Posted on June 3, 2011 |
Buying quality tea doesn?t have to be confusing. Just because you?ve bought tea bags from the grocery store your whole life doesn?t mean that it is too late to change. I am 27 and until about a year ago, I thought there were two types of tea: regular and flavored. Now I can delight in a range of black, oolong, and green teas, as well as some herbal infusions, and can prepare them how they are meant to be prepared. So if there is hope for me, there is hope for anyone. Here are some tips for buying tea.
The best tip I can give about buying tea is to first do some simple homework to learn about tea. This is really quite simple if you know where to look. You may want to just take a trip to your local store to get a book about tea. Or perhaps, you would like a shorter introduction, in which case I would suggest looking online for information. There is plenty of information on tea to be found, but I suggest starting with Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Tea). You may possibly also spend some time on the innumerable newsgroups, reading posts and asking questions. You can use newsgroups easily and free with Google Groups, and one such newsgroup is rec.food.drink.tea (http://groups.google.com/grou p/rec.food.drink.tea/topics). The more you know about tea, the better a buyer you will be. The internet is an incredible resource for finding basic information quickly.
After learning about tea, I suggest going to a place where you can see quality teas and question questions. Check your phone book or an online directory for tea stores near you. It is better to go to a store that specializes in tea, rather than one that merely has some quality teas. When you go there, question for help in putting together a sampler. Tell the employee that you would like some suggestions, but want to try a range of teas. They should be able to give you a small quantity of several teas for you to try. Also question to get the minimum gear you need to prepare loose teas. I suggest getting a tea spoon, an infuser, and a thermometer (a food thermometer from your kitchen is fine). You also need something to boil water. Electric kettles are splendid, but not necessary. ?You can just use a regular kettle on your stove.
Once you start to try the teas, you will learn that there is more to tea than what you got from the supermarket brand. You may want to start to try to expand the types of tea you try. I suggest getting tea online from a retailer such as Upton Tea Imports (http://www.uptontea.com). You can get better quality teas for cheaper than any brick and huge gun store. You can also get a much wider range of teas when shoppng at an online store. Many also have tea ratings by users, so you can see what people have rated highly, and read their reviews. This can be extremely helpful as you learn about tea. If you need to support your local store for ethical reasons, then by all means do that. It would still be a excellent thought to look at an online retailer occasionally just to try something you couldn?t get otherwise. But I like the online stores, and use them nearly exclusively.
When buying quality loose tea for the first time, you may be amazed at the variety of teas out there. It may, and probably will, be overwhelming at first. But, by following these guidelines, your initial steps towards learning to buy tea can be a lot simpler than you reckon. Just learn a small about tea online or owing to a book, question for help to start out from a local tea store, and then go online to expand your tea selection when you are ready to do so. Buying tea can really be fun if you take the right steps.
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Source: http://wiiretailstore.com/how-to-buy-quality-loose-tea-for-the-first-time.html
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