The Perfect Cup of Tea

My pregnancy cravings thus far can be summed up this way: fried eggs and perfect black tea.  I have become sort of obsessed with "the perfect method" of making both, and Daniel has been nice enough to allow me to make the egg every morning so that the yolks are exactly the right amount of runny.  The tea, however, is usually a team effort in the mornings.  Because there are a lot of steps.   

Perfect black tea begins with just that: the tea!

English Breakfast from Teavana is very good and is relatively inexpensive (about $6 for 3 oz).  I've tried several other brands of English Breakfast (and Irish Breakfast) that are also good, but this Chinese Breakfast Tea (from Whole Foods) is the best I've found.

Sad that it's a whopping $11 for 2.8 oz.  But when compared side-by-side with other breakfast blends, it tastes the best.

Water for perfect breakfast tea should be about 212 degrees F, or just after it comes to a boil. 

My favorite Christmas gift this year (or was it a birthday gift?  When the two are so close together, I can't remember):  the Teavana Perfect TeaMaker.  A genius invention, this plastic (BPA-free) 16 oz container allows the loose leaf tea to float freely and expand in the water.

Then when you place the teamaker over a mug, the middle part of the bottom of it automatically opens, allowing the tea to flow out. 
I prefer German Rock Sugar (also from Teavana) to use as a sweetener for the tea, but we ran out this week, so that's Turbinado pictured above.  The nice thing about Turbinado is that you can find it at the regular grocery store.

 Anyways, most people recommend a rounded teaspoon of black tea for every 8 oz of black tea, but I like mine a little stronger.  So we use 3 teaspoons of black tea for this 16 oz teamaker. And a rounded teaspoon of German Rock sugar or Turbinado sugar.  Then the boiling water gets poured over both.

 And you let it steep about 3 minutes.  I always set the timer so I don't forget and let it get bitter.  I think you could actually let it steep 4-5 minutes, but I stay safe with 3 minutes.

When the 3 minutes are up, you just put the teamaker over a mug (or pitcher in our case).  We put the cream (yes, cream--not half and half or milk) in the pitcher first, so that the tea mixes with the cream when you empty the teamaker, and there's no need for stirring.

Down, down it goes until it's all drained. And then from the pitcher we sometimes strain it again (The Republic of Tea, for example, makes an English Breakfast with pieces too small to be filtered well, so double-straining is necessary with that brand of tea).

And voila!  Perfect tea (from my perspective, at least).  In 2 weeks my life will slow down considerably, so please come by for tea after that.  And I will share the magic of perfect tea with you.