twistedleaves.com

08.27

I was rudely awoken this morning by my boyfriends alarm. At 06.30. An hour earlier than it usually goes off (don’t even get me started…) and to be honest, it doesn’t usually wake me up when it goes off at 07.30.
And I am feeling rather tired, having been up for two hours more than I should have today. In fact, I’m feeling rather knackered.

So, I thought, wouldn’t this be a good time to put the English Breakfast Tea to the test? Can it really wake me up more that a coffee would? Will it make any difference at all?

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Yes, you read right. What am I on about? Surely a cafetière is for coffee, it’s all in the name (cafetière literally means ‘coffee machine’), yes?

I’m sorry, but I am about to distort your home brewed drinks reality. Look away now if you cannot take it.

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Tonight, I am brewing lots of tea, drinking it, and watching The Mighty Boosh. How brillaint is that?

Tip: Camomile is really good for helping you to sleep, and also for relieving mild panic attacks.

Take it with one or no sugar for sleeping aid, and drink just before you go to bed.
For help with panic disorders, take it with two sugars (or as many as you can handle - your body’s blood sugar levels drop dramatically during and after a panic attack) and brew strongly, then sip it. You should start to feel better quite quickly.

Tip Two: Add a little cold water to the camomile to make it easier to drink quickly; also, you can leave the teabag in the cup whilst you drink it if you can’t make yourself wait for it to steep before you drink it!

Goodnight, all.

The Great Teas

Yes, I think I have made you wait long enough. The results are in, the teas have all made it to the finish line - and boy, was it close.

Without further ado, may I present to you: The Great Tea Debate - The Results

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I had the most lovely tea yesterday.

My colleague brought in some of this mango tea for me to try. According to several of my colleagues, Dilmah Tea is one of the best teas you can buy (unfortunately they don’t sell them in shops in the UK so best to buy online).

The aroma was amazing; a very strong smell of mango. The tea is actually a Sri Lankan Black Tea, infused with the delicious mango flavours! Very nice. Don’t serve with milk, obviously, and sweet enough that less sugar than your normal amount is needed. Yay!

Quite clearly, I did not do any tea research last night, or any drinking of tea… *hangs head in shame*

However, whilst I was drinking distinctly un-tea-like vodka & lemonade’s at a Blogger’s Meetup, I did learn a few things about tea from several wonderful people who love good tea too…

• Chrysanthemum tea is very nice, very pretty, and quite possibly the borderline “between good tea and getting high”… watch this space.
• The Savoy serves very nice tea, pretty little cakes, and has over-trained staff (”move your hand even slightly towards the teapot and all of a sudden there’s someone at your elbow doing it for you!”)
• PG Tips has its place in the world, and in that place it’s darn good.
• The Argentinians drink a tea called ‘Yerba mate‘ - the infusion is just called ‘mate’, pronounced matay - which is very similar to green tea, and it is extremely popular in Argentina.

So… I’m sorry I went out to socialise last night instead of drink tea, but there will be a proper tea debate night - promise.

Roll Up! Roll Up! Get your tickets here!

For tonight, and tonight only, we will bear witness to the great Battle of the Teas.

On my way home tonight, I will be purchasing some high-grade Indian Black teas from Whittard (why Whittard? Well, the teas are good… and I already have the Assam from there. But I will be testing many other brands shortly), and proceed to do a scientific-tea-comparison-experiment when I get home. Watch this space.

Teas I will be comparing:

• Darjeeling - The Champagne of Teas
• Assam - strong, rich, Indian tea
• Ceylon - Strictly a Sri Lanka tea, but will be participating in this experiment anyway.

How exciting.

Ahh.. the Assam. One of my top 5 teas. Most people refer to Darjeeling as the ‘Champagne of Teas’, but

personally I don’t think you can beat a good Assam, when brewed properly.

Whilst the tea is brewing, here’s a quick snippet of what Wikipedia has to say about the Assam:

Assam is a black tea named after the region of its production: Assam, India. This tea, most of which is grown at or near sea level, is known for its body, briskness, malty flavour, and strong, bright colour.

Making The Perfect Assam

Step One

Get your cups, teapot (if required), milk, sugar, and spoons out and ready. Fill the kettle…

Get out the Assam, and put into the pot one teaspoon of tea per person,

and ‘one for the pot’. Today, I was making tea-for-two so I used 3 teaspoons of tea. If you like your tea a bit stronger use more of it, but I personally find Assam to be sufficiently strong for even my builders-tea-tastes!

Step Two

Pour the water into the teapot. Top Tip: Always pour the water into the tea whilst it is still boiling, otherwise the tea will not infuse to its full potential!

Leave it to steep for 5 minutes. Have a biccie!

Step Three

When the tea has steeped, pour it through the strainer into your cup; add sugar and milk as required. Stir. Enjoy!

Hi there, and welcome to TwistedLeaves!
The site is clearly still a work-in-progress, but I will be starting to post here and there.

First things first: this website is about tea.

Mint Tea

Possibly the best non-alcoholic drink in the world. Maybe definitely. Who knows?
What I know is that tea is tasty, and lots of people like it. There are lots of kinds of tea’s, and lots of them are very expensive, especially if they are flavoured or otherwise modified. So, my main aims with this site is to:

• Drink lots of different teas, different brands of tea
• review those teas for quality, quantity, star rating, price and flavour
• tell you how you can make those special teas in your own home…
• …and to do that I will have to do a lot of testing and experimenting in my own kitchen, so that will probably develop some funny stories too (Like me smashing China, spilling tea, shouting at inanimate objects… and that’s just an average day…)

Now I’m going to get on with my day (going to Chessington World of Adventures!) and drink some tea (no kidding), thanks for reading - come back soon!

Jessica