Good Water for Tea

Good Water for Tea

Tea is 98.5%  water

The quality of the water you use is equally  important as the quality of your tea. You could steep fantastic teas in poor water and the result would always be less than optimum.

Students of tea have always been aware of water's importance in the art of making good tea since Lu Yu, author of Cha Ching in 780 A.D, stumbled upon a glorious spring where the water was extremely clear and clean. He brewed tea with this spring water and found the tea tasted unexpectedly better than usual. Even the early settlers of Manhattan had designated tea water pumps to be used only for drawing water for making tea.

Most Americans are fortunate to have safe and affordable municipal water but that rarely means tap water is best for brewing tea until it has the chlorine removed. How can you enhance the quality of your home tap water for steeping tea? 

Here are four initial observations you can make concerning your water: 

The look of the water.  Is there anything floating in the water or is it off-color?

The smell of the water. Are there traces aromas of sulfur or chlorine?

The taste of the water. Can you taste any dominant minerals? 

The visual signs of water hardness.  Do you see heavy calcium buildup in your water kettle or around your faucets?  

Unless you have extremely hard water, the easiest solution for most consumers is a one or two-stage filter system. Simple counter top water filters will remove visible solids and chlorine and improve the taste of most water. But, they do not substantially alter the mineral content of water known as total dissolved solids or TDS. 

Mineral content can be removed by a reverse osmosis system that gives you totally pure water. The downside is that reverse osmosis removes all the minerals and that's not the best water for making tea. Some mineral content is needed—just not too much or too little. 

You can check your water sources with two inexpensive and easy to use gadgets—a TDS meter ($15) and a PH meter ($27.)  Both are available online at sites such as Amazon.

Here is the ideal tea water analysis if you have your water analyzed:

80 ppm Total Hardness
No Chlorine or Iron
150 ppm Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
40 ppm Alkalinity
6-8 pH

Does bottled spring water make the best tea? 

Be aware that all waters are not created equal.  Bruce Richardson (owner of Elmwood Inn) recently used a TDS meter to check the total dissolved solids in bottled distilled water, drinking water, and spring water from one national grocer.   

The distilled water of course showed zero TDS, the drinking water registered a desirable 170 ppm, but the spring water tested at 450 ppm, too high for good tea making.  Check the bottler's website for an analysis statement and compare it to the ideal analysis shown above.  Spring water may sound like the most natural source but those waters often have high TDS and PH levels.  Distilled water has no mineral content and is too flat for tea making.

One of the leading water designers for the professional coffee and tea trade is Cirqua Customized Water. They provide water used in brewing samples at major trade shows including World Tea Expo. Scientists at Cirqua have a developed a packet of liquid minerals called The Formula that can be added to a gallon of distilled or reverse osmosis treated water to insure the proper balance for tea or coffee brewing. You can read more about water for tea and The Formula at cirqua.com. 

Thanks and credit to Elmwood Inn Teas

The Perfect Scone Recipe

The Perfect Scone Recipe

True English Scones Should Rise and Split 
 

Shelley Richardson and her pastry chefs made thousands of scones over the 14 years she hosted the tearoom at Elmwood Inn. She prefers a traditional English scones that rise and split. This makes it easy to break the delicious treats open for spreading with cream and preserves. 

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

6 tablespoons unsalted cold butter

1/2 cup currants or white raisins
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon cream
1 tablespoon sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400º F. Lightly grease a large baking sheet. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and soda. With a pastry blender, cut in butter, mixing it until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in currants if desired.

Whisk buttermilk and egg together, then add to flour mixture. Stir together until a soft ball of dough forms. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently, turning five or six times. Do not overwork dough.

Roll out dough with a floured rolling pin to about 1/2 inch thickness. Using a round cookie cutter, cut scones out and place on the baking sheet. Brush the tops lightly with cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light brown. Serve warm with lemon curd, clotted cream, or preserves. Makes one dozen scones.

Time Saving Hint: Raw scones may be frozen and then baked as you need them. Add a couple of minutes to the bake time.


credit to Elmwood Inn

Bottled Tea Health Benefits (or lack of)

Bottled Tea Health Benefits

All Bottled Teas are not created equal

You can't turn the aisle in the supermarket these days without running headlong into an endcap stocked with bottles of RTD (ready-to-drink) green tea. Bottled tea is a $2.2 billion consumer market. The popularity of these beverages continues to skyrocket and people literally stop me on the street to ask if they are really getting the health benefits they want.

The short answer is: possibly, but you would benefit more - and save money - by making your own ready-to-drink tea at home using fresh loose leaf green tea.

A recent study by WellGen, Inc., a biotechnology company in North Brunswick, NJ, helps put the perceived health benefits into data we can understand. Shiming Li, a WelGen analytical and natural product chemist tested 49 commercial samples and was invited to report the findings at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Boston on Aug. 22.

Li's team compared the level of polyphenols in RTD teas purchased from supermarkets.

“Half of them contained virtually no antioxidants,” he reported while others had low amounts of polyphenols, the researchers found using a technique called high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

They examined six brands of bottled teas that contained 81, 43, 40, 13, 4, and 3 milligrams of polyphenols per 16-ounce bottle.

In contrast, Elmwood Inn Fine Teas co-sponsored a 2009 laboratory study that showed a single cup of home-brewed tea, which costs only a few cents, contains 100-150 mg. of the powerful catechin EGCG.

Li also pointed out that apart from containing small amounts of polyphenols, bottled tea contains large amounts of sugar that should be avoided.

The simple solution is make your own healthy cold tea beverages in your kitchen and bottle it in a reusable container. It's easy, inexpensive, and you'll save the environment from another six pack of empty plastic bottles.

Remember this healthy tip: Citric acid extends the viability of the powerful antioxidant EGCG as it passes through your digestive system. So add a bit of lemon or orange juice to your green tea drink.

FDA Takes the Fizz out of Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale

I had to laugh recently when I spotted a bottle of Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger

Ale on my grocer's shelf. Green tea in ginger ale? Here is another example of a

corporate giant trying to make a profit on green's tea's health benefits! If

you read the[6] August 24th edition of my Tea Maestro blog, you realize how

little real tea there is in any of these commercial drinks!

I t didn't take long for the FDA to spot the infraction and send a warning to

the parent company Dr. Pepper. At issue are claims made by the company that

Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale was fortified with antioxidants and Vitamin C.

The FDA said the amount of antioxidants that the company claims the drink

contains isn't substantiated because the bulk of the antioxidants come from

sources it does not recognize.

The agency also said the company should not have claimed the drink was

fortified. "...the FDA does not consider it appropriate to fortify snack foods

such as carbonated beverages," the agency wrote.

If you want to gain the health benefits of green tea, you have to drink real

green tea - not carbonated beverages with a bit of green tea extract, not

bottled water with a bit of green tea, not bottled green tea in a gallon jug

from your supermarket. Buy fresh loose green tea and let it steep. People have

been doing it for thousands of years!

Courtesy Elmwood Inn Fine Teashttp://www.harborteaandspice.com/