A treatise on tea, Part I

Profuse apologies, gentle reader, on my having neglected this blog for quite so long. Really, in terms of baking productivity, it's been pretty low-tide. We spent 3 weeks living out of hotels, then another week unpacking the kitchen (and recovering from unpacking the kitchen)... So, excuses aside, I just wanted to share a few things I've learned while living in the second highest per capita tea drinking society in the world (apparently second only to Turkey, which surprised me, because I thought it was Ireland...).

The mug. It's really a more critical component of the tea drinking experience than most people think... sure, you can pick up one with pictures of your cat emblazoned on it, or like a "World's Best " mug. But, if you can manage (unlike Amy) to not have 5 mugs stolen in a year, you should invest in a nice mug, usually something ceramic. Bypass anything with teddy bears on it, though. Some people like glass, plastic would be ok, though tragically low class. I've also determined that shape is really quite important, as is size. I am not that fast of a tea drinker, and I really only like drinking it within a certain temperature range that starts at just shy of roof-of-your-mouth-scalding and goes to still-pretty-hot. As tea should always be made with just-below-boiling water (otherwise it turns an interesting grayish color...eew). Anything below that temperature range and I lose interest. So the main two issues I'm concerned with are 1) surface-to-air-contact ratio, and 2) thick cup insulation.

This mug isn't a great shape - the surface area of the tea is probably 2x larger than it should be, thus exposing it to too much cool air - it cools down way before you have time to drink a mug this large.









I realize the attractive and possible sentimental value of this sort of tea cup & saucer setup. But really it's only useful when you're sitting with a large pot of already-brewed tea because you'll wind up drinking at least 3 cups of tea in this sized cup. And then you wind up having to worry about how hot the pot of tea is because with this surface area exposure at the top of the cup it'll cool down very quickly (though it does let you start with that scorching hot water and not worry about having to wait 20 minutes for it to be drinkable).



I will proclaim this sized mug to be, for your standard every-day tea needs, "just right." It's taller than it is wide - so you can have the type of volume you want in a cup of tea, while still maintaining decent temperature.











Unless, of course, you're Amy. In which case this might be preferable.