Tea Quotes A Perfect Cup of Tea !

 Quotes

• Free yourself from the slavery of tea and coffee and other slop kettles! - William Cobbett (sent by Henners1@aol.com)
• If a man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty - Japanese proverb
• It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization
• It is a poor person who must drink first brewed tea - The Kung fu tea ceremony. This means that you don't have time to do it right. The second and third brew is much more mellow with out the tanic acid bite. Agnes Repplier, To Think of Tea!
• Look here, Steward, if this is coffee, I want tea; but if this is tea, then I wish for coffee. Punch 23 July 1902 (cartoon caption)
• Thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid! Thou innocent pretense for bringing the wicked of both sexes together in the morning! Thou female tongue-running, smile-soothing, heart-opening, wink-tipping cordial to whose glorious insipidity I can owe the happiest moments of my life. Colby Cibber
• Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea. Sydney Smith
• To kiss is like drinking tea from a tea-strainer - you always want more old chinese saying
• Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. Henry James, Portrait of a Lady
• Wherever I go, I will always have my tea

A Perfect  of   !

Seemingly anyone, even those who don't "cook," can boil water and make tea. But there is more to making a truly savory cup of tea, which requires the following care.

1. Use the best quality leaf tea you can find (often British, like Twinings or Jackson's of Piccadilly--American teas often contain higher percentages of stalk, as well as tea "dust" to gain fast color, but not necessarily wonderful flavor). The best qualities can be purchased in bulk, but there are some fine qualities in tea bags, like the above brands.
2. Use a teapot and scald it by pouring in boiling water before use. This gets the pot well heated so that the water for steeping does not cool down too quickly from cold ceramic or china. Empty hot water and place one teabag for each cup (6 fl. oz.) in the pot. For 30 fl. oz. of water, for instance, use five teabags. Water must be fresh and just off a rolling boil.
3. Allow tea to steep without stirring for three to five minutes (depends on the strength you like--decide by trial and error). To keep the tea at ideal extraction temperature use a "cozy," usually a quilted cover that fits over the teapot and holds in the heat.
4. After the steeping period in step three, remove teabags without squeezing them (squeezing can press out some of the bitter tasting polyphenols that remain in the leaf).
5. Pour hot tea from pot into cups and enjoy. Add what pleases you, but NEVER use cream -- it contains too much fat for the delicate flavor of tea. You may add a dollop of whole milk, milk and sugar, Sweet 'N Low, or the like.

If you have never developed an interest in hot tea, give the above a try. The unadulterated taste of tea itself -- properly steeped to yield a rich, bright flavor and color -- is a 2,000 year old delicacy begun by China's first emperor in 2737 B.C. There is a world of difference in the true flavor of fine tea if it is prepared correctly.