Tonight I am thinking about tea. Whenever I have a student from Taiwan in one of my classes they will usually bring me tea. In a class I taught in Singapore earlier this year I was brought two more boxes. I have been walking by them for weeks and finally decided that I needed to find a home for one of them. I decided to take one of the boxes to work and give it to a friend who loves tea.

Here you can see that it is ‘Best Famous Tea’ and that it has ‘Natural Health’.

Here you can see that it is actually a bag of tea instead of a box 🙂

The tea is Yu Shan Oolong tea. Yu Shan means ‘Jade Mountain’ which is the highest peak in Taiwan. The tea is grown on the mountain at a height of 1,600 meters and has a very distinct and wonderful flavor.

The tea is loose leaf, but luckily I have the right equipment for brewing it.

I bought this years ago at Cost Plus World Market and it has served me well.

Of course, one of the first things is to put on the tea kettle. I really like hearing the whistle of the tea kettle when it is ready.

While waiting for the kettle I wash the tea cup and strainer in hot water to warm them up and have them ready. I then take about a teaspoon of dried tea leaves and place them in the strainer which has been placed in the tea cup.

When the water is ready you simply have to fill up the strainer and let it brew for awhile.

Here you can see that the tea leaves have expanded. It is then time to carefully lift out the strainer using a hot pad or towel. You have to do this slowly or you get water all over the place.

I didn’t get a good picture of the tea since the steam tended to fog the lens of my camera. However, the way it looks is not so important. The taste is important and it was of course really good.

Now I need some more tea after writing about it 🙂

Time to put the kettle back on.

Have you ever had tea from Taiwan?

Steven