Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

How to Make London Fog Tea Latte

London Fog Tea Latte

A traditional London Fog is made with two thirds brewed Earl Grey tea and one third steamed milk with a dash of vanilla syrup. Sound easy? You would be surprised how shortcuts can shortchange this beautiful beverage. The comfort of warm milk and tea is undeniable. However, it is necessary to pay attention to the details to create a carefully crafted cup that you will enjoy.

A Good Foundation

The basis of a London Fog is the tea. Tea, like wine has different grades and this is why you will pay for a three-buck-chuck or a two hundred dollar Stag's Leap Cabernet. Start with the best Earl Grey tea you can find. Earl Grey tea is a blend of Chinese black tea and oil of Bergamot. This is an essential oil derived from a type of orange rind that grows in Southern Italy. The way tea is processed and combined with the oil makes all the difference. Substandard black tea leaves and low quality oil can yield a brew that is bitter with a cloying aroma. To compensate people add more vanilla syrup. At this point the battle for a decent cup is lost.

The 3 T's

• Tea: Buy a high quality tea and use the recommend dose. A rule of thumb is 1- tablespoon of loose-leaf tea per 8 ounces of filtered water.
• Time: If you would like a stronger cup of tea, up the dosage not the time. A longer steep can result in a bitter cup. Use recommended brewing guidelines. In the case of Earl Grey, about 4 minutes.
• Temperature: Black tea is best brewed at 212F (right off the boil) but green teas prefer a lower temperature. Look for suggested brew temperatures and directions. Water that is too hot could lead to a bitter brew.

Pulling It All Together

The London Fog (and our local variation the Seattle Fog) is very popular in the rainy Pacific Northwest. This does not mean all cafes here produce a nice cup. I ordered a comparable drink called a Beautiful Stephanie from a renowned cafe in Seattle. It consisted of a sad tea bag floating aimlessly amidst glaciated milk peaks and tasted faintly of cardboard. With an understanding of tea brewing basics and step-bystep directions you can elevate this common cup to a mood-lifting beverage of epic proportions.

London Fog: The Recipe

• 8oz fresh brewed Earl Grey Tea
• 4oz steamed milk (for the Seattle Fog substitute a frothed combination of ½ soy milk and ½ water)
• 1.5oz Vanilla Syrup (or local honey to taste)
• Optional: If it has been a particularly rough day, add 1.5oz Saint Germain Elderflower Liqueur in place of the vanilla syrup. We won't let on that your drink is spiked.

London Fog: The Steps

1. We filled a single serving tea bag with loose-leaf Earl Grey tea. Then we used a Rocket Giotto Evoluzione espresso machine to provide instant hot water for the tea.

2. To steam milk, start with a cold stainless steel milk frothing pitcher and cold milk. Do not steam the milk above 160F or the proteins break down and the creaminess will be diminished. Submerge just the steam tip at first. Once the milk has expanded, bury the wand to achieve your desired temperature.

3. By the time the Earl Grey tea finished steeping, our milk was steamed. Combine brewed tea and syrup. Then add the steamed milk slowly. Without the help of an espresso machine you can boil water and warm milk on the stove but it will take much longer and not be as creamy.

 

The London Fog Tea Latte was completed from start to finish in four minutes. The room smelled faintly of Fruit Loops cereal when we finished and die hard coffee-drinking co-workers asked to sample it, such was the enticing aroma and flavor! Shown here served in an insulated double wall glass mug that protects your hand from the heat but allows you to see the beauty of your drink. Cheers!

 

+Samantha Joyce is a writer for Seattle Coffee Gear and enjoys sharing her knowledge of all things coffee (and tea!)

About Tea | Globally-Inspired Womens & Childrens Clothing

via www.teacollection.com

I've got a new baby niece. So I'm looking at baby clothes a lot - the AWWWW factor is huge of course, but I ran across this site and had to wonder about the name.

Why The Name Tea?

Tea (the drink) is shared in nearly every
culture around the world. Tea (our
company) is about sharing our discoveries
and encouraging adventure.

 

ok well that's a bit of a stretch.  On the other hand, here I am looking at their catty.

Awwwwww :)

Oh So Many New Things!

Tootin this horn that belongs to me. :) 

In the process of trying to clean up my sidebar links, my housekeeping project turned into much much more than I had planned.  I'm still a bit mystified by all this social networking stuff, but I'm trying to catch up to the world.  Even if I am still running behind, I can see all your heinies ahead of me now, bouncing along in the summer sun. 

So here's some of my new stuff:

I'm finally on Facebook. I've created a page just for my coffee/tea/chocolate obsession. Please drop by and say hi.

I've also created an account on FoodBuzz.com, another social networking site for foodies. I'm still kicking around the kitchen there.

 

Now, about those links... I decided to just scrap the old list and start from scratch. It was sooooo depressing to see so many broken links - like dead blog friends, gone forever from the blogosphere. Gone to blog heaven? Sigh.

I've created a couple of new pages for links, which should be easier to manage. I hope. You'll notice these new buttons on the sidebar. They take you directly to the links pages for coffee, tea and chocolate. There is also a category for foodies but I got tired of making buttons. Heh.

I'm slowly adding links to these pages.  If you have a blog or website that you want to suggest please use this form to send me your suggestion.

Let's see, anything else? Oh yeah, new photo album here: Coffee, Tea, Chocolate Pics. I haven't deleted my Flickr albums, just trying something new.

Ok, I think I'm done tooting. I know, I know, where's the Beano?

The Rarest of Teas

Tea aficionados will tell you that the hundreds of teas available on the market today fall into one of six main categories: Green tea, White tea, Scented tea, Oolong tea, Black tea, and Puer tea.

There is one very rare tea in a class all by itself, and you almost never hear of it -- yellow tea.

These categories are defined by how the teas are made / processed.  According to Seven Cups:

"the process for making yellow tea is time consuming and difficult. Thus for the thousand kinds of green tea, there are only three kinds of yellow tea that survive today."

And apparently, because of the time and cost involved, many yellow teas are now being produced using green tea processing techniques.  So how to know if you're actually drinking a TRUE yellow tea?  And why bother?

Like white tea, yellow tea is very lightly oxidized. It has all the health qualities of green tea - and possibly better than green tea because yellow tea is felt to be easier on the stomach than green tea - but doesn't have the green "grassy" taste of green tea.  The taste is milder, and is often described as being somewhere between white and green tea with a flowery, fresh aroma.

This I have to try.

The Seven Cups website has a tea shop with several yellow teas.  I like a website that offers a ton of good information along with hard to find teas.  Trust factor goes up, willingness to part with dollarettes goes up. 

For more information, try:

Seven Cups: About Yellow Tea

Yellow Tea Guide

Kitsch or Kewl?

I can't decide if this wabbit fambly tea set is cute-and-collectible or just gawdy-but-good-for-a-giggle. 

It was a gift from somebody who figured I needed more tea sets for my collection, so I'm loathe to throw it out.  It's a complete set - teapot, creamer, sugar bunny, 4 cups, saucers and little spoons.  Momma wabbit's head comes off, as does sugar bunny. 

It gave me a great chuckle when I unwrapped the box, and I do love bunny wabbits, but could I actually leave it out and serve tea with it?  I dunno, whaddya think ... kitsch or kewl?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ok, first I have to apologize.  This is NOT the recipe for cream cheese brownies that I've been promising.  I will get that posted soon. I will, no really, I will!!!  But for today, I'm bumping some old posts here by way of wishing everybunny a Happy Valentine's Day. 

Be sure to take a trip back a year and visit the Valentine's Day Carnival of the Recipes, which has some truly splendelicious goodies for you and your Valentine.

And here are some pictures I shared many moons ago, of a fun and scrummy Valentine's Tea Party I had:

First, I baked some Wally-Mari-Brownies (that's brownies with walnuts and marascino cherries inside). 

I just used a brownie mix, and these cute little heart-shaped tins I found in the baking aisle.

Added some chocolate kisses to the plate because ... well... you can never have too much chocolate.

The perfect complement to go with the brownies: Rosebud Gong Fu tea, which just arrived from JingTeas.com.

This is the perfect tea.  I lovelovelove it. Lightly scented/flavored, and there are tiny little rosebuds right in the tea.  It's a treat for all the senses.  Pretty to look at, wonderful smell, the taste is perfect, and the little afterbreath of roses is delightful.

And of course, the only possible china to use was my gold-rimmed roses cup and plate.

My Cozy Winter Tea

It has finally gotten cold enough here to qualify in my mind as "winter".  Just in time for Christmas.  Heheh. 

So I have an excuse now, to get out all my pretty Christmas things.  Today I'm having afternoon tea using some of my mom's china. This pretty gold-rimmed cup and plate are adorned with holly leaves and berries, and what I think are winter roses.  Very pretty. 

The holly reminds me of growing up.  My grandparents had a ginormous holly tree growing right outside the back door, and every year we kids had the job of cutting sprigs to decorate the house with.  Great, albeit prickly, fun.

For goodies this afternoon I'm munching on a lemon scone (in a word -- YUM), and cream cheese brownies that are to die for.  I really shouldn't be even LOOKING at these brownies, considering how much I ate for Thanksgiving, but it's my birthday, so what the hey. 

Heh.  As if I needed an excuse to eat chocolate. 

The recipe for the brownies will be coming soon! :)

Crack-Me-Up Teapots

While searching for cups on the net, I ran across Andy Titcomb's hilarious teapots. 

These on the right are the Toddler Teapots.  Aren't they a hoot?? If I had muy ducets I'd prolly become a teapot collector.  I just love kitschy stuff like this.

They're a little (a lot!) out of my price range - the one I really want is this cutey little dormouse teapot, but £75.00 translates to about $150 I think. Holy cats.

And at that price I'd be afraid to use it. 

Jasmine Cooler - Fun with Ice Cubes!

When our summer days heat up, I start playing with ice cubes.  It's hard to live in a place where I'm forced to switch my usual afternoon tea ritual from hot to iced.   But it does push me to find new and creative cool drinks.  I've made espresso ice cubes, tea ice cubes, jello ice cubes (which I do NOT recommend adding to a beverage), and all kinds of ice cream / soda combinations. 

Lately I've been playing with juice ice cubes and different kinds of tea, and I think I've hit on the absolutely most perfectest combination.  This one even beat my old favorite - Apricot Peachtea Delight made with tea-sicles.   If you're looking for something tall and cool, and slightly fruity, try this out:

Jasmine Orange Iced Tea

Pour your favorite orange juice into ice cube trays and freeze. (I like mine with plenty of pulp!)

Boil 4-6 cups water.
Steep together your favorite Jasmine tea (I love the Adagio Jasmine Tea Pearls) and 2-3 Lady Grey tea bags till tea is extra dark
Pour into pitcher and refrigerate until cool

Add orange juice cubes and regular ice cubes to a tall glass and fill with tea. 

Add a slice of orange on the rim for fun and color!

I love fruity ice cubes, they are a great addition to iced tea or 7-up or your favorite fuzzy water.  Lemonade cubes are wonderful added to almost any flavor iced tea.  Enjoy, and stay cool!

Earl Grey vs. Earl Grey

I'm comparing teas this afternoon.  Earl vs. Earl, dukin' it out.  Ever since I discovered Lady Grey, I've wanted to go back and rediscover the Earl.

Maybe this isn't a fair comparison.  In one corner we have fresh, loose leaf Earl Grey from Jing Tea.  On the other, a box of Private Selection Earl Grey tea in bags, newly bought, but of questionable freshness. I'm afraid one is quite the heavy weight, and the other is a sickly toad. 

Actually, comparing the two teas in color, the PS is stronger.  I steeped them for the same amount of time, and the PS tea is notably darker.  But I suspect that has to do with something I read on the Bigelow tea blog, about how some companies use tea dust in their tea bags, which makes the tea "color" more quickly:

Tea dust is the smallest size tea leaf possible; however, the problem with tea dust is that although it provides quick color into the cup, it has no real tea flavor. It also happens to be an inexpensive tea to purchase.

So, the important thing here is the flavor, and there's no contest, none at all. In both smell and taste, the Jing tea is better. The citrus is amazing, very light, but full. And there's a spice I can't identify that jumps out in the tea leaves, but sits back and blends in in the steeped tea. Altogether a wonderful taste, and great afternoon tea.

The PS tea is bitter at this strength.  It might be tolerable if I hadn't steeped it as long as the Jing.  I did have the same experience with the Lady Grey that I bought... it needed a very short steeping time or it became bitter.  I guess now I'll have to find some fresher / loose leaf Lady Grey and run some tests on that as well. 

Hmm, ladies in the ring, dukin' it out.  With lace gloves?  Heh.