Global Tea Time

Philippines  Today we head to an island country in southeast Asia. The Philippines . These islands are just east of Malaysia. The pictures of the islands are beautiful, and tropical, and after a long winter that doesn't seem to want to end, I wish I was there. In researching tea preferences of that region, I found ginger turmeric tea again. This version is a little more simple than the last version of ginger turmeric tea that I made.  I decided to use my dried ginger. At some point I came along a video that said to pulverize the dried ginger with a mortar and pestle. This works a lot better for releasing the flavor of the ginger. It also smells amazing! I also used my good old coffee filter brewing method. Coffee filters are so much cheaper than the tea filter bags sold for loose leaf. This bag filled out to be really full when the ginger re-hydrated, but it didn't explode, so it all worked. I used a heaping tablespoon of Turmeric...

Thailand Thailand (previously known as Siam) is located in southeast Asia between Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. I'll admit that the name "Siam" has me immediately thinking of "The King and I" (the 1956 version - I thought of linking a video clip, but it is such a painfully bad movie, I just can't do it). The movie is accurate in the fact that it is wholly in the tropical region, and that the majority of people are Buddhist. Beyond that, well, not so much. Another interesting fact I found was that this country was never under colonial rule during its history.  Like many other countries in the region, teh tarik is popular. While they do prefer to serve it iced (since they live somewhere quite warm), that's not a terribly big difference from the basic recipe. Whenever I find that this is listed as a popular way to serve tea, I immediately start looking to see if there are other ways they like to serve their tea. I was lucky with Thailand, and found th...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka is a small island, formerly known as Ceylon, near the southern tip of India. About 1/3 of the island was reported to be covered by native forest, and the majority of the population lives in rural areas. I'll admit that I wasn't sure about the tea video I found for this country, but I decided to give it a try. Yes, that's powdered milk. In this part of the world, powdered milk is not known for its great taste. In fact, it has a reputation of being pretty bad. I have learned that other parts of the world have powdered milk that includes milk fat, but I still live in a country that is obsessed with the idea of a low fat diet so this is what I can get. The instructions say to make strong, black tea, so I'm using 2 tea bags. You could also use a nice, loose tea, but I'm not feeling that ambitious this morning. They also say to use ginger powder, so I'm hoping that this will also help cover up the dry milk flavor. I brewed the tea in ...

Teh Tarik Today we are making pulled tea. It is also known as nylon tea (because the tool used to brew the tea looks like a lady's nylon). I don't have one of these "nylons" to brew it with, and they obviously aren't the type of nylons women wear because they don't have gaping holes in them (or little dabs of nail polish everywhere to stop various runs to make them usable just a little bit longer). Okay, I'm glad the 1990s are long gone. But I digress, back to tea. If you want to know more about this brewing method (and whether or not it makes a difference for the flavor), I will leave you to watch this video.  This style of tea is popular in many countries, and is served hot or iced. It is also the base for bubble tea. If you want to make it into bubble tea, add some cooked large pearl tapioca that has been soaked in sugar syrup, and ice. I think people also add extra sugar to it as well.  Malaysia , a country at the end of a small peninsula ...

Matcha Most people associate Matcha with Japan. This is the country where it originated. The highest grades of matcha are used for formal tea ceremonies, and the lowest grade is used in food. In my "travels", I've discovered that matcha is popular throughout Asia. I found this recipe under Singapore, and decided I wanted to try it as well. Since I've already done a post specifically about Singapore, I'm throwing this one in for fun. Matcha is grown under increasing shade for a period of time before harvest. This makes the plant produce more chlorophyll and the leaves become darker. Then the leaves are steamed, dried, and ground into a fine powder. Unlike other teas, you don't strain matcha out, you consume the leaf. As a side note, there are several bagged teas on the US market that contain matcha. I'm always a bit confused as to why they are using it as an infusion, and not just using regular green tea. I have a feeling that it has somethi...