Over the years, many new and different varieties of the world’s most popular beverage have been cultivated and processed. Beginning with simply green teas, tea makers have now slowly graduated on to many different varieties. Even a simple black tea comes with multiple options for picky tea drinkers everywhere. But even with so many tea options, we cannot stop craving for more! We still look for new ways to have a new tea drinking experience better and more enjoyable from the last.
We are all aware of the many health benefits that tea has to offer. Even black tea (which has the highest caffeine content of all teas) has lower caffeine content than coffee, making it a healthy choice for anyone wanting a kick of caffeine early in the morning. However, not many like the taste of tea, or enjoy tea far more with added flavours.
There is quite a spread available if one chooses to blend tea with flavours. Some teas like English breakfast tea, Moroccan Mint Tea, Russian Caravan, Earl Grey, and so on are popular blends that have been enjoyed for years. However, if you do not like these flavours, you can simply create a blended tea of your own by picking flavours you like and adding them to your cup of tea. Or you can even a herbal blend which does not contain any tea leaves if you are looking for something caffeine free.
To add flavour to your tea, simply pick a fruit, flower, herb, or spice of your choice and add it to your tea while brewing it. The flavours can be fresh, dehydrated, or freeze dried. Do steer clear of artificial flavourings as they do not give an authentic taste and do not add any value to the tea either. With pure flavours, the tea benefits from the additional health points that the flavours provide.
The first step in creating a blended tea is to pick the tea base. Choose black tea if you are looking for a robust flavour of tea, green tea if you want an earthy, grassy feel, or white tea for something light on the actual tea flavour and can act as a medium for the flavour of the fruits, flowers, herbs, or spices.
Second, pick the flavours you like. Jasmine (most commonly used to flavour green teas), osmanthus, rose, chrysanthemum, lotus, mint, pandan, citrus peel, spices such as ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cassia, black pepper, clove, anise, fennel, Indian bay leaf and sometimes vanilla, nutmeg and mace are popular choices for flavours. Some more unconventional choices are now also available at the markets. So pick the flavours you like best.
In the third step, you can determine how strong you want the flavour to be. You can blend tea leaves and flavours in equal quantities, or keep a ratio you find suitable to your taste. Remember, you may not like the first blend you create, so you need to keep experimenting till you find the best blend for you. So get blending!
