How to Make a Good flavored Tea from Dust Tea?

Almost every one drinks tea now-a-days. In India, the first thing that many people do after getting up from sleep in the morning is to drink what is known as the bed coffee or the bed tea!

Preparing a cup of tea is not a big deal and most people think it is very easy. For that matter, I too have been thinking that way all these years.

Yet, tea making and even drinking tea is a delicious art for the tea lovers. For the common folks, tea of any kind would do and the flavor or the taste does not matter much.

But when a good tea is served, most people appreciate it.

Regrettably, most habitual tea drinkers do not really know how to make a good tea.

For that matter, there are men who have never made a cup of tea in their life, even after they cannot live without a cup of tea for a day. Tea making in Indian households is thought as the duty of the womenfolks!

Now-a-days, in the digital savvy times, even the young ladies do not know how to make a good tea having some taste and flavor of tea!

For most, tea is made easily when some milk, water, sugar and market obtained tea powder is boiled together and filtered out! This is obviously a hot drink with much sugary taste, except the flavor and taste of tea. Many times this is further made complex in taste by adding all other Indian taste-maker ingredients commonly known as 'masalas'. They include, ginger, cardamom, rock salt, lemon, etc. This kind of tea is known in India as the 'Railway station tea' because the railway station tea vendors were the first to popularize this kind of tea in this country. The dust tea is the cheapest variety of tea marketed by the tea companies and it is commonly used for making this kind of railway station tea.

Fortunately, now-a-days the tea business in the Indian railway is taken over by its professional catering service company and passengers are now getting tea with some real tea flavor and taste!

Anyway for making a cup of the soft drink called tea, dried tender leaves of tea plants plucked and processed in the tea factories of tea plantations is needed. The flavor and taste of tea drink depends much on the type of tea leaves and the processing done.

Prime quality of tea is the leaf tea and it is much expensive. The common man's tea is the dust tea that is retailed at affordable prices. (Know more about tea and its classification here!)

Usually, when this dust tea is added to boiling water or water-milk mixture, the distinct aroma of tea is lost. However, this is how most people make tea.

The tea thus made has differing tastes and the taste depends upon the time of boiling, the ratio of water and milk and the amount of sugar and other taste ingredients such as ginger, added to it. Some times this tea has an agreeable taste and most often one cannot guarantee it.

Different people adopt different methods for making this tea.

Let us review the most common methods adopted for making two cups of Indian tea from commonly marketed tea dust.

The first method is boiling two cups of milk, adding one to two tea spoons of dust tea to it and boiling for 2-3 minutes, filtering and adding sugar as required to one's liking to the filtered hot liquor.

Some people reduce the amount of milk by diluting the milk with water. An ideal milk water ratio is one part milk with one part water.

But if you want to extract the flavor and taste of tea, the dust tea should not be put to the boiling milk-water mixture and boiled. When we do that, the little taste and flavor of the tea dust is lost through the steam and vapors that escape the tea making pan.

For making a good tea, tea should not be boiled with water or milk. Instead, one teaspoon of tea per cup of tea is taken in a filter and boiling water is poured through it and collected to get hot black tea. The black tea may be repeatedly poured a few times for enhancing the richness of the tea taste.

For those who love black tea, this is the best and it can be drunk with or with out adding sugar. A few drops of lemon drops to it makes lemon tea. A pinch of black rock salt also could be added.

For those who likes tea with milk, hot boiling milk should be added to the hot black tea. To this, sugar, half to one teaspoon per cup may be added and stirred. To enjoy, good tea, sugar should be as low as possible.

In my opinion an electric induction heater is the best for boiling water and milk for making 2 or three cups of tea, rather than the gas stove. This is because, boiling by induction cooker is really fast and efficient as compared to a gas stove for the same purpose.

Will you share your opinion and experience of tea making and tea drinking?