Tea Blog

In the last book column I wrote for this site I made mention of a book I’d run across that had to do with coffee, of all things. Let me once again make it perfectly clear that I have not gone over to the dark side. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be a tea drinker for life, but I found the title and the approach of the aforementioned book interesting even so.

It’s called The Coffeeist Manifesto: No More Bad Coffee! and it comes to use courtesy of a gentleman named Steven D. Ward. To summarize briefly, it tells coffee lovers how they can achieve the best cup of coffee possible, whether it be on the home front or on the increasingly crowded coffee shop front.

I confess that I haven’t read the book (I’m not that interested in coffee) but, in looking over the various blurbs and whatnot, I found the following to be the most interesting and relevant to us tea drinkers:

Fact: Making very good coffee is NOT THAT HARD. With a minimal investment in time and education you can make the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had in your life in the comfort of your own home. This book shows exactly why billion dollar for-profit coffee chains are inherently unable to produce coffee of the quality you can make in the kitchen.

Which could be said for tea, for the most part, but let’s break down that statement a bit. While I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that making very good tea is “not that hard” I would say that if you follow the basics of using the correct amount of steeping time and the correct temperature you’ve pretty much got it wrapped up.

Of course, none of that counts for much if you don’t start with the best tea you can possibly get your hands on. Which is not that hard, but it takes a little work. As for that “minimal investment” part, as I never tire of pointing out, given how many cups of tea can be produced from a given amount of tea leaves, what might seem like a high price at first glance turns out to be rather reasonable. That’s even more so if you compare it to what you’d pay if you go out for tea.

Which is a topic that I’m not really all that qualified to comment on, since I never go out for tea. But with the dramatic increase in the number of tearooms and teahouses in recent decades, a little bit of careful shopping should lead you to a carry out tea that’s at least satisfactory and perhaps better.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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