have to learn how to make ice tea in order to learn how to make sweet tea. The two processes are very similar. But, if you read a guide to learn how to make iced tea, you'll notice that the end product is different. Not just the name, of course. Iced tea is still weaker than sweet tea in taste. Honestly, when you boil it down (pun intended), iced tea is just weaker sweet tea but iced down. It's cold, weak sweet tea. So, well, it's either you gotta learn how to make sweet tea or you gotta learn the other one.
On a summer day, I'm sure you're going to grab the pitcher and try some iced tea. Most people don't go for sweet tea when it's hot because sweet tea is still a hot tea. Of course you can make it cold, but then it'd be strong iced tea. When you grab iced tea, you either know how to make it or not. You either grab some tea leaves or tea bags, make normal tea, and wait for it to cool or you make it the real way. When you make iced tea, you're supposed to use tea bags, first off. Sorry, loose tea leaf lovers. It's probably not going to work out well. Loose leaves are more for white, green, and black teas. They don't really work for that stereotypical iced tea. You take tea bags and you make the typical tea except with cold water and ice. You don't boil the water at all. Be sure to use spring tea for this, because you don't have to go through bad water then overpurified or diluted water. You can even watch as the tea bags spill their stuff into cold water. After that, you can add whatever sugar you want as well as a nice slice of lemon. That's the right way to make iced tea. If you don't know that already, shame on you. But now that you know how to make ice tea, you should know how to make sweet tea now.
Sweet tea is a simple process. Even though it's been a long time since I've made it myself, it's still quite easy. You need to steep some tea bags or tea leaves for a whole hour before you can pour it out and drink. Add two tablespoons of sugar to a pitcher of sweet tea. And there ya go, that's how to make sweet tea. You'll notice that sweet tea is definitely much stronger than any tea you have ever drank.
Now it's the debate between the classic green tea, white tea, and black tea and the alternative sweet tea and iced tea. You'll know that the latter are definitely sweet. You add sugar to sweet tea and iced tea, right? When you make green tea you definitely don't interfere with the natural taste. All you gotta do is steep, wait, and drink. When you make sweet tea, you have to make sure that it's not too sweet or not too bitter. Also, the wait times are longer or shorter for sweet and iced tea. For iced tea, you can see the flavor coming out so the wait time is shorter. For sweet tea, you have to wait twelve times as long for the same amount of tea.
In the end, the cost efficient goes to green tea and the others because they can be remade over and over and over and over. The flavorful goes to making iced tea and sweet tea because the teas are changed up and there's a sugar spike to enhance the flavor. I personally enjoy, green tea the most because I can just have so many cups of green tea again and again. I also saved an average of 30 tea bags over a period of 7 days when I'm making white tea instead of making iced tea. Of course, drinking a lot of iced tea or sweet tea, sweet tea especially, can contribute to some health issues. Green tea and white tea have been proven as having less caffeine as black tea and other flavors of tea. As a result, when you drink sweet tea daily, like 5 times a day, you might develop a blood sugar level-related problem, like diabetes. When you drink even black tea, you're probably going to hit something like overactivity, which is similar to coffee.
One last note here. If you do end up using loose tea leaves for iced tea, you're going to have some trouble keeping them in the pitcher and out of the cup. For that, I'd just buy one of those plastic pitchers that have some sort of filter-ish type of things. It makes things a whole lot easier. And speaking of pitchers, tea pots are actually important here. I mentioned before that I have a cheap plastic teapot that I bought for $10 or less and it has served me well. I also have to mention that it is absolutely useless when it comes to making iced tea. In fact, any tiny teapot will be useless if you make ice tea. Get a large pitcher, fill it up with water, and throw in the tea bags or tea leaves. Ceramic teapots, although expensive, are usually best for show. They are also quite effective in maintaining the temperature of the tea, so you don't overboil, underboil, or just plain screw up when you are steeping your tea leaves.
If you simply cannot afford the ceramic teapots when you make green tea, just shoot for the cheaper plastic teapot sorts that I have and make tea like I do, stretching each tea leaf as far as it can go. You can probably get 3 sets of plastic teapot and plastic pitcher for both the green, white, and black teas and the sweet tea and iced tea for the price of one set of ceramic teapots, just to get some perspective on this.
So now that you know how to make sweet tea, I suggest that you learn how to make iced tea as well (the South apparently loves iced tea, too!) and head on over to some place where sweet tea is as normal as air.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
How Do You Make Tea
How Do I Make Tea
So you've hit this site, and you're like...dang how do you make tea? Then you see me, and I'm like...dang I'll show you how you make tea. You know it can't be rocket science. Like me, you've tried searching everywhere for some answers. And like me, you're probably not going to succeed with all of those crazy, cash-hungry idiots out there.
In my culture (try guessing where Kew comes from!), tea is everything. I really don't know which teas people serve in restaurants and stuff, but we just do. We don't drink water, we drink tea. And when I was young, I'd ask my mom some questions like, say, "Why do we drink tea?" and "How do you make tea?". See? I ask the same questions. My mom would just reply in her native tongue, "Child, you put this in there, the water in there, and wait". Doesn't that sound so simple? Was that how to make all teas? To make green tea, to make iced tea, to make bubble tea, to make chai tea, and to make sun tea, you just "put this in there, the water in there, and wait"? It must have been so much more complicated, but what did I know as a kid? I brushed off the skeptic side of me and tried to do what my mom instructed. Result? Some bitter, COLD water, and wet tea leaves and bags. What a waste of time.
If you want to know how to make a cup of tea, apparently you have to know that the water has to be boiling first. Man, if only I knew that earlier. It turns out that, for every tea, there's a 'perfect temperature' for the water. Apparently you also have to know that you can't put 120 C water into every single tea out there. It's not extremely specific, however. They might vary by 10-20 degrees centigrade but definitely not by 2-3.
How do you choose a tea? Well it depends on what you want. Rumor has it that there are green tea health benefits, there are some herbal teas that cure the 'bad stuff' in your body, and there are some that just relax you. In any health class you might take in your life, the teachers there will feed you some weird sentences like "tea and coffee are bad for you". Coffee I can understand, but tea depends on which tea you're freaking drinking. Digression mode on.
Let's move back, how about...4700 years back into history. That's when the first tea was discovered or brewed. The Chinese emperor first discovered a tea in the 2700 BC. The Chinese people have been drinking tea since then. Why the hell would you argue that making a simple tea would be bad for you? I argued that point directly a few years back at one of those cheesy health conferences. They were discussing the various effects of alcohol, then suddenly segued into the topic of coffee, and eventually tea. They passed around a few organic loose leaf teas, like black and white tea leaves, and continued to bash the idea of drinking tea.
You know what I did? Acted like a student, and raised my hand. "My grandparents, my parents, and I drink tea every single night. They took me through the tea making process when I was young, and I've been showing people simply how to make a cup of tea ever since. My grandparents are past 100 years old now, and my parents look 20 years younger than their age. How is drinking tea a bad thing? I even heard that there are green tea health benefits."
You know how they responded to that? "Maybe they drink it to relax, which is quite similar to alcohol's effects." BULL. CRAP. Those overrated, undereducated, uncultured lecturers don't know what they're talking about. They're comparing tea to alcohol? Nonsense. The art of tea making is nothing but gold, and drinking tea shouldn't ever be a problem. If you don't know how to make a cup of tea, you're missing out on one of the best opportunities in your life. The sheer diversity of the different teas (don't mind the genetically modified) can demonstrate the thousands of years of history behind a simple plant that has been a staple in everything in the world. Random fact: did you know that one of the major trade products since the 1600s is tea? Remember? The Boston Tea Party... digression mode off.
Now, you might be wondering about the detailed process in making tea. To make a cup of tea, you'll obviously need a teapot. For any university dorm I'd head to the local import store and grab one for about $5. I've used the same one since I graduated and it hasn't broken or given me any problems yet. Put some water on to boil (you can invest in a water boiler if you really want) and wait. Once the water is boiling, you can go ahead and put the tea leaves in the middle of the tea pot (there should be a designated compartment) and pour the water in. You'll have to wait anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes, depending on your tea. Go too long and you'll have some pretty bitter tea. Don't wait long enough and you have flavored water. Green tea? Try 2-3 minutes. Black tea? Try 3-5 minutes.
And, well, there you have it! How do you make tea? THAT'S how you do it. Now please note that you don't have to through your loose tea leaves away if you used loose leaves. I sometimes make/drink enough tea using one set of tea leaves so that the end product is colored water and I don't really taste much anymore. Really though it doesn't matter. I just do it cause I'm not quite ready to get another set of leaves. If you have tea bags, I'd stick with 2-3 runs with each set pair/set of bags. Those things aren't too good. When you're done, though, you can use that kind of stuff for skin care. It's pretty cool.
When you run out of tea leaves you gotta know where to get good ones right? If you're on the go, eh, just stick with tea bags. Tea leaves require extra hardware for storage. To really make the tea nice and solid, you might want to head to the local tea shop. Or you can head to a local Asian supermarket. I'm not being racist (hey I'm Asian...). They have some really good tea selections there. A third option is to buy tea online. While I really don't like this method because I've gotten some bad tea leaves before, the selection is absolutely wonderful. I simply cannot deny that. It's not just about green tea, white tea, black tea, sun tea, and chai tea anymore. You have apple, chocolate, vanilla, lemon, strawberry, and orange now! It's just really cool. I bought some vanilla tea leaves online once. Picked out the bad ones, threw them away, and proceeded to brew, steep, and drink. Tasted like freaking ice cream tea. It's so awesome. But again, if you don't want to deal with having to pick out bad tea leaves, especially if you don't know the difference, you'll just want to head to the tea shop. They're just as good.
So now, you can make your own tea. Now, you can make spearmint tea, make black tea, make white tea, make green tea, make chai tea, make sun tea, make thai tea, make strong tea, make the best tea!
So you've hit this site, and you're like...dang how do you make tea? Then you see me, and I'm like...dang I'll show you how you make tea. You know it can't be rocket science. Like me, you've tried searching everywhere for some answers. And like me, you're probably not going to succeed with all of those crazy, cash-hungry idiots out there.
In my culture (try guessing where Kew comes from!), tea is everything. I really don't know which teas people serve in restaurants and stuff, but we just do. We don't drink water, we drink tea. And when I was young, I'd ask my mom some questions like, say, "Why do we drink tea?" and "How do you make tea?". See? I ask the same questions. My mom would just reply in her native tongue, "Child, you put this in there, the water in there, and wait". Doesn't that sound so simple? Was that how to make all teas? To make green tea, to make iced tea, to make bubble tea, to make chai tea, and to make sun tea, you just "put this in there, the water in there, and wait"? It must have been so much more complicated, but what did I know as a kid? I brushed off the skeptic side of me and tried to do what my mom instructed. Result? Some bitter, COLD water, and wet tea leaves and bags. What a waste of time.
If you want to know how to make a cup of tea, apparently you have to know that the water has to be boiling first. Man, if only I knew that earlier. It turns out that, for every tea, there's a 'perfect temperature' for the water. Apparently you also have to know that you can't put 120 C water into every single tea out there. It's not extremely specific, however. They might vary by 10-20 degrees centigrade but definitely not by 2-3.
How do you choose a tea? Well it depends on what you want. Rumor has it that there are green tea health benefits, there are some herbal teas that cure the 'bad stuff' in your body, and there are some that just relax you. In any health class you might take in your life, the teachers there will feed you some weird sentences like "tea and coffee are bad for you". Coffee I can understand, but tea depends on which tea you're freaking drinking. Digression mode on.
Let's move back, how about...4700 years back into history. That's when the first tea was discovered or brewed. The Chinese emperor first discovered a tea in the 2700 BC. The Chinese people have been drinking tea since then. Why the hell would you argue that making a simple tea would be bad for you? I argued that point directly a few years back at one of those cheesy health conferences. They were discussing the various effects of alcohol, then suddenly segued into the topic of coffee, and eventually tea. They passed around a few organic loose leaf teas, like black and white tea leaves, and continued to bash the idea of drinking tea.
You know what I did? Acted like a student, and raised my hand. "My grandparents, my parents, and I drink tea every single night. They took me through the tea making process when I was young, and I've been showing people simply how to make a cup of tea ever since. My grandparents are past 100 years old now, and my parents look 20 years younger than their age. How is drinking tea a bad thing? I even heard that there are green tea health benefits."
You know how they responded to that? "Maybe they drink it to relax, which is quite similar to alcohol's effects." BULL. CRAP. Those overrated, undereducated, uncultured lecturers don't know what they're talking about. They're comparing tea to alcohol? Nonsense. The art of tea making is nothing but gold, and drinking tea shouldn't ever be a problem. If you don't know how to make a cup of tea, you're missing out on one of the best opportunities in your life. The sheer diversity of the different teas (don't mind the genetically modified) can demonstrate the thousands of years of history behind a simple plant that has been a staple in everything in the world. Random fact: did you know that one of the major trade products since the 1600s is tea? Remember? The Boston Tea Party... digression mode off.
Now, you might be wondering about the detailed process in making tea. To make a cup of tea, you'll obviously need a teapot. For any university dorm I'd head to the local import store and grab one for about $5. I've used the same one since I graduated and it hasn't broken or given me any problems yet. Put some water on to boil (you can invest in a water boiler if you really want) and wait. Once the water is boiling, you can go ahead and put the tea leaves in the middle of the tea pot (there should be a designated compartment) and pour the water in. You'll have to wait anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes, depending on your tea. Go too long and you'll have some pretty bitter tea. Don't wait long enough and you have flavored water. Green tea? Try 2-3 minutes. Black tea? Try 3-5 minutes.
And, well, there you have it! How do you make tea? THAT'S how you do it. Now please note that you don't have to through your loose tea leaves away if you used loose leaves. I sometimes make/drink enough tea using one set of tea leaves so that the end product is colored water and I don't really taste much anymore. Really though it doesn't matter. I just do it cause I'm not quite ready to get another set of leaves. If you have tea bags, I'd stick with 2-3 runs with each set pair/set of bags. Those things aren't too good. When you're done, though, you can use that kind of stuff for skin care. It's pretty cool.
When you run out of tea leaves you gotta know where to get good ones right? If you're on the go, eh, just stick with tea bags. Tea leaves require extra hardware for storage. To really make the tea nice and solid, you might want to head to the local tea shop. Or you can head to a local Asian supermarket. I'm not being racist (hey I'm Asian...). They have some really good tea selections there. A third option is to buy tea online. While I really don't like this method because I've gotten some bad tea leaves before, the selection is absolutely wonderful. I simply cannot deny that. It's not just about green tea, white tea, black tea, sun tea, and chai tea anymore. You have apple, chocolate, vanilla, lemon, strawberry, and orange now! It's just really cool. I bought some vanilla tea leaves online once. Picked out the bad ones, threw them away, and proceeded to brew, steep, and drink. Tasted like freaking ice cream tea. It's so awesome. But again, if you don't want to deal with having to pick out bad tea leaves, especially if you don't know the difference, you'll just want to head to the tea shop. They're just as good.
So now, you can make your own tea. Now, you can make spearmint tea, make black tea, make white tea, make green tea, make chai tea, make sun tea, make thai tea, make strong tea, make the best tea!
Monday, April 13, 2009
How To Make A Cup Of Tea
Welcome to How To Make A Cup Of Tea For Beginners. You'll find the best of the best when it comes to making any sort of tea. If you have any questions, drop a comment! Making tea is actually much simpler than you may think. These days, we have so many varieties of teas to choose from: black tea, white tea, green tea, bubble tea, chai tea, even herbal tea. Scary, isn't it? Well don't fret.
I know the first thing you're ever going to ask when it comes to tea is "How can I make some tea?". The general concept? Boil and pour. Told you it was simple. Now, the more complicated stuff comes when you have to choose a type of tea to make, how hot the water has to be, how long to boil it for, and even how to properly store tea leaves. Don't worry! Relax. Again, this tea blog will teach you everything you need to know. You'll know how to make a cup of tea in no time!
I know the first thing you're ever going to ask when it comes to tea is "How can I make some tea?". The general concept? Boil and pour. Told you it was simple. Now, the more complicated stuff comes when you have to choose a type of tea to make, how hot the water has to be, how long to boil it for, and even how to properly store tea leaves. Don't worry! Relax. Again, this tea blog will teach you everything you need to know. You'll know how to make a cup of tea in no time!
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