Book Review: Tea Leaf Reading
We all enjoy a good cuppa tea, but why not take that enjoyment step further with doing a little tea […]
Review
Tea for Dummies
Coming up with the (right?) words
When I do a tea tasting with customers or friends, I often give them our tasting wheel to help them figure out words to best describe their experiences. It is a bit more fun than using a rating scale. If you have ever been to a tasting, you’ve probably seen something like this before. The same words can describe flavour for almost anything you are tasting.
It is important to keep in mind that many flavors are actually composed of the same chemical compounds. A great example is isoamyl acetate. For some, this organic compound can taste like bananas, whereas for others, it has a distinct pear flavor. Another is benzaldehyde. This organic compound smells and tastes like peaches, cherries, apricots, or almonds, depending on the chemical compound experienced on your tongue. Two tasters can taste these compounds differently. My friend Phil, who wrote Chapter 21 on tea cocktails, is a chemist who works as a distiller. He explained this to me one day at a whiskey tasting when I could swear that I tasted pear when my colleague said he tasted bananas. Though I, to this day, say that I was right, we both tasted what we tasted, and neither of us was wrong.
Again, it is helpful to learn words that best describe your tasting experience—but it’s important to remember to enjoy the experience and worry less about sounding like an expert.
Easy Leaf Tea, by Timothy d’Offay
Easy Leaf Tea is a tea recipe book with a difference. This sumptuously illustrated book focuses on recipes for brewing tea and tea-centric kitchen creations. This isn’t a book about cakes with a dash of tea thrown in; this is tea, tea, and more tea, but with a twist. Tea is, as it rightly should be, the star of the show.
The True History of Tea
The True History of Tea, a meticulously researched yet readable 280 pages of travel back in time. Reviewer Kyle Whittington, the founder of the TeaBookClub in London, describes the work of sinologist Victor H. Mair and journalist Erling Hoh as QUOTE “one of those rare instances where, rather than the dry read that the title suggests, the reader is instead treated to an engaging and captivating page-turner.”
Tea: Wine’s Sober Sibling
Pairing tea with food is a less well-known art than wine pairings, but every bit as rewarding for cooks and connoisseurs. TeaBookClub founder Kyle Whittington reviews author Mariella Erkens’s comprehensive cookbook, Tea: Wine’s Sober Sibling.