How to store tea properly

Do you love tea?

You are in good company here. We love loose leaf tea!

You know your favourite and you know where to get it, but do you know how to best store it to enjoy it for longer?

First things first, purchase fresh tea, which is the current year’s harvest to ensure you have the freshness and the full shelf life available to you. This obviously is not applicable to Pu’er or other fermented teas.

Buy the right quantity for you. Whether you are an avid tea drinker or an occasional consumer, buy the right amount or whereabouts. This is because you don’t want to run out of space and then have to throw away old tea which ended up at the back or forgotten.

Antique tea caddies

Choose a suitable tea caddy, meaning a pleasant, airtight, opaque, new container. Tea leaves absorb aromas, flavours, and humidity, so always store separately and in an airtight tea caddy. A previously used container with a lingering smell, or not, could ruin your batch. Disappointingly, glass jar displaying the beauty of the leaves are a no-no. An aluminium canister is currently considered one of the very best options.

Keep your tea caddy in a cool and dry area. This should be far from the cooker, toaster, oven, or radiators to prevent the heat to ruin the flavour. In the same way, avoid placing the tea caddy in the fridge or in a very cold pantry, as it would absorb moisture and spoil.

If your tea is in an air-tight, foil-lined, and resealable pouch, you can choose to keep it in there. Only ensure you resealed it properly after each use, pressing the air out firmly sliding your palm toward the opening and sealing it anew.

It is always advisable to label the container or the pouch with the name of the tea, its origin, flush or harvest season, and date of purchase. If you have a bit of a collection and are a tea lover, this will help you greatly in knowing what you have tasted and plan future purchases.

Consider the natural longevity of your teas. The less oxidised the shorter the shelf life. Green tea should be consumed within a maximum of eight-month, while black tea can keep well for up to two years. Whole leaves will last longer since the surface in contact with air is less than broken ones.

Teas with added ingredients or flavoured tend to degrade more quickly.

Lastly, never ever leave a tea measuring spoon or a scoop inside your tea, no matter the material it is made of. Nothing should be stored with tea. Avoid using an elastic band or a peg to secure a bag in your tea caddy for the same reason.

In short, remember to keep away from air, light, moisture, heat, and other smells to preserve tea original aroma, taste, colour, antioxidants, and vitamins.

Now you can put your kettle on and enjoy a delicious cuppa.

If you are cold, tea will warm you;

if you are too heated, it will cool you;

If you are depressed, it will cheer you;

If you are excited, it will calm you.

William Ewart Gladstone

#tea #teacaddy #teatrade #diviner #tealeafreader #FridaywithFreya #tealeafreading #diviner #article #blog

Tea etiquette: A lesson in table napkins

This seemingly modest piece of cloth can speak volumes about you as soon as you sit at the table.

We will explore together how a British afternoon tea table napkin should be and how you should use it appropriately. Sit comfortably, with good posture and a straight back, hands on the lap, ready to learn.

The English word napkin originates from the Latin mappa, who turned into nappe, or tablecloth in old French, with the added suffix kin, a diminutive used in late Middle English.

The napkin uses and sizes have changed enormously through time, from a huge roll to clean the mouth, teeth and face in ancient times to a wrapping cloth for delicacies to be taken away. Its history is long and frankly astonishing, but here I set out only to give you some practical guidance for your quintessentially British afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea napkins are perfect cloth squares, sized between 12 to 15 inches (30.5cm to 38 cm). 

The clean and crisp square is usually made of cotton, linen or mixed fibre.

Traditionally, they are light in colour. However, depending on the occasion or the decor stronger colours may be used, particularly for a themed afternoon tea or a special celebration where hues could be significant.

A table napkin should be placed on your lap, folded in half with the hem inside, and with the crease folded towards you if you are a gentleman.

However, if you are lady, you want to place your folded napkin with the crease away from you. 

The benefit of the different placement will become apparent in a second. 

Dab your mouth with the napkin, never wipe, bringing the napkin to your mouth. Do not bend down to meet the table napkin, sit comfortably and upright.

The gentleman can gently dab using the inconspicuous side by the crease.

The lady can simply reach for the nearest corner, open it slightly, dabbing with the inside of the napkin. She then closes the napkin again and places it back on her lap. The napkin still looks pristine as the stains are inside.

If you need to take a break, excuse yourself from the table, and leave your napkin on your chair. This signals that you are coming back. Depending on the setting, gently push the chair under the table. 

When you sit down again, place your napkin on your lap as before.

The end of the afternoon tea will be prompted by the host/ess picking their napkin and placing it on the table to their left.

As soon as you are ready, pinch the napkin in the middle and place it on the table to your left too, with the seams toward you. 

The napkin is crumpled but in a somewhat neat way. Note that it touches the table only at the end of the afternoon tea.

I very much work in the traditional British way and proudly host afternoon teas with tea leaf reading. I enjoy it tremendously.

Get in touch to book your full afternoon tea experience!

#teaetiquette #tea #etiquette #afternoontea #tealeafreader #FridaywithFreya #blog #diviner

Symbols & Dreams: A Brief History (2)

Continuing where we left in my previous article (you can read it here), where we covered the origins of interpreting symbols and dreams up to how they were regarded throughout the classical world. The level of trust, worship, guidance, healing, and wisdom assigned to symbols in the past was extraordinary compared to how we view them now. Yet, they are still of great universal importance as a valuable source of information.

Symbols are at the heart of my oracle and tea leaf reading work. I studied them for many years and it is a subject that truly fascinates me.

An article on one of the Gilgamesh Dream Tablets prompted me to write this and share it with you.  Let’s continue from where we left off.

In the ancient Arab world, Muhammad Ibn Sirin,

from Basra, wrote a compendium on the meaning of symbols in dreams titled ‘Apomasares' in the eighth century. Followed by another text of note by Gadborrahman.

Interestingly, both texts are said to form an important basis, together with the Jewish Kabbalah, for the popular Italian dream Kabbalah, called La Smorfia.

This detailed book analyses the symbols in dreams and translates them into numbers from 1 to 90, which are then used to play on the Italian national Lotto (devised in a form very similar to how it is played now in 1539 Genoa). The most famous Smorfia comes from Naples, but other versions exist and are in use in other areas of Italy. It is an ever-growing and evolving collection of symbols and their meanings, adding modern objects, experiences, and personalities as time goes by.

If you feel like winning with La Smorfia, losing a tooth is 45, teeth is 50. This becomes 70 if the tooth has a cavity; 75 if it’s a fake tooth falling off; or 26 if made of gold. If it's only loose 73; if painful 84; and 68 if you happen to see a detached human tooth somewhere. There is more, naturally, but it is beyond the scope of this article to present it here.

A fascinating glimpse into symbols and diplomacy is offered by a famous story on Caliph al-Mansur, founder of the Abbasid Caliphate and of Baghdad, who dreamt of losing all his teeth.

He asked for the meaning of such a dream. According to the established tradition, the first court diviner interpreted the symbols and said ‘All your relatives will perish’.

The Caliph was little pleased and had him flogged for his audacity. Step forward the second court diviner, who, more carefully stated ‘You will survive all your relatives’ and was rewarded.

The final message provided by the symbols is the same, but what a difference!

Celtic wisdom relied on many types of prophecy and divination, all based on the natural environment the Celts inhabited. The Celts gave symbolic meanings to trees; animals and plants; the shape of clouds; and naturally to dreams. There was a ritual to ask for assistance or healing through incubating dreams in sacred groves. Depending on the type of trees growing in the grove, specific help would be provided. So, the Celts would select a particular grove depending on the issue at hand, and following the ritual, would sleep there. The dream would then be interpreted by the Druid or the one who sees with the aid of the oak tree. The oak tree was considered the chief God actualised in a tree, so it was highly revered and considered to hold divine powers. As a symbol, the oak tree was extremely powerful and sleeping next to it was said to ensure prophetic dreams. The druids were a group of trained and high-ranking individuals who served in a variety of roles, from religious to political leaders, from poets to doctors. Even if the majority of druids were males, there were also females in the fold.

The custom of incubating dreams in special places to receive symbolic messages, healing, visions and so on, was a common feature throughout Europe.

The practice was halted by the Christian Church through the religious fervour that accompanied the Middle Ages. They believed that dreams, and the symbols in it, were associated with temptations of all sorts, sinning, sexual desires, communing with the devil. Basically, a fanciful way to tempt the weakness of the flesh.

Vivid dreams, visions and all that was cultivated before to help people in the form of what we now call divination, had to disappear, go underground, or face the inquisition. Even St Augustine struggled to control his dreams and he recorded his concern, fearing God would hold him responsible for them. We must assume others chose to keep quiet.

Disturbingly, the Christian Church selectively overlooked and forgot the many prophetic dreams and visions recounted in the Old and New Testament.

Sadly, a similar path has been taken by other religions, or more precisely interpretations, that seem to have rejected what is at the core of their establishment.

What do you dream of mostly? Do you understand the messages you receive? Get in touch if you need help interpreting symbols for greater clarity and understanding.

Resource about the tablet: http://trobisch.com/david/wb/media/material/Gilgamesh%20tablet_AW.pdf

All photographs by Jr Korpa

#dreams #symbols #diviner #dowser #divining #FridaywithFreya #blog