Tea Time: Delicious Recipes, Fascinating Facts, Secrets of Tea Preparation, and More
170
Tea Time: Delicious Recipes, Fascinating Facts, Secrets of Tea Preparation, and More
170eBook
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Overview
Healthier than coffee and with a positively stimulating or relaxing effect—according to the length of boiling time—the vitamins and flavonoids in this infusion are not only healthy, but also help in fighting free radicals. Tea promotes creativity, harmony, and internal balance.
This heavily illustrated book is the most complete guide to this Oriental treasure, which millions of Westerners also enjoy. In addition to valuable advice about its preparation, the pages include:
• The history of tea and its main varieties
• A complete guide for tea gourmets
• Its curative and rejuvenating properties
• The Japanese tea ceremony, step by step
• The tea oracle: how to read the leaves
• Over 60 recipes, including sangria tea, fajitas with tofu macerated in green tea, and many more!
Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Good Books and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of cookbooks, including books on juicing, grilling, baking, frying, home brewing and winemaking, slow cookers, and cast iron cooking. We’ve been successful with books on gluten-free cooking, vegetarian and vegan cooking, paleo, raw foods, and more. Our list includes French cooking, Swedish cooking, Austrian and German cooking, Cajun cooking, as well as books on jerky, canning and preserving, peanut butter, meatballs, oil and vinegar, bone broth, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781634509015 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse |
| Publication date: | 10/20/2015 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 170 |
| File size: | 24 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Tea culture
The history of tea
A legendary origin
The first documents that mention tea date back to the period between the seventh and sixth centuries BC. The inhabitants of ancient China in this period sang of the excellence of Tu, the name given to the group of plants among which we now know as tea. This is the official origin, although if we give credit to popular legend, tea has been around since approximately the year 2700 BC. Between the years 206 BC and 221 AD, during the Han dynasty, improved methods of gathering and preparing tea leaves made tea a popular beverage of the royal family. Its prestige among the nobility grew, reaching its peak in the period of the Three Kingdoms (221 — 277 AD), when tea served as a substitute for wine at the court's banquets.
Emperor Chen Nung
The French writer Maxence Fermine describes, in his novel Opium, the discovery of tea in China: "One day, more than four thousand years ago, the emperor Chen Nung was travelling with his guard through a distant region of his great country. As the journey was long and tiring, he ordered them to let him stop to rest in the shade of some trees to protect them from the sun. The convoy stopped and the emperor sat cross-legged under an unknown bush. Immediately, he asked for a bowl of boiling water, as he was thirsty and it was the best remedy he knew to quench his thirst. His servants hurried to bring it to him. In that moment, a leaf fell into the emperor's bowl. Chen Nung drank the water without noticing, and when he did a sweet yet bitter aroma filled his throat. Intrigued, he looked into the bowl and found the leaf that gave this fascinating scent and flavor. And thus tea was born."
The general population would wait another five centuries before experiencing the goodness of this virtuous plant, since it wasn't until the Tang dynasty, from 618 to 907 AD, that tea became the national beverage of China. Proof of this is that a philosopher of the time, Lu Yu, wrote the first account of its history, cultivation, and preparation in 780 AD: the Cha Ching, or the "Book of Tea."
Tea's reputation reached every corner of China, thanks to caravans of merchants that crisscrossed the country. In 705 AD, Camellia sinensis crossed borders for the first time and was introduced in Japan by a monk named Dengyo Daishi. During this same time period, tea arrived in Tibet and was a great success. There they boiled tablets of pressed tea and then mixed it with butter and salt. It wasn't until the start of the twentieth century that tea in the form of infusion became popular there, although there are still many Tibetans that prefer the traditional preparation.
Tibetan style tea
In his memoir Seven Years in Tibet, mountain climber Heinrich Harrer (played in the movie by Brad Pitt) describes the local custom of drinking tea mixed with yak lard, a combination that he found horrifying. The author commented that some Tibetans claimed to drink more than a hundred cups a day.
Beyond China
Tea had begun to cross borders at the beginning of the ninth century, when the first shipments arrived by boat to Korea and Japan. There, a Buddhist monk called Yesai published the first Japanese book on tea in 1191. Both countries began to cultivate tea in the humid, mountainous regions, and their inhabitants soon learned of the therapeutic properties of the infusion. Zen monks incorporated tea in their routines in the temple, in combination with meditation that lasted all day.
Regarding the union between Buddhism and tea, the legend tells that an Indian prince named Drama had decided to devote his life to prayer. Abandoning his home, he began a pilgrimage toward China and Japan. Exhausted from the hard days of journeying, he succumbed to a deep sleep along the banks of a river and slept for a long time. Upon waking, he felt horrified by his laziness and meted himself a severe punishment so as not to succumb to sleep again: he cut off his eyelids and buried them in the place where he had slept. Many years later, returning to his home, he passed that same place and discovered that a strange bush was growing where he had buried the eyelids. The monk chewed a few leaves and realized that they helped keep the mind awake. Since then, the Zen monks always cultivate tea in the monastery gardens.
From "cha" to "tea"
The names given for the word "tea" are very similar throughout Asia: in Japan, it's called cha, in Russia caj, in India tschaj and in China, ch'a. Some linguists maintain that it's possible all these names come from the word for "vitality" in Chinese, chi.
In the Fukien province of China, the Dutch learned the word tay, which means "tea" in the local dialect, and with this sound it was introduced to Europe. In fact, in Ireland and England it was pronounced tay until the start of the eighteenth century, after which the word was derived to tee and then tea — as we know it today.
In many European languages, the same word is used as a generic term for herbal teas or any infusion of herbs.
Apart from making the most of tea's curative properties, the Japanese nobles also began to include tea in their social meetings. Thus was born the Cha no yu, the tea ceremony, a delicate and demanding ritual lasting several hours, for which the hosts would have expensive and precious utensils.
Tea arrives in the West
The first record of the existence of tea in the West dates to the year 851 AD. It was written by an Arab merchant named Suleiman in his book Relations in China and India, where he defined it as "an aromatic herb with a bitter taste that is drunk with boiled water in the East."
Apparently, westerners did not hear about this infusion again until 1529, when the Venetian Giambattista Ramusio wrote in his book Navigazione e Viaggi about the existence about a plant in the East that "calms pain of the gout and also guarantees good stomach function." Jesuit missionaries that visited China and Japan in the sixteenth century also spoke of a plant with a sweet taste that the natives called chai.
The East India Company
In the seventeenth century, the European powers competed to claim the new markets in Asia. During this process, the Dutch East India Company brought the first shipment of tea to Europe in 1606. Later, the ships of the English East India Company achieved a monopoly on tea and began to distribute it in France, Germany, and Portugal as well as England. In 1657, the first teahouse opened in London, and financial transactions involving the plant took place on its upper floors. But tea became popular in England a few years later, when King Charles II married Catalina de Berganza, a great fan of the beverage.
The Portuguese princess brought with her dowry the port of Bombay, one of the most important hubs of maritime commerce between Asia and Europe, which became key in the tea trade between the two continents. The infusion began to be served in the court and, during the following century, became the most popular beverage in England, winning over even beer and gin.
In 1834, the East India Company lost its monopoly on tea after the implementation of a British governmental resolution. With free competition between companies, the speed of the ships became more important, so large ships gave way to small, light ships called clippers. This produced true competition to be the first to arrive in port and be able to sell at the best price, resulting in all kinds of incidents and adventures on the high seas, as the typical passage took about a hundred days.
The custom of adding milk to tea — so deeply entrenched in England today — was introduced by the Dutch in the early seventeenth century and then spread to France and England. The Japanese and Chinese never add milk to tea because they believe it ruins the flavor, original color, and aroma of the infusion.
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, tea was drunk at any time of day. The creation of the British afternoon tea — at five o'clock — is attributed to the Duchess of Bedford, who after drinking it in the afternoon with a snack found it so delicious she instituted the ritual with all her friends.
The spread of tea
In 1810 the Chinese began to cultivate tea on the island of Formosa, in modern-day Taiwan. A decade later in Assam, in the northeastern region of India, Robert Bruce and his brother discovered vast thickets of tea growing naturally and established the tea industry in the then-British colony, including the Darjeeling region.
In other parts of the world tea arrived under more difficult circumstances. In Ceilan, modern-day Sri Lanka, the cultivation of tea began in earnest after a plague affecting coffee trees devastated all the plantations on the island — at that time it was the second-largest producer of coffee in the world.
In each country tea has been introduced differently, with many local variations. The Maghrebis, for example, inherited tea from the English and their national drink is mint tea. It is served in a glass with a lot of sugar, and accompanied by honey cakes. Proper etiquette dictates that the host should drink at least three glasses of tea, with the last one being stronger than the previous.
In 1900, with the inauguration of the Trans-Siberian railroad, tea was no longer transported by camel from Peking to Russia. And four years later, Richard Blechyden presented a refreshing invention at the St. Louis World's Fair: iced tea.
Tea colors
The botanical name for tea is Camellia sinensis, which comes from the family Camellia. This is the Chinese variety; in the northeast of India, a second variety known as Camellia assamica was discovered in the nineteenth century. The tea bush has leaves with finely serrated edges, with numerous oil glands. The flowers are white and have a delicate fragrance.
The cultivation of tea requires a warm, humid climate, and cultivation at higher altitudes is considered to produce tea of a superior quality, although factors such as the climate, soil, method of harvest, and processing also affect the tea quality.
The majority of teas are made from young leaves. When the bush reaches the necessary maturity, leaves are picked by hand. For the highest quality teas only the top three newest leaves are picked.
After harvesting comes the drying process. The leaves are spread out and left to wilt until they are very malleable and can be rolled without breaking. During this process is when the leaves release the substances that give them their characteristic color and smell.
The giant forest
In 1939, in the province of Yunnan in the southeast of China, a huge swath of wild tea trees were discovered. Some were more than 98 feet (30 meters) high with trunks 3 feet (a meter) in diameter. Their age is estimated to be around 1,700 years old.
Modern and classic teas
The custom of delicately flavored teas has been around for many years; however, fruity teas are a more recent trend and are often closer to an herbal infusion. The ideal choice is always a tea with a truly natural aroma and essence, such as those shown on these pages.
Green tea
Green tea is made by drying the leaves completely to avoid fermentation. It is the most common tea consumed in China and Japan. Along with white tea, it has the most proven therapeutic properties.
Green tea tends to have a more delicate and herbal aroma. It has very little theine, or caffeine; depending on the variety, the quantity may be between 8 and 16 mg per cup. By comparison, a cup of espresso can easily have more than 200 mg of caffeine. Here are some of the most highly regarded varieties:
• Bancha. Alongside Sencha, although of lesser quality, it is the most common tea in Japan. Very low in theine.
• Genmaicha. Green tea with toasted rice; frequently drunk with meals by the Japanese.
• Gunpowder. A Chinese tea with a strong flavor, which also appeals to fans of black tea. Often in the form of leaves compressed into a small ball.
• Kokeicha. Three-year tea; very valued in Japan. It is made by toasting very fine twigs four times. Then the twigs are pulverized and pressed into fine needles.
• Kukicha. Made up of the stems of tea leaves, it makes a yellowish infusion with a distinctive flavor and very little theine.
• Lung ching. This tea is the lung ching ("dragonwell"). It comes from the lake region of Hangzho, China. It is celebrated for its emerald color and sweet taste.
• Matcha. Powdered green tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony; yields a rich, astringent, jade-colored infusion.
• Sencha. A Japanese classic. Also available in a decaffeinated version.
Mu Tea. The so-called mu tea does not contain tea leaves; it is actually a unique mixture of sixteen plants and spices, revived in the last few decades from an ancient oriental tradition. It has a very particular taste and is wonderful for digestion. There are truly marvelous stories about its rebalancing powers (see pg. 159).
Black tea
Black tea is obtained through an oxidation process. Freshly harvested leaves are left in humid rooms so they ferment. This treatment lasts between three and five hours depending on the variety, which gives the tea its characteristic dark green or black color.
Black tea has a strong flavor — closer to coffee — and can be combined with milk. It has a higher quantity of caffeine than green tea has. Each cup contains between 25 and 100 mg, depending on the degree of fermentation.
Among the most popular varieties of black tea are:
• Assam. A full-bodied tea with a warm brown color. The Camellia assamica — a different plant than Sinensis — is grown in the northeast region of India.
• Ceilan. The ancient name for Sri Lanka is given to this delicate and aromatic black tea. It is commonly sold in bags.
• Darjeeling. Called "the champagne of teas" for its delicate fragrance and flavor. It is grown on the slopes of the Indian Himalayas. It is also sold decaffeinated.
• Earl Grey. Classic British mix of black tea with bergamot. It is one of the most commonly purchased bagged teas.
Leaves from the sky
The Darjeeling valley is found in the northeast region of India, on the border with Nepal. Eighty-seven tea plantations in this region have a 125-year history. The plant is grown at elevations between 1,970 and 7,050 feet (600 and 2,150 meters), on steep mountainsides that drain heavy monsoon rains.
The tea that grows in this region is of unmatched quality, a bundle of it falling somewhere between sweet grapes and ripe peaches. Between April and May the First Flush is harvested, tender young teas that produce a very light infusion. The second harvest, or Second Flush, occurs in July and August, and produces a bright infusion with a more intense flavor. This is considered ideal for after-dinner drinks.
• English Breakfast. Invented by a merchant in the nineteenth century, this is a very strong black tea to help you wake up in the morning.
• Keemun. From Chinese, "mountain of the lion." This is a very high-quality tea grown in the humid mountains of Anhui. Its aroma is like that of an orchid.
• Kenya. Brightly colored and intensely aromatic, this is one of the black teas with the most body. It is grown at high altitudes in the African country and is usually sold as a powder.
• Lady Grey. This is a more fruity — and feminine — version of Earl Grey. In addition to bergamot it contains rose petal and orange peel.
• Lapsang souchong. This robust Chinese tea has a characteristic smoky taste, from the process of drying leaves over a wood fire.
• Samovar. A very popular mixture developed in Russia from Chinese black tea with a touch of smokiness.
• Sumatra. This is a black tea with an intense, but slightly sweet, flavor. It is grown in the Indonesian island of the same name.
Blue tea
This is the name sometimes given to semi-fermented teas, also called Oolong. Instead of completing the oxidation, the fermentation is stopped mid-process — usually after about two hours. The result is a tea halfway between green and black. It has a balanced flavor with a combination of the characteristics of green and black teas, and is very popular in Taiwan. The caffeine content depends on when the fermentation is interrupted and can vary from 10 to 55 mg per cup.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Tea Time"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Editorial Océano, S.L. (Barcelona, Spain).
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Tea culture,
The history of tea,
Tea colors,
Therapeutic properties,
Other household uses,
Tea in the home,
Secrets of preparation,
Tea ceremony,
Drinks and culinary recipes,
Infusions and tisanes,
Cooking with tea,
Tea time tales,
Tasseomancy: the future in the leaves,
An inspiring cup,
Flavor and good health,
A brief dictionary of tea,
Recipes index,
Select bibliography,
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