A Kettle For The Perfect Cuppa

Right back when I started this blog I wrote about water temperature and how important it is to get it right when making different cups of tea. Ever had a really bitter tasting cup of green tea? Chances are you've scalded the leaves. It's one of those things that sounds like it's just for people who are a little too serious about their tea-making (really, moi?) but it's actually something that anyone who drinks anything other than good old black tea needs to remember.

Another thing I feel pretty strongly about is the quality of the water. Living in a hard-water area (as many of us do) I always use a water filter - both for drinking cold and for making tea. This is not just to avoid de-scaling the kettle on a monthly basis but also because the tea just tastes much better with filtered water. So when I was contacted recently to ask if I'd be interested in trying a Morphy Richards water-filtering kettle, I was really excited to give it a try; especially as, due to the hot and cold water pipes being too close together somewhere in my house, I've a rather complicated system involving my filter jug and various glass bottles that ensures I don't have to run the tap for 2 minutes before I can pour myself a drink of cold water. Anything to simplify my water-processing/tea-making situation sounded like a good idea.

The Ultimate Green Tea

Whist having a Twitter chat with blogging chum Caroline, No recently (gosh aren't we modern and multimedia) I realised it has been quite some time since I wrote a purely tea-based post. I have to admit it, delicious cakes can sometime overshadow the humble cuppa in my posts, but never in reality: cake is massively diminished without a great cup of tea to go with it.

Tea and Chocolate - A Dream Combination

When Sarah from the lovely Maison Cupcake contacted me recently to say I'd won a giveaway I was thrilled. When I realised it was for a box of tea flavoured chocolates I was pretty much ecstatic! Somehow the existence of Matcha Chocolat had passed me by, which was frankly a miracle as it is a product combining two of my favourite things in the world. Such is my love for tea flavoured chocolates I had previously sought them out at Pierre Marcolini and l'Artisan du Chocolat amongst others but here was an opportunity to have a whole box devoted to that most glorious of combinations. I awaited them with eager anticipation.

Where's the Green Tea?

If you're in London, I'm sure the latest craze for frozen yoghurt hasn't passed you by (and if you're in the States you're probably thinking "latest craze??"). I wasn't overly fussed about it having had a couple of fairly disappointing tubs but then I discovered that Frae offered a green tea flavour and I hot-footed (or hot-wheeled) it up to Islington to try some. My anticipation grew as I saw that one of the toppings on offer was mochi - the pounded rice sweets I had so enjoyed in Japan. I also added some mango and was ready to go. Well, it was another disappointment I'm afraid. Sure the mango was deliciously ripe, and the mochi were nice but where was the green tea in the frozen yoghurt? At first I thought I'd been served the wrong flavour but on comparison with Coffee Boy's I could taste that it was a bit different but I'd have been hard-pressed to tell you what the flavour I was eating was.

Green Tea cupcakes

Recently I decided to indulge two of my favourite things at once: tea and cakes. But not in the usual way: you know a lovely cake with an accompanying cuppa. No, this time I planned to enjoy both in one creation. Luckily, the lovely Rachel that I met on my cupcake course last year had sent me a recipe for green tea cupcakes that I adapted a little. In truth, although I loved the way the matcha frosting turned out, the tea flavour in the cupcake was a little bit too subtle for me. But then I do love my tea... I might be tempted to up the tea content in the cakes in future and lose the cocoa powder altogether. Still, they went down very well with everyone else so here's the recipe I used.

Iced Matcha Latte in Style

It's hard to single out a favourite area in Tokyo: as with any huge metropolis there's so much diversity it feels crazy to pick just one spot. But an area I absolutely loved was Naka-Meguro and what's more, I stumbled across it almost by accident.

Japanese Tea - The Bitter & The Sweet

So, I'm finally back from my extended (thank you ash cloud) trip to Japan. And it was fantastic. I saw, ate and, of course, drank so many amazing things it's hard to know where to begin. Before I travelled eastwards I'd hoped that I might be able to have tea in at least one or two traditional tea houses, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would be indulging virtually every other day! As wonderful and individual as each of these experiences was I think writing about all of them might stretch everyone's patience so I have decided to concentrate on the tea that made the biggest impact on me.

A Greener Start to the Day

This morning as I walked, still bleary-eyed, into the kitchen, I was hit by a horrible realisation: we had run out of milk. Although this didn't pose a major problem for breakfast - fruit, yoghurt and granola is my preferred option at the moment - it did mean I couldn't start the day with my usual cup of tea. In the old days I used to like a latte first thing in the morning, but over the past few months I find I just can't wait for that first cup of lovely, refreshing tea. A fairly strong black tea with milk is now, definitely, my preferred way to start the day.