Girl's Guide to Make A Good Tea: Indonesia Tea Diegesis

You may say.. are you kidding me?? Who cannot make tea? Yes, everyone can make tea. But, don't you know a little bit of art can make a big difference. I got the knowledge from last week end event Indonesia Tea Digiesis, arranged by Azanaya. We had 2 tea expert teaching us some basic understanding about tea : Pak Bambang from Kedai Lare Solo (http://kedai-teh-laresolo.blogspot.com) and Oza from Oza Premium  Tea ( http://ozapremiumtea.com)

Pak Bambang shared his knowledge about the process of making tea and how its process impact the flavour hence different way of serving it. This is important, ladies. Since normally we take it for granted to just pour hot water into the tea and as long as it is thickly brown then we call it tea. We can do better than that ;). First rule is keep the tea in the water for no longer than 3 minutes. Try to be as precise as possible so you get the right amount of tannin to avoid excessive bitterness. Second rule, know the type of tea you have and how hot the water you need.

Completing the knowledge, Oza gives another angle. Imagine we go to tea store or tea market and we see hundred of choices. We don't know what to choose, we don't know how to measure the quality. Simple guide, there is grading standard we can always ask to the shop assistant. Here are the lingo we need to at least know.

• Dust: this is the lowest grade in the classification. It consist go small pieces of tea leaves and tea dust.
• Fanning:  also considered as low grade, comes from pieces of tea leaves
• Broke Pekoe : is seen as medium grading, where the brew consist combination of small and large pieces of tea leaves.
• Orange Broken Pekoe: it's the start of good grading, consist of whole tea leave without flower buds
• Flowery Orange Pekoe: also considered as good grading, it takes the whole leaves together with the flowering tea plant

Ok. Since now we know a little bit more about tea, it is the right time to ask what is the tea companion then?  Don't you think cake is always the best choice. A slightly bitter taste meets sweet delicacies. That's heaven! A great inspiration was presented by Mbak Ambar who produce some yummy stuff out of localities like ganyong, gatot, casava.. something we used to have in our neighbourhood but now it's nearly gone. The good thing about these stuff is they have low glycemic index hence healthier for diet. But, Mbak Ambar craft it in such a nice and yummy way to lift up our appetite.  Enjoy the inspiration below and have a good tea time, ladies :).