Tea is the most popular beverage in the world, and so tea paraphernalia is vastly popular in every country of the world. Tea kettles are especially beloved, as they are the means by which water is heated for that beloved cup of tea. People who awake in the night to find that their home is on fire have been known to run to the kitchen and grab their tea kettle in order to save it from the flames!
Japanese folklore has many interesting and entertaining stories which include a tea kettle. One of these has a Tanuki as the main character. In many of the stories, the Tanuki is a magical dog who can change his shape at will. He enjoys changing himself into a tea kettle so as to make it easy for him to play tricks on people. Another classic Japanese tale was called "The Accomplished and Lucky Teakettle". Other tea kettle tales pop up in American and British children's literature. This just goes to show how much the tea kettle has insinuated itself into the lives of people all over the world.
Why is the ownership and use of a tea kettle so important to so many? Because there are tea lovers all over the world. Some people are just getting their first glimpse of the wonders of tea, while others have been tea aficionados as far back as they can remember. These lucky people learn about the proper use of a tea kettle at their mother's knee. It's the newbies to the tea world who seem to sometimes be a little confused about what a tea kettle is for.
These dear people decide that they are going to begin to be tea drinkers, but they go about it all wrong! First off, they choose a box of tea bags from their local grocery store. Any "tea person" will tell you that the tea you normally find in tea bags is nowhere near as good as loose leaf teas. To be sure, there are some tea companies that have created a very good quality silk tea bag filled with whole tea leaves, but generally, that's not what you get. What do you normally find in a tea bag? A bit of history is required to answer that question.
When tea is harvested, the leaves are whole, and it has always been this way. Around 2737 B.C., tea was tasted for the very first time by a Chinese emperor called Shen-Nung. He decreed that the tea would be much tastier if the leaves to make it with were shredded instead of being left whole, and dispatched his personal inventor to create a small device that would slice up the tea leaves into very fine pieces.
The first tea shredder consisted of a very sharp, knife-like wheel which sat in the middle of either a ceramic or a wooden crock. As the wheel rotated, it sliced the tea leaves just the way Shen-Nung wanted them. Now, he could brew his tea from shredded leaves, and get more flavor from them.
The first tea bags were made from a silk muslin cloth, and were sewn by hand. They appeared on the tea scene around 1903, and caught on with the public. Soon after, a machine that would make the tea bags was invented.
You might think that today's tea bags are like the ones Chinese emperor Shen-Nung ordered to be made for his personal cups of tea, and contain shreds of tea leaves. Wrong! Tea bags are filled with what are called "fannings' in tea language. Fannings are practically dust! They are the tiny bits and pieces that are left over after the tea leaves have been processed and the best parts of them have been taken out. The tea oils are able to readily leech out of the tea, and despite its enclosure in a tea bag, the tea can get quite stale. Most of the time, a tea bag does NOT make a good cup of tea.
With a good tea kettle, a tea pot, and some looseleaf tea, anyone can make a fantastic cup of tea. If the only hot tea you have ever tasted was made with a tea bag, you are in for a real treat when you get finished preparing a cup of tea as it was meant to be done.
A tea pot with a strainer basket makes the task easy for the beginner tea maker. You can also purchase a tea strainer that will steep your tea right in the cup. There is another innovative invention called a tea stick where you place loose tea inside of the stick to brew a cup. Tiny holes on the side of the stick allow the tea to combine with the water to create a fine cup of tea.
If you just can't seem to turn loose of the idea of making a cup of tea with a tea bag, take heart! You can purchase empty tea bags made of silk muslin and add your own loose tea to them. Before you know it, you can be enjoying the loose tea of your choice with very little effort on your part!
