Monthly Archives: February 2016

5 Fun Tea Quotes

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Mick Jagger, lead for The Rolling Stones, takes his tea at 3.

Tea is one of Mick Jagger’s “nasty habits”. Photo by Georges Biard – CC BY 3.0

Tea has been around so long in civilization that there are numerous tea quotes. Some are well worth repeating, and others only work in certain situations. Either way, every avid tea drinker should have a few of these at hand at share with our non-tea drinking friends and to just remind us how our tea drinking habit reflects our own personality and how we interact in the world. Most have an Asian or British bent, which is no surprise, but Americans have views on tea as well. Below are just five of of our favorites and little bit about each author. (This was much harder to limit to five than you can imagine.)

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims, 1875 CE, British Author

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” -C.S. Lewis, Famous British Author who lived from 1898 CE-1963 CE. His best known books here in the US are the Chronicles of Narnia, but he wrote many more.

“Moderation is the very essence of tea. Tea does not lend itself to extravagance.” Lu Yu, The Classic of Tea, 760 CE, The father of tea, Lu Yu was the first scholar to document in writing how to make tea and his Classic of Tea is one of our favorite tea books (link to tea book blog).

“There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.”  -Gary Synder, Pultizer Prize winning American Poet born in 1930, whose work is often associated with the beat generation.

“I have nasty habits; I take tea at three.” – Mick Jagger, Lead Vocalist for The Rolling Stones. The irony in this one makes it too good to leave off this list.

Do you have a favorite tea quote to share?

Green Tea Chicken Noodle Soup

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Tea steeped in a Pyrex measuring bowl strained into soup.

Straining Off Green Tea for Soup

Green tea chicken noodle soup is an American take on a common Chinese practice of using tea as the broth in non-cream based soups, see our Smoked Mushroom Soup recipe as another example of this. The recipe below is easily modified to be vegetarian by substituting the chicken with smoked tofu. It’s a fun recipe to play with as you can adjust the presence of the green tea taste both with the broth to tea ratios and the flavor of the chicken. Not to mention, this recipe takes very little time to make so long as you have precooked chicken.

Green Tea Chicken Noodle Soup

Yields 4-5 servings

1 1/2 tablespoons of your favorite straight green tea (Sencha, Gunpowder, Vietnamese Green)

4 cups of water

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion

1 medium sized carrot

2 stalks of celery

2 cloves of garlic

2 cups of vegetable broth

2 cups of cubed chicken (already cooked) or smoked tofu

4oz of egg noodles

1 tablespoon of dried oregano

1 tablespoon of dried basil

Salt to taste

Directions

Dice the onion, carrot and celery (you will need to cut the stalks of celery in half length wise to get a size similar to the carrots. These should be bite sized pieces. Heat up the olive oil in a large stock pot and add the onion, carrot and celery. Allow to cook until onions are translucent. Try not to allow the vegetables to brown, so watch the temperature of the oil and stir periodically. In a separate pot or kettle, bring the water up to 185 degrees, or allow to boil and then pour into a ceramic or glass container and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes. Add the tea and allow to steep for 4 minutes. While the tea is steeping, finely dice the garlic. Give or take the speed of your kettle, your tea should be ready to strain off about the time the onions are translucent so you can pour the tea through a strainer into the stock pot and then add the vegetable broth. Then add the garlic, oregano, and basil. Allow the liquid to come up to a boil and then add the chicken and noodles. It will take the noodles about 8 minutes to become soft. At this point, taste the soup and add salt to taste.

If you want to increase the green tea flavor, you can replace the vegetable broth with more green tea. You can also make green tea chicken using this marinade (link to recipe).

5 US Presidential Facts Involving Tea

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First Lady Hoover Loved Tea

First Lady Lou Hoover

In honor of President’s Day, we went digging around in history to figure out if any of the U.S. Presidents or their wives did something fun, historically significant or just routinely drank tea. As much as America is seen as a coffee drinking country now, the White House has seen its fair share of tea parties that have helped to shape the history of the country. So here are five US Presidential Facts involving tea.

  1.  Thomas Jefferson drank a lot of tea according to his financial records. Based on the names, he drank an interesting variety from a tea named Imperial, to Chu-chong, congo and bohea teas. (Monticello, 2016)
  2. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is known for having redefined the role of the First Lady in both the entertaining that occurred at the White House as well as spear heading other issues that were outside of the President’s focus. Mrs. Kennedy did her first entertaining at the White House using afternoon teas, within days of moving in. She started with inviting in her step father and mother and then the next day hosted George Balanchine, the choreographer of the New York City Ballet. (JFK Library, 2016)
  3. First Lady Lou Hoover faced political backlash in 1929 when she originally intended to invite Mrs. De Priest to the congressional wives tea at the White House. Mrs. De Priest was the wife of Oscar De Priest, the first African-American Congressman, elected in 1928 to represent Illinois. Eventually, Mrs. Hoover arranged a second tea for Mrs. De Priest at the White House, with a select group of guests. She was still criticized by many of the Southern Congressman for promoting equality. (White House Historical Society, 2016)
  4. Teddy Roosevelt was known for his love of American food and had little use for exotic treats, except for Hu Kwa Tea, which is another name for Lapsang Suchong. During President Roosevelt’s time, the name Hu Kwa or Howqua was attached to many goods coming from China as it was the name of a famous Chinese merchant who had died almost almost 60 years earlier that many Americans associated with fairness and honesty. Howqua was also one of the wealthiest men of his time having made his fortune during the Opium Wars. (Landau, 2007)
  5. A daily cup of tea was not just for our founding fathers, both Gerald Ford and Lyndon Johnson had a cup of tea with their typical breakfast. Where the two men differed is that President Ford had an English muffin with jam while President Johnson preferred chipped beef and cream with his cup of tea. (Haller, 1987)

Works Cited

Haller, H. (1987). The White House Family Cookbook. New York: Random House.

JFK Library. (2016, February 9). JFK Library. Retrieved from John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Fast-Facts/Entertaining-in-the-White-House.aspx

Landau, B. (2007). The President’s Table: Two Hundred Years of Dining and Dipolmacy. New York: Harper Collins.

Monticello. (2016, February 9). Monticello. Retrieved from Monticello Website: https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/tea

White House Historical Society. (2016, February 9). The White House Historical Society. Retrieved from White House Historical Society Website: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/hoover-depriest-tea-party-creates-a-stir

 

Chinese Almond Cookies

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Almond cookies are a traditional Chinese treat with tea.

Plate of Chinese New Year inspired almond cookies.

The Chinese New Year gives us an excuse to try out more Chinese recipes that pair well with tea, including Chinese Almond Cookies. These cookies resemble American sugar cookies, only with less sugar, and make a great snack to go along with any pot of tea. Traditionally, these are a very popular Chinese sweet and are usually given as gifts to friends and family as part of holiday celebrations. The almond is considered to give good health and lucky to the recipient.

Chinese Almond Cookies (Makes 2 dozen)

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp of almond extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup of Almond meal
  • 1 cup of flour (I used an unbleached pastry flour for the cookies in the picture)
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 24 whole almonds
  • Egg wash (1 egg beat with a tablespoon of water)

Steps:

  1. Almond cookie dough rolled into small balls before baking.

    Almond cookies ready to go in the oven.

    Beat in a mixer the butter and sugar.  This may require scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure the sugar is fully incorporated into the butter.

  2. Mix in the salt, almond extract and egg.
  3. Mix in the almond meal, baking soda and flour.
  4. Scrap out the batter onto plastic wrap or wax paper and form into a ball.  Put into the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
  5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Prepare the egg wash by beating together 1 egg with a tablespoon of water (this is going to create a lot more than you need, but you can turn the leftover into a quick omelette or freeze the remaining for future use as an egg wash)
  6. When ready, pull the dough from the refrigerator and form into a long log.  Cut the log into 24 equal sized pieces and form those pieces into balls.
  7. These cookies will expand a little, so limit the number of cookies on a tray to 12.  Place the balls onto either parchment paper or a silmat on a cookie sheet and then flatten with the bottom of a cup.  Place a whole almond in the center and then brush with the egg wash.
  8. Put the cookies into the oven for 15 minutes or until a nice light brown color appears around the edge.  Pull out of the oven and put on a wire rack to cool before serving.

These sweet cookies make a great addition to an afternoon pot of tea or an after dinner cup of tea.