About tea.

One can never have too many different teas; I have well over 30, though I've lost count, and they take up an entire shelf in my large cupboard. I started to really appreciate the finer points of tea while pregnant with my daughter, now 3 - it's amazing what 9 months without a cocktail will do to you. Appreciating tea is much like appreciating fine wine and spirits. Today I came across Uncle Lee's Tea, and their gunpowder green looked too tempting to pass up.

Gunpowder is a lovely smoky loose tea; the leaves are rolled into little balls before processing (the Chinese call it pearl tea). This supposedly helps it retain better flavor than regular tea. Uncle Lee's brand of gunpowder comes in a vaccuum-sealed brick, inside a can, inside a box - an awful lot of packaging for a small bag of tea, but it makes a difference. When you open the bag it smells really fresh, almost grassy, much the way I imagine fresh tea leaves smell before processing. I've rarely come across teas this fresh, except some brought over by Chinese friends. When brewed it produces a rich golden-colored tea with delicate toasty-smoky flavors and a pleasant strong aftertaste that's not at all bitter. This is just what green tea should be, and Uncle Lee's Tea delivers a beautiful cup of mid-to-high-grade tea at a price that is very reasonable (a little over $7).

But why is green tea called green? All teas come from the leaves of the same plant (the tea plant) - but the 'color' of the tea (white, green, black) denotes the age of the leaves when picked for processing. White are the young, tender leaf buds, and their brew has a very delicate, aromatic, and never bitter flavor; green are still young and have a delicate flavor but can become bitter easily if brewed too long (low-grade greens always brew bitter teas no matter the timing); black are fully matured leaves with rich, full flavor, and make up the characteristic English and European teas such as Earl Grey. Each stage of tea leaf and type of tea is also processed differently. There is a leaf sometimes called red tea, but this is in fact not from the tea plant. It comes from an African bush called rooibos; the leaves produce a sweeter, rich tea and contain no caffiene. The more mature the tea leaf, the higher the caffiene content.

Note: White and green teas should produce golden-hued brews, so be wary of any green tea that makes green-colored tea.

A cure for the common Warcraft addiction.

I've been so busy in my kitchen the last couple of days I've all but forgotten about World of Warcraft. I couldn't even tell you right now what level my night elf druid is. Instead, I could ramble on about homemade cheese and yogurt, Creole food, and (hold your breath) Thai iced tea. The last is my proudest accomplishment this weekend. Forget that I made half a gallon of the creamiest, most delicious yogurt you've ever tasted. Never mind that there's a vat of red beans and rice, Leah Chase style, waiting in the fridge for tomorrow night's supper. And that jambalaya? A thing of the past. Sure, it's GOOD, but I have not been waiting ages to taste some only to find it's even better than I ever could have remembered.

Now the Thai tea - that's a whole other story. Thai iced tea has been my favorite iced drink ever since my first sip at Lemongrass in Las Cruces over 8 years ago (yeah, I actually remember when and where. It's that freaking good). I couldn't get enough. The tea is lightly and sweetly spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, and most notably (but not noticeably) star anise. It's rather heavily sweetened and usually tinted with a touch of red food coloring to give that signature reddish orange hue. Then it is poured over ice and topped with a generous amount of either half and half or evaporated milk, and is usually a rich sunset of pale peach to deep, burnt brown-orange when served (the trick is pouring in the milk very slowly so it stays mostly on top, tea on bottom. Sadly, you stir up this work of art before drinking). I once saw a beautiful glass of fresh Thai tea sitting on the shelf of a small Buddhist altar in my favorite Thai restaurant, Dodge City's little-known Thai Angel (no idea if it's still around, but they serve the best Thai food I have ever eaten. Two words: Angel Wings). My only gripe with Thai tea is that no cokbook I've ever come across will tell me how to brew the tea itself; they all simply give instructions for assembling the finished beverage. The closest I ever came was in Victor Sodsook's True Thai, which gave a vague mention of it being spiced mainly with star anise. This is, to this day, the only reason that spice resides in my kitchen.

Anyway, while surfing CHOW during a random bout of insomnia and yogurt-making tonight, I came across a recipe for Thai- and Vietnamese-style iced coffee, and it got me to wondering if they had a recipe for Thai tea. They did, and I immediately rushed to the kitchen and made some in my spiffy Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker. I don't actually use this appliance for iced tea all that often - generally I just brew hot in it, as it makes a really lovely pot of strong hot tea without my needing to attend to anything. Anyway, I brewed it hot and stuck the pitcher in the fridge to chill, but not before I thoroughly spoiled myself with a fresh glass over ice, topped with that customary rich, creamy swirl of half and half. It was better than I could have imagined. The black teas I had on hand worked perfectly with the blend of spices, and I was immediatey transported to another galaxy. Fellow Thai tea lovers, you know what I'm talking about. This is not the kind of beverage you can enjoy halfheartedly. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Make some now. You can thank me later.

NOTE: All recipes linked to in this post are gluten-free. If making the Creole jambalaya or red beans linked above, be sure to check your sausage and ham labels for gluten!