Brent, AKA Tea Nerd, is taking advantage of the beautiful springtime weather.

Instead of worrying about keeping your tea hot while you’re outdoors though, what about letting it get cold? You might notice different, more subtle flavor notes as your tea cools,  and if you like what you taste, you may even wish to try your tea iced. Now is the perfect time to introduce yourself to this treat, with the weather getting warmer in the Northern hemisphere.

Iced tea is becoming more and more popular, and some companies sell it pre-bottled. But if you are a true lover of tea (and I suspect you are), it’s quite easy to make your own. Yours will also undoubtedly taste much fresher, and lack the unnecessisary sweeteners that are added to pre-bottled brews. Simply steep your tea as your normally would, then chill it either by popping it in the icebox for a bit, adding ice, or letting it sit until it reaches room temperature. Spoons made of ice would be a fun way to stir your beverage,  but be careful not to let your tea get watered-down!

Jasmine tea is particularly delicious when cold, and you’ll notice all sorts of light nectary flavors emerge when they’re not masked by heat.  Try using this Japanese iced tea pitcher when making your iced tea with loose leaves. Simply steep the tea, remove the diffuser, and refrigerate.

 This “drop stop tea strainer” will let you steep your tea for just the right amount of time, hung over the side of your cup or mug. When your tea is ready, just remove the strainer and the little “spoon” section will save your tablecloth from drips.

If you prefer the stirring aspect of making tea, you might want to try out the tea stick. Fill the chamber with your loose tea, swirl it in your cup to steep, and simply flush the stick out with clean water to rinse when you’re finished.

These teastick gems are similar to the tea stick above, but they come in fantastically fun colours.

Or if you prefer regular “tea ball” infusers, why not try a decorative version, such as this hand-beaded one?

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Cakes! For many, an almost erotic accompaniment to tea. A favourite of mine is the Irish Tea Cake.

Ain’t they just the prettiest looking cakes? Click here for the much sought after recipe.

As the divine Delia Smith puts it, ‘there’s no better way to spend a leisurely afternoon than with tea and cakes!’ We couldn’t agree more, and can’t recommend Delia’s cake recipes enough.

And finally…Not quite a duck-rabbit test. Do you see a duck or a rabbit?

Do you see tea? Or cake?

A couple of products of interest to those of us who’d rather skip the yawning (literally) chasm between waking up and having a cup of tea in hand. Like something from Tomorrow’s World in the 1970s (isn’t everything these days?), these automatic tea makers

combine the common or garden alarm clock with tea maker , thereby waking you up to the sound and smell of the cuppa. Rather than trudge downstairs to the chill of the kitchen, just prop up the pillow and, hey presto, reach over and take a sip. Personally, I’m too attached to my own tea making ritual to surrender the task to my alarm clock. The first cup of the day is sacred and, for me anyway, requires a small amount of preparation - moving to another room, sitting by the kitchen window, the anticipation of the kettle - a tiny tiny version of the Japanese ceremony, which bestows upon the cup a level of respect. Perhaps for an exquisitely lazy Sunday the tea maker might come into its own? The temptation to just stay in bed drinking tea all morning might prove too great for those of a weaker constitution. And isn’t the tea maker only the first step toward a totally automated morning routine, a la
Wallace and Gromit? You recall the scene from The Wrong Trousers, where an alarm tips Wallace’s bed and he slides down it directly into his breakfast chair, before a machine makes tea and a plodge of jam is fired at the toast. Do you really want to end up like this?

A follow-on from the previous post on smoked teas, where I talked about the smoking process involved in such teas as lapsang souchong, withering the leaves over a pine or cedar fire, which gives the tea its powerful woody, smoky taste. With this we are familiar. But how about the process of tea smoked food?

The principle is similar, in that tea smoked food originates from the need to preserve food, just as tea smoking came from the need to preserve tea during long distance trade routes. There are several ancient methods of preserving food, including the use of salt, and drying techniques, but the advent of refrigeration of course changed all that. To preserve food, we keep it frozen. However, the ancient Chinese method of tea smoking, although no longer used for preservation, is still practiced as an advanced culinary technique, for the richness of flavour it can achieve.

Tea leaves are burnt and the smoke is used to instil the food with a luxurious flavour. The method works especially well on poultry and fish.

Here are some recipes you might like to try:

• Tea smoked fish slices
• Tea smoked salmon with wasabi latkes
• Tea smoked chicken with lemon salad
  

Many us like a drop of milk in our tea. So accustomed are we to that drop, that for many of us, tea without milk is an unthinkable prospect. But hands up who pays any attention to the precise amount of milk we pour into the mug? I thought so. We rely on intuition alone, we just know how much to put in according to our tastes. Agreed. But, I’ll bet you can recall, maybe as recently as the other day,  pouring a smidgeon too much milk, for whatever reason, for instance, problems with hand-eye co-ordination first thing in the morning. Getting exactly the right amount of milk in one’s cup, the more one thinks about it, is not as precise as we’d like to think. We rely on the changing colour of the tea, as much as how much milk we think we’ve poured, before we decide when to stop. And sometimes, we accidently end up with a cup almost imperceptibly milkier than we’d have preferred. Admit it. There’s no shame. It happens. With that in mind, have a look at this little invention, and let me know: gimmick or not? I think it’s quite useful. It colour coordinates the tea-milk ratio so you get it bang on everytime. No matter what kind of state you’re in in the morning.

Some other uses for a tea cup, via CuteOverload …

…one of life’s great existential dilemmas, as Shakespeare himself observed. His most famous character, Hamlet, is almost driven mad by the question: do I use a teapot, or do I go directly for the cup. By the time he makes his mind up, and opts for his special skull-shaped teapot, the play is nearly over, and it’s too late. The water’s gone cold.

But seriously, folks. Teapots. People have been using them for centuries. In fact, since China’s Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Here is a picture of one of the very oldest surviving teapots from this period, dated 1533.

The first teapots, like the above, were made from zischa, which is a kind of clay, and come from the YiXing region of China. YiXing teapots are still regarded, to this day, as a benchmark of quality. YiXing teapots, baked at 2,000F+ high heat, are made of very fine clay. They contain tiny pores, which absorb the flavour of the tea, and can actually enhance the flavour as it brews. They also maintain heat longer than other kinds of teapot (again, improving quality and flavour); and they look great.

Here are some modern examples of YiXing teapots

I confess I’m a borderline teapot obsessive: stay tuned for more tidbits on the story of the teapot.