Bhutan

Bhutan

As we come off of one of the coldest spring seasons on record, I'm making winter tea from Bhutan. Bhutan is located on the eastern ridges of the Himalayas, and is better known for yak butter tea, but I have no yaks to milk to make butter, so I'm going with an alternate tea recipe. This is a milk tea with cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper. 

In reality, I just crushed up one peppercorn because a little pepper tends to go a long way. I used all 3 cloves I had, a cinnamon stick, and 2 bags of black tea. I put my crushed pepper and cloves in the tea ball because all of my tea strainers are currently occupied with other teas that have one or 2 more brews left in them. (yes, I'm obsessed). 

Anyway, I used 1 cup (about 250 mL) of water, and simmered the tea and spices for a few minutes. Then I added a cup (250 mL) of milk, and brought it back to a simmer for a few minutes. 

The result was a mildly spicy, milky tea. It was very good on a cold morning. I actually thought that I could put a little more pepper in it. I really didn't get the heat and snap from pepper, but it is a tricky ingredient to use in tea. I'm still trying to get the hang of using the correct amount. It is a nice tea for a cold morning, but I'm hoping that some day I will need a nice tea for a warm morning. 

Comments

  1. Poppy CrockerMay 20, 2018 at 8:36 AM

    And here I was looking forward to the video of you milking a yak. Darn!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lace makerMay 20, 2018 at 9:38 AM

      You could always start a fund for me to travel there and learn to milk a yak. I would certainly take a video for you in that situation :-)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equatorial Guinea

Image
Equatorial Guinea Today we go to Equatorial Guinea , which consists of "Rio Muni" - Continental Equatorial Guinea, and 5 small islands known collectively as Insular Equatorial Guinea. When researching this country, I found "osang" tea. I found the name only, no instructions on how to make it. Mystery tea Upon doing some research, osang is a generic name for African milk tea. I couldn't pin down any specific flavors used for this region, just a general description of how people all over Africa make this tea. The base is black tea with milk. The suggested add ins are shown below. Tea Masala (thank you Indian food store), ginger, cardamom, or lemongrass. No, don't use them all together. Today I'm in the mood for cardamom, so that's what I used. The one blog I found about making this suggested a 1:1 ratio of milk and tea. I used 3/4 cup (about 200 ml) of each, with 3 cardamom pods. As usual, you can add sugar to taste. I decided to add the c...
Read more

Have a cup of Christmas

Image
I'm skipping ahead just a little bit because of a Central American holiday tradition. The hibiscus flowers are in bloom, and it's tea season. In this part of the world, hibiscus tea is known as "sorrel" instead of " bissap ". While my research on the tea of North America is not complete, I found that several countries make sorrel for Christmas. Trinidad and Tobago , the southern most Caribbean islands. They gained their independence from the UK in 1962. They are a continuation of the Andes mountains from Venezuela. They have a tropical climate, and temperatures vary widely between day and night. They used to grow a lot of sugarcane, but the last of the sugarcane estates was closed. Cocoa and coffee are also export crops. Most of the population is rural, and is made up of people from Africa, East Indian, and mixed race.  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , are part of the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea. These islands gained their independen...
Read more

Ataya/Waraga/Tuareg Tea

Image
"Berber Whiskey" What do you make on a Saturday afternoon when you're tired? I mean really tired. Like you just woke up from a 3 hour nap, and all you want to do is go back to sleep. I will admit I was a bit leery of this one when I found out how it was made, but this is wildly popular so I had to try it. This version of tea has many names, and some sources say that this is used like alcohol in cultures that forbid drinking and using drugs.  Ataya (or attaya - I've seen it spelled both ways), also known as Tuareg tea (so named for the Tuareg tribe), is a very social tea ceremony in West Africa. Most reviews say to expect to take at least 3 hours and have several rounds of tea. Over time, each round of tea is supposed to get milder and sweeter. Sometimes instructions say that mint is added. It is popular in many countries: The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau , Senegal (The Gambia is actually inside Senegal with a small border on the Atlantic), Sierra Leone , Mali , Mau...
Read more