Introduction

Thanks to reading some cooking blogs, I finally started to learn to like cooking in the last few years. It turns out that I really like international cooking, and learning techniques used around the world. Sasha Martin’s Global Table Adventure was one of my favorite blogs, but she finished her cooking trip and has since moved on to other things. Since researching, cooking, and then writing about full meals from other countries is more involved than I have time for, I decided to try a similar project with tea. I'm including herbal preparations along with traditional tea leaf drinks. Recipes for foods that incorporate tea leaves are also fair game. 

This isn’t going to be some little girl, princess tea party thing. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am totally incapable of being a girly girl. My only trip out of the country was when I was in college. I did a summer session abroad at Egerton University in Kenya. I drank a lot of really good tea on that trip because water fresh from the tap was not safe to drink. The reality is that there are still many parts of the world that lack safe drinking water, and tea helps remedy that situation because it is a boiled (and therefore safe) beverage. Even for the parts of the world that do have safe drinking water, tea just tastes good.

A note about my posts: I am researching tea recipes and culture using the internet (which is known to harbor some inaccuracies), and I won’t claim exact authenticity or cultural accuracy for all my posts. I may also toss in a few food recipes that are inspired by a region of the world. I decided to explore tea by region since there is a lot of overlap and sharing between cultures when it comes to tea (and food in general).

(Just in case any lace makers happen to come across this page, the edging on the hankie is based on a pattern from "Torchon Lacemaking, A step-by-step guide" by Jan Tregidgo, 2010. Worked in size 80 DMC cotton.)