Global Tea Time

Matcha Cream Today we're delving into a little tea recipe. This is inspired by Japan. I plan to do a more formal blog post on Japan, but I don't have the time to research it right now. What I do have is some heavy whipping cream left over from another tea experiment. It really needs to be used up since I don't want to put it in the freezer. There was a previous blog post that addresses why I don't want to freeze it. This one takes a little prep work because it calls for strained yogurt as well. As it happens, I strain yogurt quite frequently, so I have the setup down pretty well. If you have a nice, watery yogurt, coffee filters work well. You line a colander with paper filters, and place it over a bowl. I opted to buy use a reusable coffee filter for straining yogurt because it is an easy setup with no waste.  Okay, I am one of those geeks who makes my own yogurt. I didn't intend to become one of those people until I got an electric pressure cooker with...

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 morni...

Bahrain I've been debating how much time I can devote to my blog right now. I'm working on a very intense 12 week course related to work. It's not a course that is essential to my job, but it is good reference for my job. It's also a major time commitment. There's a big test at the end where I could get an additional certification that has no bearing on my current job. It's one of those things that might give me more job options in the future, or might be something that I would never, ever use. So much "adulting" in life, so how about a little fun? Today's destination is Bahrain . This is an Arab state consisting of a main island, and about 30 smaller islands in the Persian Gulf. It is only 15 miles from Saudi Arabia, and a causeway connects them to the mainland. While it is said that coffee is popular there, I'm more interested in their tea (big surprise considering this is a blog about tea).  I saw several, general descriptions, so...

Maldives The Maldives are an independent island country in the northern Indian Ocean. Information on tea took a little research. I found a recipe for black tea simmered with spices and mixed with sweetened condensed milk and extra sugar. Imagine teh tarik with spices added. I was looking for something a little different.  I found a reference to jasmine tea being popular in the past. The resource I found stated that people used to soak jasmine flowers in water overnight, and then strain them out and brew black tea with it. They said jasmine flowers are very rare on the islands now (I don't know why), but I liked the story. I don't know how accurate this is, but I decided to venture into the world of jasmine tea. Now I will say that my first exposure to jasmine tea was bad. I tried a generic brand of jasmine green tea, and it was so perfumy that I couldn't stand to drink it. I felt like I was drinking perfume, not tea. Most resources say that tea leaves should be laid...

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 ...