A tea afficianado will tell you that it takes time to learn to brew great tea. True, but its also fairly easy to learn how to brew good tea. Just learn the Five “T”s of brewing good tea, Tea, waTer, Temperature, Time and Taste, and you will be brewing outstanding tea in no time! Let me walk you through the five Ts.

1) The first “T” is “Tea”. This may sound silly, but really, more than 90% of the quality of the brew is going to depend on the quality of the tea that you select. Fortunately today it is easy to buy outstanding tea. Compared to the yesteryears, when you had to be in a big city like Philadelphia, New York or Boston to get really good tea, today in North America there is almost a rennaisance in the tea culture, and you can find really outstanding teas just by going online.

In your vendor selection, try to be very selective about who you choose for your tea purchase. Read the reviews, email the owner and learn as much about the vendor as possible before buying from them. Be aware that there are two types of vendors, A speciality tea vendor that specializes in tea from certain parts of the world - China or India or Celon etc, or a general vendor who sells every thing under the banner of tea, including the crazy fruity blends to Yerba Mate to Roiboos. Generally speaking, the specialist vendor tends to know more about their tea and will in fact point you in the right direction rather than try to sell you a lot of different types of tea. So select the vendor carefully and with a good tea, you are already on the way to making an outstanding brew.

2) WaTer: The second biggest factor that influences tea brew is waTer. Heavily chlorinated water from the tap completely destroys the flavors in tea, so avoid the chlorinated tap water. Distilled water is fine, but in my experience tea tastes better with spring water than distilled water.

Beware though, that not all spring waters are created equal. My advice is, buy four or five different types of spring waters and brew the teas in them separately to see which one brings out the tea flavor the best. You may even want to test the “filter” water from one of the home filter companies. These filters not only filter the water, but also add some trace amounts of salts, and do a pretty good job in brewing tea. Bottom line, avoid chlorinated tap water and choose filtered water or spring water.

3) The third tea is “Temperature”. The general rule of thumb is, lower temperatures for Whites and Greens, and higher temperatures for Oolongs and Black teas. Mind you, the puritans go crazy over this “T” buying a kitchen thermometer and being really precise about it, but brewing good tea is not about precision, its about enjoyment. So follow this simple advice. If you are brewing a green tea, bring the water to a boil, turn the stove off, and wait for 4-5 minutes before pouring it on the green tea. For Oolong, wait 2-3 minutes, and for black tea, use boiling water. This should take care of “temperature”, but feel free to experiment around with the wait times and I am sure you will arrive at the temperature that is right for you!

4) “Time”. In my opinion, this is the most flexible “T” that you can work with. Again, the general rule of thumb is, lowest amount of time for “Green teas and Oolongs”, and most amount of time for “black tea”. So, start out with 30 seconds for green tea, and increase it in 30 second increments to arrive at the right time. On the other hand, for black tea, start with 2.5 minutes, and experiment it by going up till you come to the right amount of time.

5) And the final T is “Taste”: When we started selling teas in United States, one of the most common complaint we heard was that our teas were too astringent. I found that very surprising, because in India and other countries like Germany the astringency of tea is found to be quite welcoming! Slowly we learned that Americans prefer mellow and sweetish tea. So, when you are buying tea, be sure to ask the vendor about the astringency profile of the tea. If it is very astringent and you prefer sweet tea, you might be better off selecting a different tea.

On the other hand, you will realize that if you modulate the first four “T”s correctly, almost any tea will produce a satisfactory brew - even the most astringent one.

So, there you have it, five “T”s to help you prepare an outstanding tea. Easy to remember, easy to implement - Tea, Water, Temperature, Time and Taste. Its really not that complicated!

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Article Title: Five “T”s of Brewing Good Tea
Author: Dr. Madhulika Pareek-Joshi
Authors website: http://www.jayateas.com
About the author: Dr. Madhulika Pareek-Joshi is the President of Jaya Teas, LLC. Dr. Pareek grew up in India in a family steeped in tea industry and tea lore. Many of Dr. Pareek’s uncles and cousins are involved in the Indian tea industry and so, although a medical doctor by profession, Dr. Pareek decided to use her family connections for the benefit of US tea customer, by starting a tea company . Jaya Teas, which specialises in teas from India, has been open for business since 2004. Dr. Pareek invites readers to contribute their comments on her blog Chaiwalah, which can be found at http://www.jayateas.com/blog/
You are free to replicate this article else where, as long as this box remains intact, including the clickable links in this box
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My dear friend Supriya Raman wrote today drawing my attention to her weblog, Ode2Food which again highlighted for me how far Indian cooking has come in the United States! Once there was a time where you couldn’t find a Indian recipe book in the local library. But today, there has been a tsunami of Indian cuisine weblogs, each showing the reader that there are a myriad Indian ways in which food can be cooked and enjoyed. Power to the people!!

Alas, some one needs to tell this to my local Indian restauranteurs in New Jersey, for despite how many restaurants I visit, I find the same run-of-the-mill food that goes under the all encompassing “Punjabi” cuisine! Or go to the south Indian restaurants and you will find the same “Idli” or “Dosa”! So frustrating, to say the least.

But Supriya’s weblog demonstrated for me once again that one need not look too far to find delicious ways of enjoying Indian cuisine. Take the Sesame seed powder recipe that Supriya discusses on her blog. Would it be so difficult to offer this in the restaurant?

So why is it that Indian restauranteurs don’t want to offer the authentic Indian cuisine? I think there is one and only reason…restauranteurs are mortally afraid of veering away from the true and tried formula. If the clientele doesn’t like what is served, they may never return, so why take a chance on something new when the run-of-the-mill will earn you a quick buck? I sympathize with the restaurant owners, but come on, some body’s got to lead the way out of this!

Fat chance of that happening. So, I say to my American friends, if you want to taste the “real” Indian cuisine, don’t expect much from the local Indian restaurant. Instead, head over to the speciality Indian food blogs that discuss how food was “really” cooked in their household by their mothers and grand mothers, and try it out in your own kitchen. You may make a mistake or two, but once you have mastered the alchemy of Indian cooking, you will never need to taste the bland food that passes up for “authentic Indian food” in your local restaurant.

Thank you Supriya, for making my life just a bit more interesting with the Sesame Podi. I will try it immediately with my family.

BTW, I googled Gingelly Oil, and learned that its Sesame Oil, of which I have plenty in my kitchen since I use it in Chinese cooking.

What is tea without a snack. So, today I will share with you a simple recipe which would help your afternoon tea a pleasant one. Todays recipe is called Dhokla.

Ingredients: You can find most of these ingredients in an Indian ethnic food store. If you cannot find them locally, email me, and I will try to help you in sourcing them.

• Two cups of chick pea flour
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Mustard seeds
• Freshly grated coconut - 1/2 cups
• Green chillies - 5 cut lenght wise
• Coriander - one cup chopped
• Eno fruit salt
• Sugar - 4 tsp
• Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Make batter of the chick pea flour to the consistency of pancake batter. Add turmeric powder to it, and salt to taste. Prepare a wok for steaming. When the water starts steaming, add Eno fruitsalt, Sugar, and lemon juice to the batter and mix it well. Immediately, pour the batter into a oiled heat resistant plate, and steam the
batter for 12 minutes.

Once the batter is steamed, remove the plate from the wok and allow it to cool. With a knife, cut the dhoklas into small 1 x 2 inch pieces.

Separately, heat three teaspoons olive oil, and add mustard seeds. Continue to heat till the mustard seeds start popping. Remove the oil from heat, and add chopped chillies. Allow the oil to cool. Once it is cool, spread the oil with mustard seeds and green chillies on to the puffed dhoklas. Spread grated coconut & chopped coriander on the dhoklas. Serve with tea.

Sourdough Bread - Baker Sunil!

I have been baking bread off and on for several years, and the results have been mixed. Some times the bread would taste too yeast, at other times the bread would be fine to taste but pale in color. I could never get it quite right. So, after a while, I just brokedown and bought a breadmaking machine. And for a while, I baked and baked. The breadmaking machine makes baking bread a cinche. I loved waking up to the smell of bread, so bread making continued. But after a while, it stopped.

Recently, when my parents arrived here to spend a few months with us, I decided to pick up bread making. My dad loves freshly baked breads, and sourdough bread is his absolute favorite. So, I thought I would bake sourdough bread for him every few days, so he could really get his fill.

But this time I am doing things differently. I am using the bread making machine more to knead the dough and to let the dough rise. I am now taking the dough out for proofing and am forming the dough in the shapes I want, and baking it in our generic oven.
You can see the results for yourself. Not bad eh? Taste was good too. Just ask my dad!

RECENTLY I had some friends over and we served cabbage rice as part of dinner. Our friends loved it so much that they wanted to know how to make it. So, Lisa, here is the recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

This is a very straight forward recipe that is easy to make and rather quick too! You can make good quantity in a short period and be ready for the 5 people who showed up suddenly at your door step. It does require you to have some ingredients in your house that you would typically not have unless of course if you are an Indian household But these ingredients are easy to find in your local Shoprite or your neighborhood Indian grocery store.

Ingredients:
One head of cabbage - Medium size - chopped into thin strands
Green chillies - two chopped finely
Ginger: One inch - chopped finely
Rice: Two cups
Turmeric powder: 1 tea spoon
Mustard seeds: 2 tea spoon
Salt - to taste
Oil: Three table spoon

Cooking the cabbage
Heat three table spoon of oil in a skillet. When the oil starts to smoke, reduce the flme and add mustard seeds to the oil, and cover with a lid. When the seeds stop popping, remove the lid and saute green chillies and ginger for about a minute. Add cabage strands and mix thoroughly. Let it cook for about 5 minutes with the covered lid on medium flame.

Add salt and turmeric and again mix thoroughly. Cover with a lid and let it steam on slow flame for about 15 minutes - mixing intermittently. After about 15 minutes, cabbage should be fully cooked. Add some lime juice to taste if you like.

Next you cook the rice.
Steam rice in a rice cooker as you traditionally would. Once the rice is cooked, add one table spoon of oil to a pan and heat it. Once the oil is smoking, add one cup of cooked cabbage and two cups of cooked rice, and turn carefully not to mash the rice.

Serve hot. There you have it. Cabbage Rice - to be had as a meal in itself or with other dishes.