Serving Tea

In responding to one of the comments, I'm going to jump ahead to this next post about Serving Tea....


I think I said in my first post that there isn't any wrong or right way to serve tea in that there are many different methods and accessories for serving tea. I will be posting pictures of several of those as the days of my tea series continue. I'll also post what you need to serve with the tea beverage in tomorrow's post.

Strength seems to be the biggest issue for people that I discuss tea with and it pertains to one of the comments below. Here is a general guide....

bagged tea (basic grocery store tea) is equal to 1 tbsp of loose leaf tea.

1 bag of tea = 2 cups of tea (tea cup size)

1 tbsp of loose leaf tea = 2 cups of tea


So, it's also good to know that loose leaf tea is stronger than bagged tea. The reason being that loose leaf tea is bigger leafed tea. The smaller the tea leaves, the more they have been broken down and have released their essence. Larger leaves have not evaporated their essence as much therefore giving you a stronger tea when steeped.


The best way to figure out how many bags (or tbsp) of tea you need for a pot of tea is to first fill your empty tea pot with tap water to the amount you would of hot water and then literally pour 6-8 tea cups with it...and see how many tea cups it will serve. This will tell you how many bags of tea you will need. So, let's say your tea pot filled about 6 tea cups, that means you would need 3 tea bags on average for that pot. Now, say it's a strong black tea so you use only 2 bags or say it's a weak herbal tea so you go ahead and use 4 bags. Tea measurements are very flexible. Just be sure that you don't cut the steeping time too short. This will give you a very weak tea.


My best advice is to sample tea measurements by type of tea so that you are familiar with how strong you prefer to brew your tea by measurement. Personally, I find that black teas and fruit teas are the strongest and therefore I like to steep them less or use less bags as to where I find that green teas and herbal teas are not as strong so I like to steep them longer or use more bags. (Steeping is the practice of allowing the tea leaves to sit in the boiling water to release their essence.)


There are so many types of tea bags as you can see in some of the pictures to the right. There are family sized which means they will make one full pot with just one tea bag, there are round ones, there are homemade ones, there are triangle ones (fusion bags that allow the tea to move more freely while steeping), and I'm sure many more.


It is good to serve a variety of types of tea when serving tea.

I would recommend serving at least 3 types of tea to a group of people. It's also nice to have a few other flavors on hand with a pot of hot water for guests to make their own cup if the 3 brewed pots do not appeal to them. I like to serve all decaf in my already made pots of tea so that those concerned with caffeine can drink freely of the 3 varieties that I've made.


I would suggest serving 1 fruit tea, 1 herbal tea (such as mint or chamomile), and 1 chai or vanilla tea for a nice variety of tea for guests.


For little girls I have found that their favorites tend to be vanilla flavored ones and fruit ones. Peach, raspberry, cherry, blueberry, etc. are all good choices for girls. There are several varieties of vanilla out right now that work well for little girls such as vanilla caramel, vanilla caramel truffle, french vanilla, vanilla cream, etc. For little girls I like to steep the tea pretty weak. It's also perfectly acceptable to serve something other than tea for children such as hot chocolate, chocolate milk, lemonade, juice, etc.


If you are hosting a summer patio tea, I would suggest also serving cold tea..iced teas, lemonades, and fresh ice water with lemon slices or fresh berries in it.


TIPS:
~preheat your pots by filling them with the hottest tap water you can get. Then pour the water out when you are ready to fill them with boiled water. Your tea won't cool as quickly.
~Fill a carafe with boiled water that is ready to replenish your tea pots when serving several guests. This speeds up the time needed in boiling water on the stove.
~keep your kettle on the stove always full and boiled. If it's hot and not needed, then turn the burner on low so that you maintain a hot kettle ready to replenish your pots or your carafe.
~If you are very unsure about pre-making tea in the pots, it's perfectly acceptable to serve just boiled water in the pots and allow guests to serve themselves tea bags or loose leaf teas per cup.
~always have the nub on the lid of a tea pot pointed towards the handle. This helps prevent the lid from falling off when guests are serving themselves.
~if using tea bags, leave the tags hanging from the pot lids so the guests know which kind of tea is in each pot. If there are no tags, then use a small piece of paper folded in half with the name of the tea written on it set in front of the pot.


On a side note, some of my personal favorite teas are: apricot, peach, tension tamer, decaf green tea, blackberry sage, peppermint, and spearmint. If you are looking to try teas, you might want to try some of these. I thought I didn't like tea many years ago until I had tried many flavors.