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I learned
something today! I
discovered that Herbal Teas are not actually
tea at all, and most don't contain herbs, either.
Hmmm. So what is in this beverage we drink hot
or cold, with one lump or two, a splash of milk
or a twist of lemon? (And what's
an Oolong, anyway?)
This
week, learn more about tea than you perhaps
knew before, and enjoy indulging in something
with no calories and plenty of varieties from
which to choose (over 3000!)
I'm sure there will be some nugget you can carry
away and drop casually into conversation to
make yourself look great.
And speaking of looking
great, if a bit of that tea sloshes on the linens
or your clothing, bring it to us. Tea
is trickier to get out than you might imagine,
but we do it all the time.
See you
soon!
Ed and Mary Longanecker
Iris City Cleaners and Laundering Company |
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A
Cup full of Statistics
Half of
all Americans drink tea -- 2.5 billion
gallons of it.
80% of this consumption
is in Iced Tea.
The remaining 20%, hot
tea, represents
500 million
gallons per year! |
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Live
It Up with Linens Coupon
People who enjoy life
don't wait for special occasions to use their
nice things. And if you use table linens to
make meals exciting, there are bound to be spills.
Let us clean
a table cloth, and we'll clean the napkins at
no charge. (It is recommended
that you have all pieces of a linen
set cleaned at the same time to prevent
color differentiation due to natural fading
over time.) (Include first
page of this newsletter and coupon with your
order. Offer expires December 29, 2004.
Cannot be combined with other offers.) |
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Comfort
to a "Tea"
Americans don't take
their tea as seriously as they used to. After
all, it was partly the revolt over exorbitant
taxing of tea that lit the revolutionary fire
under the founding fathers back in 1776. Today,
though we consume tea by the billions of gallons,
it's not the event that the English still make
it each day.
For
some people, the reluctance to drink tea comes
from feeling awkward around a beverage that
has as many varieties and subtleties as wine.
So, let's put a few fears to rest with a bit
of knowledge -- and then you can go forth and
have a cuppa!
Types
of Tea
There are four main
types of tea grown today:
- Black
Tea (Earl Grey, English Breakfast,
Darjeeling are well-known varieties) produces
a dark, rich tea because the leaves are exposed
to the air and allowed to oxidize for a specific
amount of time. This turns
the leaves dark, hence the name.
- Green
Tea (more common in China
or Japan, where the famous tea ceremony uses
exclusively Green teas) produces a lighter
colored tea, with a milder taste. The
tea is not allowed to oxidize, and retains
its green coloration
- Ooling
Teas (known as the "champagne
of teas") often
has a fruity or nutty flavor, and is a cross
between black and green tea making methods
(some oxidization, but not as much as black
tea.)
- White
Tea (very rare) is harvested
earlier than the other teas and produces
a pale, gently flavored tea that is most appreciated
by connoisseurs.
- Flavored
teas are actually one of the main
three teas (black, green or Oolong) with dried
fruits or spices or herbs.
- Herbal Teasare
more correctly called "tisanes" or "infusions"
since there is no tea included in
them. Many are made from grasses
(lemon grass is an example) or may include
flowers, spices, berries, fruits or other
plants. (chamomile and peppermint are two
popular flavors.)
Tea is grown in bushes
that can produce tea for 50 years. The bushesgrow
to 90 feet high if left untrimmed, but are trained
to grow to 3 feet tall for easy harvesting,
since the top two leaves and the bud are plucked
by hand from the tops of the bushes every 7
to 14 days. Like grape vines in the wine industry,
individual bushes are cloned and nurtured so
that reliable consistency of tea is possible.
Tea
Trivia
- Tea
is nearly 5000 years old (legend
has it that a Chinese emperor discovered it
when some tea leaves blew into a boiling pot
of water. Why he drank something that leaves
had fallen into, we have no idea.)
- Iced
tea was created in the South in the 1860s,
and becamea hit at the 1904
World's Fair in St. Louis.
- Thomas Sullivan
invented the tea
bag in 1908.
- A
pound of tea will produce
about 180 cups of brewed tea.
- After each batch
of tea is processed in a tea factory, the
entire factory is scrubbed clean from top
to bottom so the next batch
will not be contaminated by the previous one.
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We
are enormously appreciative of the opportunity
to share our weekly newsletters with you.
We feel that much of the content is valuable
for anyone who purchases fine clothing and is
interested in their preservations and cleaning.
Click on the symbol to the left if your
would like to send this and future newsletters
to a friend.
Thanks a million, Ed and Mary
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The Iris
City Cleaners Connection
is
a
weekly news letter dedicated to the interest
of fine garment care, restoration,
and conservation. It is published
in Mt Pleasant, Iowa by Iris City Cleaners and
is an extension of our services described in
www.iriscitycleaners.com
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