1st part – Taste of Tea
There’s no easy answer to this question. Perhaps except for finding an experienced source you can trust and whose teas never disappoint.
Let’s have a look at that question anyway. It depends on what you are looking for in a tea.
• What are your taste preferences? What are you going to combine it with? What did you eat or drink before the cup of tea, what do you intend to have while drinking it and what comes next?
• Do you want tea to provide you a wake-up call instead of coffee or to relax and calm you down?
• And last but not least, what is your budget − how much do you want to invest in your tea and what is your ideal cost-benefit ratio?
How to choose the right tea?
Selecting tea based on taste
Thousands of teas, thousands of flavours.
You should like the taste of your tea. That’s why you drink it. The selection of tea fragrances and tastes is so wide that it should satisfy everyone.
There is a complex cocktail of substances in tea leaves that are further transformed − some emerge while other disappear. As a result, you can discover an unbelievable range of flavours and aromas in your cup. There are two cornerstones, so to speak. Bitterness and sweetness. Bitterness is an integral part of tea. Tea leaves are simply bitter. It is given by the content of basic substances contained in them. Bitterness protects tea against pests. Sweetness emerges as a result of reactions that occur during processing. A well performed processing results in a deliciously sweet cup. The brew is a combination of both the tastes. Today, sweet taste is generally preferred while bitterness is often suppressed to the minimum. The whole range of tastes in tea brew is much richer than that.
The tea you take from your cupboard depends on your mood at the time, but also on the sense in your mouth, on what you have eaten and what you are going to eat next. Have you just had a rich, spicy lunch? You’ll probably pick a strong, rather bitter tea − a red Yunnan, green Vietnam or dark pu-erh. If you are about to enjoy Asian cuisine, fish or sushi, Japanese green tea is the choice. Second flush Darjeeling goes well with your grandma’s cookies and Assam and Earl Grey are great with a piece of cake. We drink a different tea as the first thing in the morning and after a heavy meal. There’s a morning tea and an afternoon tea. Everyone prefers different combinations, which is why it’s so difficult to set out rules. One must not be afraid to experiment with different combinations.
Next part will elaborate on the effects of tea.
