If You Want to Have Great Coffee, You Have to Care About It
- Valorie King, Owner & Coffee Maven
- Mar 10, 2016
- 2 min read
If you want to enjoy drinking great coffee, you have to care about it. Interestingly, this is also my biggest take away from a beginning tea class by LaDonna Olmstead, owner of Tea Madame in Sumner, Washington. I take great care to choose quality green coffee, artisan roast it, grind and brew it while it’s fresh using specific methods. I also take care in how I store my coffee and how long I keep it in the cupboard. (In case you are wonder, I store coffee two weeks tops in the cupboard in an airtight container away from heat, light and moisture.) If I am willing to care this much about tea, I just might find a tea or two that I can actually enjoy! Don’t worry, I’m not leaving coffee! May it never be!!!
Amy Carrigan, our oldest daughter and web tech support, is an equal opportunity coffee and tea drinker. On February 13th, she and I took a two hour introduction to tea seminar from the Tea Madame and her husband, as I mentioned before. We sampled at least 15 different teas, rooibos and herbals. I found a few that I really like. Shocking! This is not tea in bag in box. I am talking about quality loose leaf tea. The peach white and black teas, the Madame Empress black tea and the coconut oolong tea have been quite enjoyable to drink. I found I do not usually enjoy the first steeping of a loose leaf tea. The second and the third steeping tend to be my favorites. Do NOT try this on coffee. It’s not the same. Re-using coffee grounds is a foul! :)
By caring about tea, I mean: weigh it, follow the steeping instructions (time and temperature matter) and experiment (add more or less dry loose leaf, lengthen steeping time while remaining in the recommended steeping time window and steep the same tea 2-4 times in a day).
Some other tidbits I learned:
Steeped tea has more volume than dry tea. My infuser needs to allow for expansion.
Kind of like my coffee, I like my tea a little stronger than the initial recommendation. I like 5 grams of dry loose leaf tea per cup versus only 3 grams.
I like a lighter mouthfeel for tea. For coffee, I like a heavier mouthfeel.
Rooibos, herbal blends and yerbe mate are not tea.
White, oolong, black and green are different tea cultivars (plants).
Next time you are visiting Sumner, Washington, and/or taking a stroll through the Windmill Nursery in Sumner, stop into the Tea Madame Tea Shop. Even if you are not a regular tea drinker, you might be surprised to find a tea you can enjoy alongside of a tea drinking friend. Just in case you don’t, there is always coffee.
Thank you for joining me on my coffee adventure and into tea. Now it’s your turn to venture into coffee…or tea! We'd love to hear about your adventure too! Drop us a note or post on Facebook.
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