Global Tea Time

Réunion Réunion is a small, volcanic island east of Madagascar. From its description, the population is comprised of a diverse mixture of races and cultures. I found a video about harvesting tea in Réunion. Apparently they make white tea . White tea is minimally oxidized, and is not terribly popular in the area where I live. If it is found in bagged tea, it is always combined with something else. As luck would have it, white peony tea is available in the bulk food section of one of my local grocery stores. Unfortunately the video doesn't show how white tea is served in Réunion, so I will be serving it in my favorite fashion. Plain.  Just add hot water! While it is true that if you can boil water, you can make tea, some teas are a bit fussy. According to the reference table in one of my books, white teas brew at about the same temperature as green teas (180 Fahrenheit), but they are steeped longer. The resource I'm using today says that 7 minutes is a good brewing tim...

Milk Tea Milk tea is very popular around the world, and especially East Africa. Many of the countries in that region make black tea, and it pairs well with milk (and sugar). So, who likes black tea with milk? Malawi . Malawi is a long, narrow country that follows the rift valley. It is 520 miles (840 km) long, and anywhere from 5 to 100 miles (10 to 160 km) wide. Malawi doesn't have a border on an ocean, but Lake Nyasha (AKA Lake Malawi) forms the eastern border of the country, and accounts for over 1/5 of the country's area. While it is a small country, it is divided into 4 climate regions that are largely based on elevation. Since I have been to the rift valley (further north from Malawi), I know that elevation causes large variations in temperature and humidity (and amount of bugs). I preferred being in the mountains since it was cooler and less humid (and had fewer bugs). Agriculture includes a wide range from large tea and tobacco estates down to subsistence farms. ...

Mauritius Today we travel to the  small island of volcanic origin,  Mauritius  which is 500 miles (800 km) east of Madagascar. Mauritius is the home of the dodo bird. Apparently there are several other species of birds unique to the island that nearly went extinct before people realized that they really should protect them.  I also noticed that the age distribution of this country is more balanced. Upon further reading, they offer free basic healthcare services to their population, and have compulsory education for everyone between age 5 and 16. This is starting to sound like a really nice place to live. I was also amused to read that English was the official language of the country, but few people actually spoke it. Over half of the land on this island is arable, and most of it is planted with sugar cane for export. They also use some of their land to grow vegetables and tea for local consumption. While I know sugar makes good money, I'm more interested in th...

Somalia Today we travel to the horn of Africa, Somalia . I always think that it looks like a rhinoceros horn. While Somalia is known for war, drought, famine, and pirates, there is more to their story.  Somalia was part of "British East Africa". The British drew up the borders of the countries before giving them their independence. The borders were made arbitrarily. This region was divided into 5 countries because there were 5 snow capped mountains in the region, and each country got one (thank you Dr. Wanjala - my professor or East African History at Egerton University). The most famous mountain of the 5 is Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Somalia's is named Surud Cad (aka. Shimbiris). Apparently this is the region where they get frankincense and myrrh for export. I was a little surprised to read that these items are major exports. It makes sense that people in the Middle East would know what these items were, and how to use them. There's famous documentation of...

Cleaning tea ware A week or so ago, I came across a very useful looking video  from Mei Leaf. It's not about how to make tea, rather it is how to clean up after tea. Since I've been wanting to clean my small teapot, I decided to give it a try. You need a big container to hold water, gloves, a soft cloth or sponge, baking soda, and citric acid. I found citric acid in the bulk food section of my grocery store. The one that has the really nice selection of bulk spices. I wasn't quite sure how big of a container I needed because the mixture does fizz up. I had this right next to the sink, and several towels around it when I mixed everything together. As it turns out, it doesn't fizz all that high, and I had plenty of room in my bowl. It wasn't deep enough to completely immerse my tea ware, but I kept changing its position to allow the bubbles to work everywhere. I also used a Q-Tip to clean the spout on the tea pot.  So, how did it work? This is the b...

Tanzania and Mozambique Now we are moving on from southern Africa, up the eastern side of the continent. Today we are making Swahili ginger milk tea. Technically, I have been in Tanzania. In 2000 I studied abroad in Kenya, and part of the study abroad program was taking road trips to see the country. When we went to Masai Mara, we learned about the "no man's land" between the 2 countries to help accommodate the Masai tribe's nomadic lifestyle. It also helped tourists enjoy the park, and see all the sights since we had to drive into this area to go to the Sand River to see the hippos. So the border was not enforced until you were 5 kilometers into the country. If you were less than 5 kilometers in (from either direction) from the border, it was no big deal. I'm not sure that it was that way outside of the park (Masai Mara national park in Kenya, The Serengeti national park in Tanzania). The border was marked by a white pole in the ground with a K on one side, a...