Steeping tea in milk

Let me preface this by saying I have never tried this and am not an expert or chemistry-type person... but, I would think it would not steep well. It would seem to me that the type of milk would be important. Skim would most likely produce better results of all the types of milk. I would think the fat content would inhibit steeping to some degree.

The best I can say would be to try it out and report back. Good luck!

- Dominic

Yes, it changes the way the tea tastes considerably, because you are now doing an oil extraction as well. I think the result is rather unpleasant but some folks like it for spiced masala teas.

--scott

The chemical reaction of the polyphenols in tea with proteins and fats contained in milk has been scientifically researched. The latest consensus I heard of (forgot the source) says that adding milk doesn´t significantly "block" the polyphenols.

You might want to try a mix of 50% water/50% milk as it is widely practised in India and Nepal. Bring to a boil, add tea (& chai spices), steep, "enjoy".

Karsten

Agree. This is very very common in India and used this way for CTC tea.

The uppity sahibs who use the "teapot" and the "tea cozy" and brew Darjeelings don't add milk till the tea is poured into the cup. The others get the 50-50 mixture to boil, throw in the CTC, boil for 30 seconds and simmer some more. In some households, more water+milk+CTC is added to this during the day as more tea is needed.

Interestingly tea prepared sahab or english style with milk added later tastes totally different than leaves boiled in a milk/water mischmasch, even if you don´t oversteep the latter one. That´s one thing I discussed with Sidman a while ago; some of the best cups we remembered from old times in Darjeeling had been prepared chaiwallah style using some El Cheapo CTC and a pinch of "Ali Sasto" chai masala.

Karsten [lukewarm 8th or so steep of a 1995 or so Menghai Pu-Erh in der Tasse]

Aloke Prasad schrieb:

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com snipped-for-privacy@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com4/11/

Steeped in milky water was SOP in the villages in India where I hung out during a portion of my ill spent youth. The tea, full of cinnimon (a word God does not intend us to spell correctly) clove, cardimum (likewise), and jagery (sugar). Yum yum yum. Just throw in the spices and, once you get it right to your taste, you'll be in tea heaven. Don't even bother opening the cardimum pods.

Michael

Dominic snipped-for-privacy@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com4/11/06

Buffalo, and boil the s*it out of it!

Did you not just forget something here? The sickly sweet taste!

Add 2 or 3 large spoonfuls of sugar, per glass of tea. Real chai should always be served in glasses, unless of course you can have it in a little handmade clay cup, disposable, out the railway window along with banana peel and other leftovers.

Lars Stockholm

Rather negative description of proper chai, eh? Add processed white sugar to anything, and you'll drive the life right out of it. For chai, put in jagery, or however you spell it. That's a rough raw sugar that adds flavor and sweetness to the brew. And for the love of God, don't under any circumstances buy any product called "chai"; instead, make it up yourself. I have spoken.

OP is of course correct on all counts.

Michael

Lars schrieb:

Not exactly forgotten, I still get the shivers when I just think of it, yuk ... My first words in Hindi some x years ago: "bi na chini" - no sugar (please).

Karsten [12 yr old green Menghai in der Tasse]

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com4/13/06

Me thinks no sugar please is antithetical to the beast. Speaking of which, talk to us about your 12 year old green Menghai. Michael

Brewed in my beloved, leaky 5$ Yixing pot it´s mellow and complex, a pretty dense, "round" and savory spectrum with sweet notes of algae and warm spices, delicate flashes of clove, very dynamic through the steeps, sweet and silky almost creamy lingering aftertaste. What I almost like most about this tea is the lovely color it develops after around the 3rd steep, a vibrating salmon pink that tends toward indian red. My personal #1 in my humble collection, complexitywise it will serve as a kind of touchstone during my next trip to Yunnan.

Karsten [next candidate: 2006 bio-organic FF Darjeeling Pouchong]

I think I know (and love) what you mean by algae: the taste and smell of a freshwater pond in summer. For years I've thought that, if by some miracle - which might be good or bad - our vocabulary for describing tea gets standardized, the word for this will be "pondy".

/Lew

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com4/13/06 10: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

Pondy it is, and I wonder if it could be what I affectionately call "musty" on occasion. Michael

Well, it isn't what *I* call "musty": a kind of mammalian scent, I'd say. When I think of the mustiness of a nice young Pu'er, I think of my cat Buster's fur. We aren't getting this thing standardized, are we?

/Lew

Lew, thanks a lot for sharing that picture. It helped me a lot to reflect on the "spontaneous", "automatic" generation of my own aroma/taste visuals, all those numberless potential factors that flow into those hallucinations. Coming back to the Menghai, the visual that spontaneously showed up on my internal screen was that of a camp spot on a late spring meadow close to the beach on one of the Lofoten islands. Looking back it reflects more of the salty/savory aspects of that specific tea but now your summer pond not only matches the overall algaeish and herbal facets better, but also reflects some of that teas aspects ("mustiness"/decomposition of organic matter) I didn´t mention. Wonderful. While I happily add "pondy" to my tea tasting vocabulary, I however don´t see any advantage in a standardization of tea terminology but still believe in using free and spontaneuos asscocations. Especially after having tasted a large number of Darjeelings together with professional tea tasters who indulge in endless repetitions of their pretty limited professional terminology (woody, brisky, green, ...) without deviating a single time from that muddy beaten track. IMO not exactly helpful in communicating the impressions of a sensual experience as complex as tea.

Karsten

I'm pretty ambivalent about trying to standardize tea vocabulary, too. I wouldn't want to be limited to a finite list of adjectives, certainly, but I do find it frustrating that we have so little idea what the other is experiencing.

(Yes, I'm aware that there are philosophical issues here, and I don't think it would help to ventilate them.)

I wonder if the professional tea taster jargon might be a place to

The tea taster jargon is just a *possible* starting place; there are others out there, certainly in China.

Here's a possible comparison. I happen to care about music at least as much as I do about tea. Music is pretty complex, too, not to mention sensual. I find that I can glean a lot of useful information

- that is, bearing on whether I would actually *like* the music - from reading music critics, often even those I dislike. I don't have the same level of confidence reading what people write about tea, and it bothers me.

/Lew

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com4/13/06 11: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

No, we're not. But it's in the discussion of the words rather than the words per se that get us there. Once we're standardized, we're boring. (Hey, some of us perhaps accomplish that feat already.) I'll see if Jenny's fur works as well as Buster's. I think perhaps that smell is "soupy."

Michael

Me too, needless to say.

We get there by expanding our analogies and discussions of them.

Oh, it's warm out here in NYC. I'll just open that window. There. Ventilated.

If you are refering to the "Tippy Orange Pekoe" crowd, I'd say it's a total crock of s*it and worthy of the dustbin of tea history. If you mean Oleg's taste without aroma system -- his Russian group's system, that is -- then we might be on to something, at least for starters. (That was Tea Disc, I think. Oleg of Russia suggests a system based on taste and mouth sensations rather than aroma.

Yup. (That's my contribution.)

Seriously, could you give an example of the kind of comment a music critic might make that suggests to you how well you might like the music critiqued? I think I see your point, but I'm not sure. I get a tremendous amount of information form tea comments, but it is admittedly based on my (perceived) knowledge of the speaker and his relationship to tea.

Finally, given the sole choice between a rigid standardization on the one hand and "free and spontaeous association" on the other, I'd go with the latter every time.

Michael