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Cold brew for the dog days of summer
By naomi / in Iced Tea, Organic Black Tea, Organic Green Tea, Organic Herbal Tea, Recipes with Tea, sachets, Tea Beverages, Tea Education, Uncategorized / August 12, 2016

Time to get creative when it comes to cooling down...

Are you wilting out there, tea lovers? Despite your best efforts to keep cool during these last few weeks of summer, do you find yourself watching Olympic swimming just because diving into a pool looks so darn refreshing?

We get it; we've been there. So if you're feeling stuck in a summertime rut — or your thighs are literally stuck to a vinyl seat somewhere and you can't get up to put on the kettle — we felt now was a good time for a quick reminder about cold brewed tea.

Infuse some fruit with your tea while you're at it!

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Cold brew is easy to prepare and may surprise you with a slightly different flavor even though you're making it with the tea you use every day. How so, you ask? Simple: Steeping tea in room temperature or cold water draws flavor out from the leaves more slowly than boiling water, and doesn't "cook" the leaves in any way like hot water does. As a result, cold-brewed tea contains slightly less caffeine and acid than tea steeped in hot water, and the flavor is thought to be smoother and less bitter. We've had some tea lovers tell us they appreciate tasting our tea this way because it results in a purer, more mellow tea.

Are you going to love cold brew? We can't say for sure, but as Harold McGee wrote in The New York Times, prepare yourself for a different beverage entirely, and think of cold and hot brewed teas separate drinks.

Besides discovering a different flavor profile from your tried and true tea, one of our favorite things about cold brew is the fix-it-and-forget-about-it aspect. Put a sachet, teabag or loose tea in a jar with some water and leave it on your counter or in your fridge before you go to bed, and then enjoy it the next day. We know at least one person here in Colorado who leaves the house every morning throwing a sachet into his water bottle, and then sipping that brew all afternoon. His sachet of choice is our Organic Better Belly Blend, which is a great herbal choice. Once you get addicted to cold brew, you'll want to try it with black, green and white teas, as well as your favorite herbals.

A quick how-to: Either use the same ratio you'd normally use for boiling water and a tea sachet, or consider doubling up on sachets or teabags if you're going to drink it as iced tea, thus diluting your drink with ice. The guide for making a batch of cold brew with loose leaves is two large tablespoons of loose tea per quart of water, according to tea guru Bill Waddington of TeaSource.

Stay cool, tea lovers. And don't forget to tell us if cold brew becomes your new go-to beverage! Cheers.
Add a dash, a pinch, or a smidgen of tea!
By naomi / in Baking with Tea, Recipes with Tea, Uncategorized / February 17, 2016
If you're reading this, you probably drink tea every day. And we love that about you! If we didn't, we'd be a cold, unfeeling tea company, wouldn't we? And that's not cool.

But let's think outside of the mug for a moment, so to speak. Just as tea is a versatile drink, it can also be just as versatile in the kitchen as an ingredient. Over the years we've posted a fair share of recipes here on the blog for dinners, desserts and cocktails you can make using tea. Sometimes we like to feel inspired to try things on our own, so we thought you could use a bit of guidance when it comes to cooking with tea leaves — from black to green and white, and even herbal blends that are full of all sort of tasty ingredients.

We've got a bunch of suggestions that we'll list here, but our top tip is this: Don't try to add tea to a recipe if you wouldn't want to drink that tea with the meal. Whether tea imparts a subtle or strong flavor to the meal depends on how you use it, but if you want to enjoy the end result, first make sure you enjoy the tea!
- Grind tea leaves in a spice or coffee grinder, or a pepper mill; add to spices and herbs and use as a rub for meats, tofu or tempeh.
- Add a favorite tea bag to melted butter, warmed oil or melted clarified butter (ghee). Cover and steep for several minutes before removing the tea. Delicious with grain dishes, soups, stews, fish and vegetables.
- Add tea leaves to cookies, muffins, scones, quick breads and cakes. Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies, anyone?
Drool-worthy shortbread made with Earl Grey
- Use brewed tea in place of water when cooking grains like this Jasmine Tea Rice.
- Add brewed tea in place of water when making soups and stews, baking breads and quick breads, or poaching fish like this White Tea Poached Salmon.
- Save that leftover brewed tea! Use it as a marinade for meats or an addition to sauces or gravies. Here’s a recipe for Green Tea Marinated Sirloin Tips.
- If you’re a fan of spinach or chard, green tea is similar in flavor. Enjoy adding the leaves to vegetables while cooking or, once brewed, chopped and added to salads or stirred into eggs before scrambling or making an omelet.
- Add a sprinkling of green tea leaves to chicken, beef, shrimp or tofu stir-fries.
- Steep white tea in chicken stock for up to 10 minutes before using in a recipe.
- Add minced or finely chopped tea leaves to flour or bread crumbs and use as a coating for meats and vegetables.
- Substitute tea leaves for wood chips when using a smoker.
- Poach dried fruits, apples, peaches and pears in tea for breakfast, snack or dessert, like in these Ginger and Jasmine Tea Poached Pears.
Pears poached in tea: Look good, taste and smell even better.

Enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, tea lovers, and please let us know in the comments about your experiences cooking with tea!
Perfect pairings: Tea and Girl Scout cookies!
By naomi / in Pairings, Uncategorized / February 8, 2016

... and tea. I never run out of tea.

Girl Scout cookie season is the sort of thing you don't realize you miss until that last Thin Mint is gone. You thought that by squirreling the green box away in the freezer so cleverly you'd make those cookies last until late summer, but boom — it's mid-April, your supply has vanished, your niece/neighbor/coworker's daughter has no more boxes to sell you, and next February seems just so, so far away.

The good news: It's Girl Scout cookie season right now! The better news: Since we're all tea lovers around here, we thought that this would be the perfect time to tell you what tea you can pair with those cookies. Either look at what boxes you've already bought and pair accordingly, or (and we think this is super clever), use this list to find your favorite tea and then buy its perfect Girl Scout cookie companion. Here we go:

Thin Mints: We've been known to scarf a sleeve (or two, if you must know) in one sitting, because these thin, chocolate-mint crispy delights are addictive. And their flavor is so big we need a tea that won't shrink into the background. We're talking something big and bold and powerful like a cuppa' Organic Assam Breakfast, or a Paisley Organic English Breakfast. Hey, you're a grown-up. We won't tell your mom if you have Thin Mints for breakfast.

Samoas: Oh temples of coconut, caramel and fudge-covered bliss, your vibe is sweet and sultry. We don't want to overwhelm the flavor of a delicate tea (like a white or a green), so we think we should capitalize on your toothsome ways and pair you up with something fun and fruity, like Alpine Berry. This pairing is most like a chocolate-covered strawberry, and about as irresistible.

Tagalongs: Peanut butter on the inside, chocolate on the outside? Sign us up. But we think those big, sweet ingredients need to bounce off a bit of a palate cleanser — in other words, something with an astringent bite on the end, like our Organic Darjeeling. A nibble of cookie, a sip of Darjeeling, a nibble, a sip ... now that's how you make a box of Girl Scout cookies last a long time.

Do-Si-Dos: These are those peanut butter sandwich cookies that seem so folksy and innocent until you're alone with the box. We did a little research and discovered a popular Chinese dessert: Peanut butter sticky rice balls in green tea. Wait! Don't judge yet until you try a Do-Si-Do with a cuppa your favorite green tea, be it Organic Gen Mai Cha or Organic Tamayokucha. These nutty, rich cookies pair beautifully with the fresh, vegetal mouthfeel of green tea ... especially if you wait a few extra seconds between your bite of cookie and your sip of tea. (Alternate suggestion: try a rich berry tea like our Paisley Organic Tart Berry and pretend you're having a PB&J. Reflect on simpler times.)

Savannah Smiles: You lemon lovers have met your match. These light and flakey lemon cookies are named after the birthplace of Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low, and honestly, we think plenty of tea would pair with these little lovelies. But if you're one of those people who can't get enough lemon flavor, we'd really recommend steeping a cuppa' Paisley Organic Tart Meyer Lemon with these. The warm, tart flavor can really benefit from these little sweet cookies. Alternatively, consider these cookies like a squeeze of lemon in your black tea, and go with an Organic Assam.

Toffee-tastics: On a whim, we have paired these crunchy cookies baked with bits of toffee and the utterly British staple, Earl Grey tea, and found them to go hand in hand. That traditional bergamot citrus flavor in our Organic Earl Grey gives this black tea its edge is smoothed out (in a good way) by the deep toffee flavor, and we don't think these cookies would look out of place at high tea.

Trefoils: You say tree-foils, I say treh-foils, let's just brew a pot of tea and enjoy these simple shortbread cookies together. Their buttery, rich flavor works with any tea, in our opinion, but because they're an understated cookie, we see them as the perfect compliment to a soft, subtle tea! Pair Trefoils with a white tea like Organic Bai Mu Dan, and you'll be able to savor both of these delicate flavors together.

Enjoy a delicious Girl Scout cookie season, tea lovers. May we recommend you buy more than you think you'll "need", and keep us informed of your own successful pairings. It certainly doesn't hurt that you'll be supporting an organization that formed just over a century ago and has been helping to empower girls and women ever since. Cheers!
Drink white tea after Labor Day, you rebel!
By naomi / in Tea Education, Uncategorized / September 8, 2015

This Bai Mu Dan is Bai Mu Delicious!

That old saying about how you shouldn't wear white after Labor Day is nothing more than an outdated piece of fashion advice (like, really outdated: circa 1950), so we thought we'd just remind you tea lovers out there that white tea is delicious year round!

And then we thought we'd refresh your memory about what white tea actually is. And we're gonna get a little scientific here, so hold on to your hats, tea lovers, but we'll try to make this easy reading. Black, green and white tea all come from the camellia Sinensis plant (the top two leaves and bud, which make the best tea, of course), and what makes these teas different is how those leaves are treated after being plucked. Here's a fun word to toss into your everyday vocabulary: Oxidation. That's the effect oxygen molecules, floating around in the air we breathe, have on various substances. Your apple slices turn brown when they're left out because of oxidation, and the Statue of Liberty is green because it's made of copper, which turns green when oxidation occurs. What does oxidation have to do with tea? Here's what: tea leaves start to wither and oxidize as soon as they're picked.

Green tea is allowed to oxidize the least — in tea production, you make green tea by rolling the leaves gently and then immediately halting oxidation through heating, and with Japanese-style green tea (like Organic Tamayokucha) that means gently steaming the leaves, or in Chinese-style green tea (like Jasmine Petal Green) that means pan firing the leaves, and then drying them. When you eventually steep these leaves, the tea is green, just like the leaves that grew on the plants.

Leaves for black tea go through the most oxidation. For whole leaf tea like our bestselling Organic Assam Breakfast, the plucked leaves are rolled gently to break the cell walls of the leaves, exposing enzymes and essential oils in the leaf so that oxidation can begin, and then the leaves are laid out to rest in the open air for a few hours, turning a reddish-brown color in the process, and then finally it is fired to lock in all that flavor. This is all starting to make a lot of sense, isn't it?

Light and lovely in the cup ... it's white tea!

But wait, we're here to talk about white tea. The leaves that are used to make white tea actually undergo less processing than green tea, and less oxidizing than black tea (but they are oxidized just a bit). Basically, the youngest tea leaves are plucked in the early spring (some of the fanciest white teas, like Silver Needles, are from leaves and buds that are so new they still have a bit of fuzz on them, indicating their high quality). From there, the leaves are spread out and allowed to wither until they're completely dry (maybe with a tiny bit of warm air if the weather isn't cooperating), and that's it. So you end up with a white tea with a flavor profile described as light, floral, delicate and sweet. The color in the cup is where white tea gets its name. It's barely green and not quite brown; to us it often looks like a light beige. One of our favorites used to be called White Peony, but now goes by its traditional name, Bai Mu Dan.

Lots of people think of white tea as a sophisticated cup of tea, since it's not going to hit you over the head with big flavor, but when done well, is subtle, nuanced and smooth.

So. If you're a fashionable housewife from the 1950s who's in the middle of packing up her white shoes and dresses after Labor Day weekend, don't pack up the white tea. And to the rest of you, steep it like you mean it, perhaps wearing your favorite pair of white jeans. We promise not to tell Good Housekeeping.
Hot enough for ya?
By naomi / in Tea Education / April 23, 2015

"Tea is as easy as boiling water," they say. "Just add boiling water to the tea and let it steep."

"Meh," you say. "I don't like green tea because it often tastes bitter."

"Ah," they say. "Sounds like your water was too hot."

"... I thought this was supposed to be easy?" you say.

Uh, yeah ... about that: We at Two Leaves and a Bud Tea Company are interested in demystifying all types of tea, so it certainly doesn't help when someone criticizes your ability to boil water, right? Soooo ...

Presenting the simplest guide to correct brewing temperatures we've ever written! You won't even need a thermometer. Answer a quick question, and then follow these instructions:

What kind of tea will you be preparing?

Green or white tea: Easy does it. When the tiny bubbles begin to appear at the bottom of the pot, you're good to pour. Once the bubbles get big and start to break at the surface, you risk "stewing" your delicate tea leaves, leading to bitterness. You'll also lose all the delicate flavors of these teas, and that's a big no-no. (If you're gonna get a thermometer, you'll want to see 170 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Oolong: This is the middle ground, because Oolong leaves can be oxidized like green tea or like black tea, so watch for the little bubbles on the bottom of the pot to have a bit of movement, and the water to have a good amount of steam rising. (180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit)

Black or herbal: Boil, baby, boil! A full, rolling boil — when your tea kettle is screaming and steam is racing out of the spout — is just fine. (208 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit)

With practice, you'll be able to tell what temperature the water is based on the sound your tea kettle makes ... and a rule of thumb: When it doubt, err on the side of cooler. Some specialty teas, like a lovely first flush Darjeeling, may be considered more delicate than your typical black tea, and you wouldn't want to stew those teas either.

Any questions?

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