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Making A Cup of Tea

Saving time and money with the Samovar approach

I was raised on tea. Lots of tea. I know that some of my Irish-in-America relatives eventually became fond of coffee, but for many of us, even in the third generation off the boat, tea reigns supreme.

It is important to start with a good quality tea, warm the pot before filling it, and steep the tea before drinking it.

Depending on the tea, many will then add milk and/or sweetener.

I drink a lot of tea, and I like the good quality (and therefore expensive) tea. The Samovar approach to tea making, used in many Near, Middle and Far East countries, saves me time and money while providing a quality drink.

First, the semantics.

A tea KETTLE is used to boil water.
A tea POT is used to steep tea.
A SAMOVAR is an appliance that is used to both keep water at a near-boil temperature and to keep the tea concentrate warm.
Good tea consists of loose-leaf tea from Peet's or equivalent. Cheaper but still good is Barry's or Lyon's tea, available from Amazon.com in the US.
The tea pot should be heated before using. The old fashioned way is to pour a little boiling water in the pot, swish it around and drain it.

The procedure:

Into a large mesh strainer that fits into the mouth of my one-quart teapot without falling through: a rounded 2T (1/8 cup) of loose tea leaves.
Strainer into the teapot, put on the lid.
Fill a one-quart Pyrex cup with one quart of water and put it in the microwave to boil (15 minutes for my machine).
Place the teapot next to the microwave vent so that the vented hot air will heat the pot without any more ado.
When the water is boiling, pour it into the teapot.
Put the lid back on and let it steep for several minutes.
You may at this point remove the tea leaves (I feed my herb plants with them). Sometimes I remove them immediately, sometimes not. Really good tea doesn't seem to care.

What I now have here in the tea pot is a tea concentrate, double or triple strength. When I want some tea, I heat water in a microwavable glass or jar, filled to within an inch-and-a-half of the top (I love using old jars from the grocery store because of the great shapes) and top it off with an inch of the tea concentrate. If you need to heat it a little more after that, do so.

Add milk or sweetner as desired.

Unused tea concentrate can go into the refrigerator for use the next day.