Umi Tea Sets Blog

Flavored teas are white, green, oolong, or black teas that have been processed and then blended with spices or herbs, flower petals, or the essential oils of fruits. In all...

Growing interest in and demand for good quality specialty teas over the past decade or so has led to an increased availability of a wider range of products. Consumers have...

As the fashion for afternoon tea grew during the nineteenth century, silversmiths, linen manufacturers, and pottery and porcelain companies began to produce a wide range of tea wares suited to...

The first tea wares used in Europe arrived from China with the early cargos of tea in the mid-seventeenth century and it was at this time that the word "china"...

Sugar became popular in tea in Britain and the colonies, by the end of the seventeenth century. In those days, sugar was available in cone-shaped blocks that had to be...

Tea cozies need very careful use. If placed over a pot of tea that contains tea leaves and hot water, the tea is likely to over brew and taste "steweed"...

The Infuser Pot There are several elegant glass pots on the market today which have their own in-built infuser sitting in the neck of the pot. To brew the tea,...

In the earliest Chinese history of tea drinking, leaves were boiled in water in open pans. But the Ming Dynasty fashion for steeping processed leaves in hot water created the...

Tea tasting is an essential part of the work of both tea brokers and tea blenders. Brokers taste teas in order to assess their value prior to auction, blenders decide...

The concept of Fair Trade attempts to address the imbalance between the wages paid to workers, particularly in the Third World, who produce the tea and the money, made by...

Packaging Until 1368, China tea, in the form of compressed cakes and bricks, was easy to store and transport. The solid slabs neither disintegrated nor lost their flavor. However, the...

Until the 1840s, when the clipper ships were built, it took between 15 and 18 months to sail stocks of tea from China and Java back to London. The great...