Natural Sweetners for Tea
Tea is a complex drink with subtle nuances, intricate flavors, and unbelievable variety. Exploring teas from different regions and with different processing techniques is a fun way to get to know more about tea and all of the culture behind it. Sometimes, however, you may want to give your tea some sweetness to take some of the edge off or just to satisfy your sweet tooth. So, we have compiled a list of natural sweetners that will help you satisfy your sweet tooth, but still continue to provide you with a healthy drink!
1. Honey: Honey is a great natural sweetener that we love to recommend to those who like sweeter tea. Honey have lots of great properties such as its anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties. In addition, honey is also a great way to give you a boost of energy. Oh and honey tastes great too!
2. Xylitol: Xylitol is a naturally occuring sugar alcohol found in various fruits and vegetables. It is absorbed very slowly by the digestive track to give sustained energy over a few hours, and it also cannot be consumed by bacteria in the mouth, so studies show it is actually beneficial to your teeth.
3. Stevia: Stevia is a genus of around 240 different species of shrubs and herbs in the sunflower family. The leaves are naturally sweet and most studies show they are upwards of 100 to 200x sweeter than sugar without the blood glucose increase and side effects of sugar.
Our favorite
4. Sweet Leaf Tea: Chinese Sweet Leaf Tea comes from the Chinese Blackberry plant. These leaves are naturally sweet like Stevia, but without any of the medicinal aftertaste (at least in our opinion) that Stevia has. Many of our customers have compared Sweet Leaf Tea to honey water because the taste is so sweet and holds up to 5-6 steepings. And to top it off, the sweet leaf tea has lots of naturally antioxidants and amino acids. Check out one of our recent newsletters and read the article “Cure your sugar cravings naturally” for more information on sweet leaf tea and the health benefits.
And you can also find the Sweet Leaf Tea at our store by clicking here
Red Tea, Black Tea, and Rooibos, whats the difference?
One of the biggest questions we get at the shop is “What is red tea?”, when customers see the three red teas that we offer. Or they mistakenly believe that we are selling a South African herb called Rooibos. In this article, I am going to help clear up the difference between red tea, black tea, and rooibos.
So first of all, what is the red tea that you find at our store or at our online shop? This red tea is made of our fermented (oxidized) white tea leaves. The leaves of our red teas (Golden Needle, Tangerine Blossom, and Bai Lin Kung Fu Classic) are almost fully oxidized (85-95%) and have a richer, bolder taste than our other teas.
The important thing to note here is that what we refer to as red tea in our shop and what is called red tea in China would be referred to as black tea in most other countries. The distinction in color depends on whether you are talking about the color of the leaves or the color of the brew. The color of the brew is typically a beautiful amber, red color thus leading to the name “red tea”. The color of the leaves though are typically dark black, thus leading to the name “black tea”. Thus the terms can be used interchangeably. Red tea is oxidized/fermented for about 6-10 hours until the leaves turn an amber/black color and then they are dried to stop the oxidation process.
In China though, the term black tea typically refers to a tea that we call Pu-erh in the United States. This tea is fermented anywhere between 2 weeks to two months and then aged for 2 months to 20+ years in order to create dark black leaves and a dark color to the brew. In this fermentation process the leaves are intentionally kept damp to encourage good microbes and bacteria to slowly oxidize and ferment the leaves. This is distinguished from red tea which typically only takes about 6-10 hours to oxidize. Pu-erh tea typically has a strong fermentation taste but high quality pu-erh should not taste overly earthy as this is a sign of low quality production techniques.
Neither red nor black tea is to be confused with Rooibos, often called “Red Bush Tea” or “Rea Tea” for short. Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) is a South African plant that is a member of the legume family and is not related to the tea plant (Camellia sinensis). Rooibos has a very different taste and feel than red (or black!) tea, it is much sweeter and lighter than black tea, although it is often mixed with sugar and cream or a lemon as you might find heavy black tea drinking countries such as England or the United States.
Hopefully this helps clear up the difference between red tea, black tea, and rooibos. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to leave a comment or send us an email at shangtea@gmail.com.
Chinese New Year at the Nelson!
Come celebrate the year of the Dragon with us at the Chinese New Year Celebration in the Nelson Art Gallery! On Friday, January 27th from 5-9 PM, the Nelson will be hosting this fun event to celebrate Chinese culture. There will be traditional music, food, performances, and dances, and of course there will be tea demonstrations with your favorite tea shop!
Check out the link here for more information about this event, and we will see everyone next Friday!
Why Loose Leaf?
We often get asked if we sell our tea in tea bags or why we only sell our tea loose. In this short blog post, I am going to highlight a few of the reasons that we only sell loose leaf tea in our store.
- Providing the Highest Quality: As with almost any produce, you would expect that the whole version found in nature would give you the best taste and flavor. Think of apples, carrots, almonds, etc. We seek to provide you with the highest quality leaves that are left completely intact for the best flavor, aroma, and benefits. Providing you with the highest quality tea though also means that we want to teach you the best ways to brew that tea. That means brewing the leaves in teaware that gives them lots of room to expand, which leads us to our next point:
- Tea Leaves Love Space: Tea leaves thrive when they have a lot of space for brewing. The more constricted your brewing area is (such as in a tea bag), the less room your tea leaves have to expand and the less leaf that is in contact with the water (this is also the reason that we don’t sell tea balls!). In order to avoid this problem, tea companies will chop the leaves into small pieces before placing them in the tea bag so that more of the leaf is in contact with the water. Unfortunately, chopping tea in small pieces causes them to lose flavor more quickly and also creates a more bitter brew since tannins (the bitter part of tea) more readily infuse into your cup when the leaves are chopped. In addition, no tea company would chop up high quality tea, typically tea found in teabags is the lowest quality output.
- Preserving Traditional Preparation Methods: At Shang Tea, all of our tea comes from our own farm in the prime white tea growing region of the Fujian Province. Our mountain range (the Tai Mu Mountains) is highly prized for producing some of the best tea in the world. We have a strong interest in preserving traditional crafting techniques and in return providing you with the very best tea. We all sell hand crafted chinese teaware such as gaiwans, for those interested in brewing loose leaf tea in a traditional manner
And of course we can show you a number of different ways to prepare loose leaf tea or recommend a product on our website if you’re worried about switching from tea bags to loose leaf, just visit us at our store, send us an email at shangtea@gmail.com, or give us a call at 816-421-2588.
The Importance of Water
Who doesn’t love the taste of a great cup of tea? The fresh, clean, and flavorful taste of great tea cannot be beat! But even the best tea can be ruined if you use low quality water. Remember that a good cup of tea is still more than 90% water!
With that in mind, what is the best water that you can use to brew your tea?
Ideally, the best water that you can use is fresh water from a mountain spring. Many ancient and current tea scholars in China will tell you that the very best water for brewing tea comes from the local springs near the tea farms. These springs will contain a similar mineral composition to the tea and produce an amazing taste! You can try to purchase spring water here in the US for your tea, however be careful to ensure that the water is actually from a spring! Oftentimes the definition for spring water that is used by water bottlers does not always match up with our vision or idea of spring water.
Instead typically the best option is filtered water. At the very least, everyone should be running their water through a brita or pur filter to take out some of the heavy minerals, metals, and sediment in tap water. In addition, there are a number of more professional filtration systems that you can find online or in stores that use a number of other techniques such as multi-phase activated carbon, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet, and others. Here at Shang Tea we have a reverse osmosis filter, which we would probably say is our favorite type of filter, it removes almost all heavy metals, sediment, and pesticides that have found their way into the water supply. This leaves the water ready to take on the full flavor on your tea and also to be enriched by the natural vitamins and antioxidants found in tea.
Lastly, some people will use distilled water to brew tea, which can be found at the grocery store or produced at home with a commercial filter. Many people claim that distilled water makes the tea taste flat since the water has absolutely no minerals whatsoever. Of course this is a matter of personal preferences and there are still some people who enjoy using distilled water for tea, so it might be a good idea to compare it with other types of water. The biggest concern about using distilled water is that it no longer contains any of the minerals/nutrients that you might want in your water, but tea will help replenish many of those good nutrients.
Regardless of what you do though, always keep in mind the role that water plays in the taste of you tea!
Scenting, Blending, and Flavoring Tea
We often get asked what the difference is between scented tea, flavored tea, and blended tea. In this quick post I will highlight the difference.
Scenting tea is a traditional process where fresh flowers are added to dry tea leaves so that the tea leaves can absorb the flavor from the flowers. Typically this process is done in a big bamboo canister and the flower/tea mix is allowed to sit overnight so the tea can absorb the full flavor. Then this process is completed 3-5 more times to give the tea a rich and natural floral note.
Flavored tea is created by mixing tea leaves either with extracts, nature-identical flavors, or artificial flavors. The difference between these three types of flavors is that an extract is essential oil that is actually extracted from living flowers/plants, whereas nature-identical flavoring is a chemically created compound that is chemically identical to an extract, and artificial flavoring is a chemically altered version of a nature-identical flavor typically designed to reduce costs.
Blended tea is a mixture of tea leaves and other herbs, flowers, or dried fruit bits. For example, a famous blended tea would be tea mixed with chrysanthemum.
Of course, a certain tea can also use a combination of the above process. Many large scale producers of jasmine, for example, will scent tea 1-2 times with jasmine flowers and then flavor the tea with jasmine oils to complete the process.
Here at Shang Tea we utilize both scenting and blending to create some of our teas. For example we use a scenting procedure to produce our jasmine teas, pao blossom tea and tangerine blossom tea. We scent our tea 6 times with jasmine flowers, and 4 times with pao flowers and tangerine blossoms to produce the rich floral taste that you receive with these teas. We also have white tea blends, called honeysuckle white tea, orange blossom white, and chrysanthemum white, where we mix in these herbs with our white peony king tea. Check out our whole selection of teas here.
Growth in the US tea market
The past decade has seen remarkable growth in the US market for loose leaf tea. Just 10 short years ago, it was hard to find anyone who knew anything about the tea other than the “fact” that is came in a Lipton bag and was a perfect remedy when you were sick. Today however, we are overwhelmed with choices from white tea to black tea, to numerous herbal teas, from hundreds of different growing regions all around the world. And more and more people are ditching the tea bags and switching to whole leaf tea.
What is fueling this surge in popularity? I think there are a number of factors that are fueling the resurgence of the tea industry in the US market. The first major factor would be all the recent studies that have been done on the positive effects of tea with an emphasis on green and white tea in particular. The second major factor is the ever growing library of information known as the internet. Through the web, people are learning that not all tea is bitter and that different regions, growing conditions, processing styles, and brewing methods lead to vastly different tastes. And as American consumers become more knowledgeable, they pass that information along to their friends and family. Finally, I think there has been a surge in interest due to the growing adaptation of the US tea market to the preferences of US consumers, namely I think that the tea market has started doing a better job at improving modern brewing tools so that they are quick, easy to use, and easy to clean.
Today we see all sorts of modern brewing tools, from gravity filters, to filter tea cups, to all in one electric tea kettles that do everything from start to finish. Companies have never tried harder to invent new, simple, and easy ways to brew tea. And the result has been that more consumers have been able to switch from tea bags to loose leaf tea and enjoy the full flavor and benefits of tea without an added time burden.
That being said, I think that tea is a contemplative drink. What I mean by that is that tea is a great drink for meditation, for stimulating conversation, for relaxation, and for heightened awareness. In other words tea is more than just a healthy drink and more than just a quick fix in my own humble opinion. So even though, I am constantly trying out new brewing tools and techniques, I also try to take some time every day or every other day to focus more on the process of making tea. I try to use slower brewing tools that give me time to appreciate how the leaves dance in the hot water, to enjoy the aroma and subtle nuances of the tea that I am drinking, and to enjoy the side of tea that gives me the calm and relaxation that I need to cope with the stresses of life.
So regardless of how you brew your tea, do not forgot to enjoy tea as a beverage and not just as a medicinal drink, I think you will enjoy it even more!
Processing: White Tea vs Green Tea
Both white tea and green have been touted for their health benefits due to the minimal processing of both. But how exactly does the processing differ between the two? Is this post, we will briefly describe the differences between the two types of tea.
White tea is the least processed tea since the leaves and plucked and air dried until they reach the correct moisture temperature (typically between 5-10%). White tea oxidizes slightly and naturally while it dries, but it is the closest to pure tea leaves that you can find. Green Tea on the other hand is withered slightly and then either roasted, steamed, or pan-fired. This heating procedure allows the cell walls to stay intact and retain all the chlophyll, which gives the leaves a green color and grassy taste.
In addition, there is one other main difference between green and white tea that you may have heard us talk about in the past. True white tea only comes from two varieties of the tea plant (camellia sinensis), the Da Bai and the Da Hao (read more about traditional white tea here). Green tea on the other hand comes from hundreds of different varieties of the tea plant, including for example Jiu Keng and the Bai Ye.
What is Your Story?
Most of us did not have the fortune to grow up on high quality, loose leaf tea, since it is just now starting to gain in popularity in the US. So most of us have an interesting story about how we came to love and appreciate tea as more than just a beverage for when you are feeling ill. What is your story? Did you happen to learn about loose leaf tea through dumb luck? Through a nice friend? Through a natural learning process that led from tea bags to whole leaf tea? Here is my story to get us started
My Tea Story, by Nick L.
Outside of the occasional glass of Lipton iced tea, I never drank any tea when I was growing up. It wasn’t until high school that I began my transition from drinking no tea to searching for the best whole leaf tea that I could find in a matter of years. After my freshman year in high school, I attended a spanish immersion camp in Bemidji, MN to help me speak the language a little bit better. Many of the counselors at the camp came from Argentina and they could often be found sipping a hot tea-like drink called yerba mate. They drank yerba mate (an evergreen tea from Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil) from a gourd using a metal filtered straw called a bombilla. The drink was delicious and I fell in love with the customs and traditions associated with drinking mate as well. When I went home after a month at the camp, I quickly bought my own gear to make mate including a gourd, a bombilla (filtered straw), mate, a water heater, etc. Of course, as I researched yerba mate online to learn more about the customs and traditions, I also started to stumble across more information about teas and herbal teasanes from other regions as well.
It wasn’t until the next year in high school though that I really started to learn about loose leaf tea, however. After school one day, I walked over to a local coffee shop with some friends. At this coffee shop they had an impressive list of weird teas that I had never heard of, and so I decided to try one called gunpowder green tea. The tea did come in a teabag, however the leaves inside were actually whole leaf tea. When I later went to the site of the company who made the teabags, I discovered that they also sold the same tea in loose leaf form. And the rest is history, I gradually learned more and more about tea from different regions including China, Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Kenya, South Africa, etc, and started to try teas from different regions. I researched all the different traditions, styles of teaware, growing climates, processing methods, etc and checked out/purchased dozens of books on tea. Then, during one of my summers in my college years, I found Shang Tea in Kansas City. Shang owns his own organic tea farm in the Fujian Province, China, and he has taught me quite a bit about tea production and especially about white tea production. And now I actually work for Shang, learning more about tea and continuing to learn more about my passion.
So what is your story?
Traditional White Tea vs Young Leaf White Tea
Due to increased awareness in many of the healthy properties of white tea, demand has surged for this minimally processed tea. However, most white tea that you can find on the market today would not be classified as white tea in the traditional sense. In this quick post then, I’d like to distinguish between the traditional definition of white tea and what I’d like to call young leaf white tea (what you would typically find in your grocery store).
Traditionally, tea must fit two specific criteria to be classified as white tea. First, it must be processed according to the white tea standard. White tea is plucked and then air dried, until it typically has between 5-10% moisture content. White tea is never roasted or fermented, but it does oxidize slightly while it is drying. The second condition for traditional white tea is that it must come from a specific variety of the tea plant, either the Da Bai or Da Hao. Just like the apple tree has hundreds of different varieties that all come from the same plant, the same applies to tea. The Da Bai and Da Hao tea plant varieties grow in the mountainous regions of the Fujian Province and have lots of little white hairs on the leaves and buds.
Young leaf white tea is a recent creation in response to the surging demand for white tea that I mentioned before. Since traditional white tea can only be grown in the Fujian Province, supply is very limited and not easy to produce on a mass scale, so large scale producers have started to pick green tea plant varieties very early and process them in a very similar way as the traditional white tea, thus the term young leaf white tea. This tea has a very subtle flavor that is similar to, but not as nuanced or flavorful as traditional loose leaf white tea.
So if you are looking for traditional, organic loose leaf white tea, please make sure that you find a reputable dealer and that your tea comes from the Fujian Province.
