home4tea: July 2010

Jul 28, 2010

Tea Blogs Roundup

You may realise that I spend a lot of my time on the WWW! I have two foci for this addiction – TEA & CRAFT!

I read about 20 Tea blogs from all over the world, everyday. I have drawn up a list of all the blogs I have bookmarked and identified weeks that I check them! Yes, I AM anal I know!

Each Tea Blog has something that appeals to me and I thought they may appeal to you too, so for a few posts, I thought I would share some of my favourite TEA BLOGS with YOU!

If you have some good ones to share, please email me vicky.sekkei@gmail.com

Teaspoons and Petals

Jul 27, 2010

Yerba maté

I was innocently playing my daily game before organising myself for the day when I came across word I had never heard of before. I play a ‘find a Word’ game. I enjoy this simple mental stimulation in the morning. Yesterday’s topic was ‘warm drinks’! I knew all of them except this one: Yerba maté!

You possibly have heard of it – maybe I am the only ignorant one! This stimulated me into full on research mode where I now feel quite well informed about this fascinating tea. I have tried to buy some of this tea in Brisbane; as yet, no luck, but I will not give up until I have tasted this stuff and can give you an informed review!

Yerba mate or yerba-mate (Br.) (Spanish: yerba mate, Portuguese: erva-mate), Ilex paraguariensis, is a species of holly (family Aquifoliaceae) native to subtropical South America in northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil. It was first scientifically classified by Swiss botanist Moses Bertoni, who settled in Paraguay in 1895. The yerba mate plant is a shrub or small tree growing up to 15 meters tall. The leaves are evergreen, 7–11 cm long and 3–5.5 cm wide, with a serrated margin. The flowers are small, greenish-white, with four petals. The fruit is a red drupe 4–6 mm in diameter.

Infusion
Steaming yerba mate infusion in its customary gourd.
The infusion called mate is prepared by steeping dry leaves (and twigs) of yerba mate in hot water, rather than in boiling water like black tea. Drinking mate with friends from a shared hollow gourd (also called a guampa or mate in Spanish, or cabaça or cuia in Portuguese) with a metal straw (a bombilla in Spanish, bomba in Portuguese) is a common social practice in Argentina,[3][4] Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, eastern Bolivia and southern and western Brazil[5] and has been cultivated in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
The flavor of brewed yerba mate is strongly vegetal, herbal, and grassy, reminiscent of some varieties of green tea. Some consider the flavor to be very agreeable, but it is generally bitter if steeped in boiling water. (Using boiling water is not recommended; traditionally the water temperature is between 160–180 °F (71–82 °C) when steeping the leaves. The water should be steaming hot yet not quite boiling.) One can also purchase flavored mate, in which the yerba is blended with an herb (such as peppermint) or citrus rind.
In Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, a toasted version of mate, known as mate cocido (Paraguay), chá mate (Brasil) or "mate tea", is sold in teabag and loose form, and served, sweetened, in specialized shops, either hot or iced with fruit juice or milk. An iced, sweetened version of toasted mate is sold as an uncarbonated soft drink, with or without fruit flavoring. The toasted variety of mate has less of a bitter flavor and more of a spicy fragrance. When shaken it becomes creamy (since the formed foam gets well mixed and lasts for some time), known as mate batido. It is more popular in the coastal cities of Brazil, as opposed to the far southern states where it is consumed in the traditional way (green, drunk with a silver straw from a shared gourd), and called "chimarrão". In Argentina, this is called "cimarrón".
Similarly, a form of mate is sold in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay in tea bags to be drunk in a similar way to tea. This is known in Spanish as mate cocido or cocido. In Argentina this is commonly drunk with breakfast or as part of merienda (roughly, afternoon tea), often with a selection of facturas (sweet pastries). It is also made by heating yerba in water and straining it as it cools.
In Paraguay, western Brazil (Mato Grosso do Sul and west of São Paulo) and the Litoral Argentino, yerba mate infusion is also drunk as a cold or iced beverage and called tereré or tererê (in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively). Usually sucked out of a horn cup called guampa with a bombilla. It could be prepared using cold or iced water (the most common way in Paraguay) or using cold or iced fruit juice (the most common way in Argentina). The "only water" version may be too bitter, but the one prepared using fruit juice is sweetened by the juice itself. Medicinal herbs, known as "yuyos", are mixed in a mortar and pestle and added to the water for taste or medicinal reasons. Tereré consumed in Paraguay may also be made as an infusion of yerba mate with grapefruit or lemon juice.

Also known as 'South America’s green tea', Yerba Maté is a unique, delicious and nutritious tea made from the leaves of Ilex Paraguariensis, a plant that grows only in sub-tropical South America.
Yerba maté was widely used by the indigenous Guaraní people for hundreds of years before the Spanish came to South America in the 1500’s. The early colonists Eagerly adopted Yerba Maté into their daily diet as an invigorating beverage and its use spread far and wide throughout the Continent.
Today millions of South Americans drink maté on a daily basis to ensure health and vitality. Maté boosts energy, fights fatigue and balances the body in all its functions. Yerba Maté has been widely studied in scientific Literature. Among the well founded health-related claims that can be made about Yerba Maté:
• CAFFEINE CONTENT:Maté has gram for gram less caffeine than coffee or tea.
• ANTIOXIDANTS:Maté has even more polyphenols than Green Tea. In a study at the
Pasteur Institute, Maté proved to be more potent in antioxidants than Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) and butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT) in inhibiting low density Lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation.
• MINERALS, VITAMINS AND AMINOACIDS:Unlike Tea or coffee, maté is full of these elements that provide nutrition to the body.
• CHOLESTEROL-LOWERING PROPERTIES:Maté has been shown to lower the rate of absorption of Cholesterol in the gastrointestinal tract.

Yerba mate FAQs

The Drink Of the Gods

Yerbamate, the inteligent choice... Yerba Mate (pronounced "yerba mahtay") is a medicinal and cultural drink of ancient origins. Introduced to the world by the Guarani Indians of South America, Yerbamate contains ingredients that help keep its drinkers healthy and energetic. Yerba Mate, experience for good friends...
Yerba Mate is more than just good for the body; it's good for the soul. Drinking it can be a form of meditation or reflection - allowing the goodness to infuse into the body while stimulating and resting the mind. But this wholeness does not always happen alone.
In traditional Yerbamate use, the cup is often shared among close friends and family - using the same straw, or bombilla. Reminiscent of the kind of closeness written about in Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," where the characters become "water brothers" or "water sisters" when they drank from the same cup one after the other, those who share the Mate cup join in a kind of bond where the sharing of the health and meditation of the Yerba Mate is a sign of total acceptance and friendship.

Jul 26, 2010

Enough about me, how about tea?

A week has passed since we last had tea. I hope you are well and that all in your life is as you want it. Being human (well some of us are!) means that usually there are some elements of our life that are not going absolutely to ‘our’ plan – that is the case for me at the moment.

I have had a week away from blogging. For most of that time I wasn‘t too concerned, I was in too much pain to worry. As I began to get better I really wanted to get that ‘blog post fix’ but resisted until today. I am still in a lot of pain – done something to my hip which is not doing as it should in the healing department, but decided enough is enough. I sit here in my computer chair with pillows all around me, bolstering me upright enough to type!

Enough about me, how about tea?

I have had much more tea in recent days than I have for years. I am back visiting one of my favourites Vanilla Rooibos. For me, this is a ‘morning’ tea. A gentle ‘wake up to the day’, beverage. It has replaced my all time favourite Twinings Earl Grey (or Lady Grey) for the moment. The vanilla delishness permeates the house and provides a wonderful comforting internal hug each morning.

A tea that I have found perfect for accompanying my pain killers (!) is Lipton’s black. Full, strong and a real message telling me to ‘pull myself together’ and embrace the day! Because of its purpose, I am currently having 3 cups of this blackness a day – really quite enough!

I have been considering Christmas gifts for this year. Yes, I know, a bit early but I thought a nice, hand assembled selection of teas would be a lovely gift for friends this year, so I am now developing my list of 10 great tea(bags) flavours to package up.

Any suggestions?

Jul 17, 2010

TEA FUNNIES for the Weekend

* What does a teapot say to its lover?

O, dajarling!
*Who is the teapot's favourite actress?
Tea Leoni.
*Why did the tea bag have to do its laundry?
Because it was stained.
*What is a baby teapots favourite game?
Pekoe-boo.
*Why was the cow teapot late to the party?
Because she was decaffeinated!
*How long does it take to ship tea from China by slow boat?
Oolong Time!
*What does a teapot say to her hairdresser?
Don't teas
*What does the teapot say to its bag?
I don't want another seep out of you!
*What kind of music do teapots like?
Jasmine
*Why did the teapot wear a cozy?
Cozy kept him warm.
*Why must you be careful of tea at night?
Because it might mug you.
*What does a tea bag do when it's tired?
It seeps.
*What do lady teapots like to wear?
String of Earls!
*What's a teapots favourite folk tune?
My Darjeeling Clementine
*Why did the teapot get in trouble?
Because he was naughtea.
*What did the teapot wear to bed?
A nightea
*Why did the tea get away?
Because it was loose.
*What does the tea do when it moves to LA?
It has its bags removed.
*How does a tea bag seep?
On its side
*What's the teapots favourite movie?

E.T.

*Baby in Teapot

*Teapot House

*Teapot Ensemble of Australia

*My Teacup Is More Famous Than Me, Lady GaGa Says

*Teacup Pigs

*Four Yorkshiremen Sketch - Monty Python

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.
Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope..

*The hostess poured a cup of tea for a middle-aged man at her party and asked him if he took sugar. "No," he said. "Yes," said his wife brightly at the same moment. Then she turned accusingly to him. "But I always put sugar in your tea!" "I know," the man said rudely. "I used to remind you not to. Now I just don't stir."

*Doctor, doctor! Every time I drink a cup of tea I get a sharp pain in by nose:
Have you tried taking the spoon out of the cup?
*Knock knock.
Who's there?
Army Ant.
Army Ant who?
Army Ants coming for tea then? (are my aunts coming for tea then)
*Fred: Do you feel like a cup of tea?
Harry: Oh, yes.
Fred: You look like one, too - sloppy, hot and wet!

*LIFE IS LIKE A CUP OF TEA
*Moskowitz and Finkelstein were in a cafeteria, drinking tea. Moskowitz studied his cup and said with a sigh, "Ah, my friend, life is like a cup of tea."
Finkelstein considered that for a moment and then said, "But why is life like a cup of tea?"And Moskowitz replied, "How should I know? Am I a philosopher?
*Little Billy was left to fix lunch. When his mother returned with a friend, she noticed that Billy had already strained the tea.
"Did you find the tea strainer?" His mother asked.
"No mother, I couldn't find it, so I used the fly swatter."
His mother nearly fainted, so he hastily added, "Don't get so excited Mother, I used an old one."

Jul 16, 2010

A Birthday, A Frypan, Yum Cha and Fish and Chips!

My husband took the day off work to enjoy his birthday. It was a lovely day (ignoring the very strong winds) and with kids back at school after the holidays, not too many children to avoid in the shopping centre!

We saw a movie first – we set the Chinesey theme for the day and saw Karate Kid. What a great movie. We loved the original and now we love this version too. Jaden Smith is fantastic and Jackie Chan is amazing. Actually I have never seen a Jackie Chan movie all the way through before – not really into his hi-jinks, but he is such a good straight actor. I hope he does more of that genre now. Jaden is very talented. Of course you can see lots of great movie roles in his future.

Next it was time for me to buy my husband his birthday present – he wanted and I bought a new fry pan! It’s the simple things! (He is the cook of the household).

Then to line up with 100s of others for Yum Cha at Landmark, Sunnybank. It is a favourite destination of ours. It is always busy. I don’t mind waiting, so long as I have a seat close to the fish tanks and I can watch the barramundi, crabs and huge lobsters swimming around before they decorate my plate!

One of the best things for me is the Tea at Yum Cha. We usually manage to drink over 2 pots in a meal between the 2 of us. I love its freshness, the way it cleanses my palate and the wonderful bitter flavour.

There is a certain etiquette to getting a new pot of tea. When you have finished your pot – or if the tea gets cold you leave the lid off the pot and at an angle on the top of the pot. This way the waiter is alerted to your need for a fresh pot! My cup didn’t ever get empty enough for me to read my leaves!!!

We didn’t really eat a lot at yum cha! My hubby had his usual – deep fried calamari; I had prawn dumplings and tofu and then we followed it with the ‘must have’ egg tarts – hot from the oven.

We waddled out feeling very satisfied!

Later in the evening we went to visit our daughter and our two oldest grandchildren for FISH AND CHIPS! This just happens to be my husband’s favourite food! We had a lovely little celebration including sharing a delicious Black Forest Cake!

All in all a lovely birthday – I think!

Jul 15, 2010

Tasseography - Reading Tea leaves

For those who believe or if you just want to have some fun!

Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.
The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the cognate Arabic word tassa, and the Greek suffixes -graph (writing), -logy (study of), and -mancy (divination).
History
Scotland, Ireland, and England have produced a number of practitioners and authors on the subject, and English potteries have crafted many elaborate tea cup sets specially designed and decorated to aid in fortune-telling. Cultures of the Middle East that practice divination in this fashion usually use left-over coffee grounds from Turkish coffee turned over onto a plate.
Method of tea-leaf reading
The Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology, Fifth Edition, Vol. 2 edited by J. Gordon Melton, notes:
After a cup of tea has been poured, without using a tea strainer, the tea is drunk or poured away. The cup should then be shaken well and any remaining liquid drained off in the saucer. The diviner now looks at the pattern of tea leaves in the cup and allows the imagination to play around the shapes suggested by them. They might look like a letter, a heart shape, or a ring. These shapes are then interpreted intuitively or by means of a fairly standard system of symbolism, such as: snake (enmity or falsehood), spade (good fortune through industry), mountain (journey of hindrance), or house (change, success).
Melton's described methods of pouring away the tea and shaking the cup are rarely seen; most readers ask the querent to drink the tea off, then swirl the cup. Likewise, his notion that readers give intuitive interpretations reflects his unfamiliarity with teacup reading; most readers use the standard symbols that have been handed down through several generations. There are, however, many who prefer to read by feel and intuition, as stated by Melton.
It is traditional to read a cup from the present to the future by starting along the rim at the handle of the cup and following the symbols downward in a spiral manner, until the bottom is reached, which symbolizes the far future. Most readers see images only in the dark tea leaves against a white or neutral background; some will also read the reverse images formed by seeing the symbols that form in the white negative spaces, with a clump of dark leaves forming the background.
Some people consider it ill-advised for one to attempt tasseography using tea from a cut-open tea bag or to use a symbol dictionary. The reasons for these prohibitions are practical: tea-bag tea is cut too finely to form recognizable figures in the cup and tea-leaf reading has its own historic system of symbolism that does not correspond exactly with other systems, such as symbolic dream divination.
Fortune telling tea cups
Although many people prefer a simple white cup for tea leaf reading, there are also traditions concerning the positional placement of the leaves in the cup, and some find it easier to work with marked cups. Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the present, English and American potteries have produced specially decorated cup and saucer sets for the use of tea-leaf readers. Many of these designs are patented and come with instructions explaining their mode of use. Some of the most common were those that were given away with purchases of bulk tea.
There are dozens of individual designs of fortune tellers' cups, but the three most common types are zodiac cups, playing card cups, and symbol cups.

SO YOU WANNA READ TEA LEAVES?
1. Make the tea correctly
2. Have the subject drink the tea properly
3. Learn the symbols
4. Predict when something's going to happen
5. Determine each symbol's importance
Even though tea has been called a miracle plant, doing everything from helping you lose weight to fighting cancer, it still seems so random that people actually read tea leaves in order to predict future events. You might as well try to "read" a toilet bowl or a piece of gum. Where in the world did the practice come from? Tasseography, as it is sometimes called, is an ancient Chinese practice that spread to Europe with nomadic gypsies in the mid-1800s. And while most people don't take the art of tea-leaf reading too seriously anymore, it is nonetheless a fascinating hobby.
For all you pop culture enthusiasts out there, references to tea-leaf reading can be found in everything from books (Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes), to TV shows (admittedly, mostly on soap operas or X-Files knockoffs), to really bad movies (anything on USA Network).
Sure, it's possible to have your tea leaves read online, but it's so much cooler to know how to do it yourself. It's a GREAT way to completely freak out your friends and mess them up for life. Read on to find out if it's your cup of tea.
1. MAKE THE TEA CORRECTLY
OK, we’ll assume that since you’re reading this article, boredom plays a definable role in your life. For a successful tea-leaf reading, all you’ll need is a melodramatic demeanour, a few kitchen supplies, and a gullible friend that looks equally bored. What you need:
• Loose tea, any flavour. “Loose” tea does not refer to its sexual proclivities; rather, it means that you’re using actual tea leaves that float loose in your cup instead of using a tea bag. We recommend that you use a Chinese tea or one with a minimum of fine-grained dust. If you like your subject (the one whose future you are going to read), let him choose a favourite flavour. If not, use the nastiest flavour you can find.
• A white or pastel teacup with a wide brim. It needs to be white, or you won’t be able to read the dark leaves at the bottom, and it should have a wide brim so that the leaves have a greater area to stick to at the bottom of the cup. If you’re at work, a Styrofoam cup will do, but we’ll have to tell your boss that you’re slacking (…as if she doesn’t already know).
• A wide saucer.
• A teaspoon.
Now you’re ready to make some tea.
1. Place a teapot full of water on the stove. Oh, and make sure the stove is on.
2. Place the dry tea leaves on a saucer. Have your friend stir them around while the water is boiling. Murmur something unintelligible during this stage for drama’s sake.
3. Ask your friend to throw some leaves into the pot (the amount doesn’t matter).
4. Brew the tea without a strainer, making sure that the leaves are loose within the pot.
5. After the tea starts steaming, have your friend pour some into the cup.
6. Let it cool. Sit around, relax, work on your résumé, play poker, whatever.

Go to the site to find out more!
Reading Tea Leaves
Reading the Cup is essentially a domestic form of Fortune-telling to be practiced at home, and with success by anyone who will take the trouble to master the simple rules laid down in these pages: and it is in the hope that it will provide a basis for much innocent and inexpensive amusement and recreation round the tea-table at home, as well as for a more serious study of an interesting subject, that this little guide-book to the science is confidently offered to the public.
This is probably because the Reading of the Tea-cups affords but little opportunity to the Seer of extracting money from credulous folk; a reason why it was never adopted by the gypsy soothsayers, who preferred the more obviously lucrative methods of crossing the palm with gold or silver, or of charging a fee for manipulating a pack of playing-cards.
It is somewhat curious that among the great number of books on occult science and all forms of divination which have been published in the English language there should be none dealing exclusively with the Tea-cup Reading and the Art of Telling Fortunes by the Tea-leaves: notwithstanding that it is one of the most common forms of divination practiced by the peasants of Scotland and by village fortune-tellers in all parts of this country. In many of the cheaper handbooks to Fortune-telling by Cards or in other ways only brief references to the Tea-cup method are given; but only too evidently by writers who are merely acquainted with it by hearsay and have not made a study of it for themselves.

Jul 14, 2010

TEA in France for BASTILLE DAY

Tea and the Guillotine
by Karen Burns
Along with the heads of Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette, another casualty of the French Revolution was tea.
Yes, really. It's a little known fact, but after its introduction to Europe in the 17th century tea was tremendously popular in France. It first arrived in Paris in 1636 (22 years before it appeared in England!) and quickly became popular among the aristocracy. Cardinal Mazarin, the most powerful man in France under Louis XIV (great-great-great grandfather of the unfortunate Louis XVI), took tea regularly. Actually, he started drinking it because he thought it would help his gout, but it's a safe bet he continued because he enjoyed the taste!
The Sun King himself, as Louis XIV was known, became a tea drinker in 1665. He thought it would help his gout, too, and also had been told that the Chinese and Japanese never suffered from heart problems.
Tea was so popular in Paris that Madame de Sévigné, who chronicled the doings of the Sun King and his cronies in a famous series of gossipy letters to her daughter, often found herself mentioning tea. "Saw the Princesse de Tarente [de Sévigné wrote]... who takes 12 cups of tea every day... which, she says, cures all her ills. She assured me that Monsieur de Landgrave drank 40 cups every morning. 'But Madame, perhaps it is really only 30 or so.' 'No, 40. He was dying, and it brought him back to life before our eyes.'
Madame de Sévigné also reported that it was a Frenchwoman, the Marquise de la Sablière, who initiated the fashion of adding milk to tea. "Madame de la Sablière took her tea with milk, as she told me the other day, because it was to her taste." (By the way, the English delighted in this "French touch" and immediately adopted it.)
French doctors got excited about tea because they saw it as a possible medicine. As early as 1648, a Monsieur Morisset published a treatise claiming that tea was mentally stimulating. (However, when he brought it before the faculty of medicine at the University of Paris some ardent defenders of another medicinal plant, sage, had the treatise burned!) In 1657, the scientist Jonquet praised tea as the "divine herb." In 1685, Philippe Sylvestre Dufour published the Traités Nouveaux et Curieux du Café, du Thé et du Chocolat (New and Curious Treatises on Coffee, Tea and Chocolate), one of the first books in French to address tea. It extolled the leaf for its ability to cure headaches and aid digestion, and it even offered prescriptions.
On August 3, 1700, the French ship Amphitrite returned from China with silk, porcelain and, of course, tea. In the years that followed, the number of these ships was to increase tenfold. Tea had many fervent supporters in Paris and in Versailles, where the Sun King held court. As well as Mazarin, the royal minister Chancellor Séguier, the playwright Racine, and the writer Madame de Genlis all drank tea. In 1714, the princess of Palatine remarked that Chinese tea was as fashionable in Paris as chocolate was in Spain.

However, popularity among the upper classes may have been the kiss of death for tea in France. In 1789, a screaming mob, enraged by a noble class that did nothing but levy crippling taxes and make war, attacked the notorious Bastille prison. By the time the violence stopped, the king and queen had lost their heads and so had a goodly number of counts, dukes, and the like. Tea, a symbol of royalty, went the way of royalty. Tea's story was not over in France, however. Only 50 years after the Revolution, an Anglomania swept the country. Everything English was all the fashion and it again became stylish to take tea, often in the evening after dinner and accompanied by small pastries. It was around this time that the famous French tea importer, Mariage Frères, began to expand its business. Jean-François Mariage had been running an import firm featuring teas, spices and colonial goods in Lille, a city to the north of Paris, since the late 1700s. He trained his four sons—Louis, Aimé, Charles, and Auguste—in the family business. Aimé's sons, Henri and Edouard Mariage, in turn took up the family trade. On June 1, 1854, they founded the Mariage Frères (Mariage Brothers) tea company in Paris, today the oldest in France. Mariage Frères quickly demonstrated what has become its trademark—interesting blends. In 1860, the company came out with "Chocolat des Mandarins," a tea/chocolate blend touted as a healthy way to consume chocolate, which was considered difficult to digest. Today the Mariage Frères catalogue lists 213 blends among its selection of more than 500 teas. Also available are tea-flavored cookies, tea candy, tea-scented candles, and tea jellies, a French invention now found in shops from Kyoto to New York. And it's only a beginning. Tea is growing more and more popular in France, especially in Paris. Three "tea drinkers' clubs" meet regularly to drink and talk about tea. French tea aficionados can study their passion at the "Université du Thé" (University of Tea) and the "Ecole du Thé" (School of Tea). Nearly 145 tearooms do excellent business in Paris and more open every year. Four-star chefs even use tea as an ingredient in appetizers, main courses, and desserts. French drinkers of tea pride themselves on their diverse tastes, from English-style blends to Japanese greens to Chinese whites. They practice what they call the "French art of tea," which simply consists of quality ingredients, careful preparation, and elegant presentation. Removing the leaves from the pot immediately after the tea is infused is especially considered the first principle of French tea preparation. A marked interest for teas grown on specific estates is another hallmark of the French approach to tea. Sound familiar? You're right. The French are bringing to tea the same seriousness they have always devoted to wine. In short, tea may finally have recovered from the French Revolution and be rightfully taking its place in France!

Tea Ettiquette

Tea in France
You probably think England as the country of tea and may guess they were the first European country for tea to be introduced, however, arrival of tea was earlier in France than England. The King Louis XIV, who was also called the "Sun king" started a habit of drinking coffee influenced by Turkey ambassador. Coffee became known as an exotic drink in France. In 1671, the first café in France was opened in Marseille. After 15 years from that, the café was opened in Paris. Meanwhile Magellan who was a premier during that time in France, habitually drinking tea for the health reason. In the 18th century, French trader went to the East to import teas. At the beginning, they imported more green tea for use of medicine. After the 19th century, tendency has changed. People preferred to drink black tea because of its rich fragrance and the indulgent taste. As a small episode on the history of tea in France, In 1660, Louis Nicholas Marriage was sent to the East such as Persia and India. Later, descendant of Nicholas Marriage started the world well known tea company "Marriage" . "Salon de te (tea house) became the place for women of wealthy family for the gathering while most coffee shops were filled with men. Drinking tea became fashionable for the nobility and wealthy. However, France never became a big tea drinking country. It is because French colony countries were mostly coffee producing countries. Consequently, the price of tea was much higher than coffee, and more people preferred to drink coffee. In the 1990th, the trendy of drinking flavored tea has arrived in France, and more people in France started to drink tea. Today, various kind of teas are sold in France. French people enjoy drinking tea in casual way and creating own innovative style which I think is the French way of Tea.