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| | Prism Tea and Gifts |
| the colours of tea |
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Blooming Tea unfolds before your eyes, creating beautiful, fluid art and a delicious cup of tea. Watching it
unfurl in your tea cup can help you relax and focus. Trying to think of something special for a bridal shower,
baby shower, or wedding? Your guests will be amazed by our Rose Starburst Blooming Tea,
white tea woven around a small rosebud. For a romantic gift, try our Silver Peach with
Pink Blossom, hand woven green tea with a Globe Amaranth blossom at the center
and a pink flower on the top.
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The complex and bright fragrance of white tea will transport you to a place of peace and tranquility. White tea is light, subtle, and complex. Where
green tea tastes of sweet grass, white tea is lightly floral and sweet. White tea leaves and tea buds are silvery and thin. In the mood to compare tea types? Try our Silver
Needles from India and our Silver Needles from China. Note the nuttiness in the India Silver Needles in contrast to the subtle sweetness of the China Silver Needles. Not a bad way to pass an summer afternoon!
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Sipping green tea is like strolling through a warm field of flowering summer grass. You'll find yourself
drifting away into relaxation and harmony. We carry several kinds of green tea, from the everyday China Orange Pekoe Green Tea to the rare Dragonwell Premium First Flush, so you'll be able to
brew the perfect cup of green tea. Our full green tea leaves require room to brew, so be sure to pick up one of our large tea infusers.
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You may be new to the exotic flavors of red tea, but you will soon become entranced by their spicy aromas. We carry red teas like Rooibos and Honeybush from South Africa. Neither are technically tea, since they
don't come from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. Rooibos, pronounced "roy bos," means red bush in Afrikaans. It is the Aspalathus linearis plant. Honeybush is one of several plants in the Cyclopia genus, like Cyclopia genistoides. Both make an earthy, woody, and sweet tea that is caffeine free,
and high in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants - a very healthful tea!
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If you've been disappointed by too many cups of bitter, boring black tea, prepare to be amazed.
Black tea has amazing complexity and variation in its fragrance and
flavor. You'll taste currants, honey, orange peel, and molasses.
For a true afternoon tea, we like to pair our black tea with rich jam,
butter cookies, and honey sticks (You can find these goodies in our
cookie shop.)
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Sometimes you just want a little something more in your black tea. Fortunately, black tea creates an incredible
base for so many different flavors, like cinnamon, chocolate, almonds, and apples. When you're going for more exotic flavors, try something like lychee or rosebuds. Enjoy several flavors today!
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We love our chai tea. In the afternoon, when we need a pick me up but also want something sweet, spicy, and rich, we reach for a chai tea. With black tea, Rooibos, green tea,
and gunpowder tea for the chai bases and spices like cloves,
cinnamon, rose buds, saffron, and cardamom, we get to enjoy an endless variety of chai. Most of our chai is organic too, so it is good for you and good for the planet!
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Here is something fun and interesting for you. We don't find many options to fill this category, so behind this door, you can buy something rare.
Yellow tea is mellow and often nutty. The leaves are quite striking, mixing yellow and jade green. Yellow tea is one of those rare finds you want to pull out at those parties where you want to impress your friends, where you say,
"You haven't heard of yellow tea? Oh you're in for a treat." It's kind of like pulling out the white beaujolais. Everyone gets to enjoy a treat, and you get to look like a connoisseur.
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Sometimes you need your tea but just don't need the caffeine. Fortunately, we carry a wide variety
of delicious decaffeinated tea, so you can still enjoy your tea but skip the caffeine rush. We have black and green tea from India. How about flavored black tea with raspberries,
vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, and peaches? Perhaps you are a traditionalist and need your Earl Grey or English Black Tea. We have you covered!
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Prism Tea and Gifts sells tea tins with detailed brewing instructions, so you can always brew the perfect cup of tea. We thought, however, that you may be interested in some of the finer points of brewing white tea and green tea. To someone new to enjoying fine tea, these detailed techniques might seem strange and counterintuitive. For example, our China Pai Mu Tan white tea brews at 158 degrees Fahrenheit, after the water has been boiled then cooled. That doesn't exactly fit the concept of hot tea.
The use of this cooled water all comes down to science. Stated plainly, boiling water plus white or green tea leaves equals bitter tea. The bitterness in tea comes from tannins, just like you find in wine. To keep tea from being bitter, the brewing process just needs to keep those tannins out of the tea. So, white and green tea leaves are steeped at a temperature lower than the point where tannins will dissolve into the water but at a temperature high enough to extract the flavors from the tea leaves. The end result is a delicious, relaxing cup of tea.
The brewing times for both white tea and green tea are relatively short. Steeping the tea leaves in water too long leads to a flat, harsh tasting cup of tea. When making the tea, though, you will most undoubtedly think, "That wasn't enough time." In the United States, we tend to place our teabags in boiling water and let them steep for five or ten minutes. However, our China Lung Ching green tea brews for only two minutes, which is exactly enough time to extract the delicate, grassy flavor. If you brew the tea longer, the grassiness becomes more pronounced, with a hard, unpleasant edge.
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Coffee versus Tea
Some of you visiting our site feel that coffee drinkers won't be interested in tea, so we want to set the record straight. At Prism Tea and Gifts, we love coffee. In fact, one member of the staff can't start his day without his cup of coffee.
The problem all of us have, even the aforementioned coffee junkie, is that one can only have so much coffee. Coffee enjoyed after 1:00 p.m. just keeps you too wired and awake far into the night. Thus, tea comes to the rescue. With far less caffeine than coffee, a cup of China Yunnan black tea, Indian Chai, or Oolong tea can give you that boost to make it through the last three hours of work, without the coffee aftereffects.
All of us lead stressful lives, and sometimes find that we need something to calm and soothe our addled brains. Coffee can't provide that calm, but a cup of white or green tea can relax any time of the day. If you're looking for a hot, zesty beverage, you can always drink fruit tea without being blasted with caffeine. Finally, before bedtime, a cup of chamomile will provide you with many hours of blissful sleep.
So the question is, do you have any friends or loved ones you'd like to give the gift of relaxation? Do you know coffee drinkers who would enjoy skipping the late evening buzz but would still like to enjoy a robust afternoon pick me up?
We haven't even touched on the health benefits of tea. You get cancer fighting antioxidants and boosts to your immune system with tea. That makes a great gift for your health conscious friends and relatives.
Nevertheless, as we see it, the coffee versus tea debate should never result in an either/or decision. A person can enjoy both. In fact, people should enjoy both. So buy tea and buy coffee. Follow our advice above, and you'll have a well rounded day of drinking your morning coffee, you midday white tea, your afternoon Yunnan, your evening green tea with your sushi, your fruit tea with dessert, and your chamomile tea before bed. That sounds like the perfect day for you and your friends!
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| Copyright Prism Tea and Gifts 2008 |
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