Tea...Did You Know?

Did you realize that you can brew more than 200 cups of tea from one pound of loose tea leaves? That works out to less than ten cents a cup for quality tea brewed at home, even adding in the cost of heating the hot water. Tea's low cost is a big reason why it's the second most popular beverage throughout the world, second only to plain water.

A cup of brewed tea typically contains less than half the caffeine of a cup of coffee. It's easy to decaffeinate loose tea at home if you prefer decaf. Because caffeine is highly soluble in hot water, "rinsing" tea leaves will get rid of most of the caffeine. Begin brewing tea as usual, but then remove the leaves after twenty seconds. Discard the initial brew and start again with fresh boiling water and the now decaffeinated tea leaves.

Have you started using tea in your recipes yet? It's wonderful and gives new life to old recipes. Here is one to try if you're an Oolong Lover! Oolong tea, which is also known as wu long tea or brown tea, is a cross between green tea and black tea. Rose Oolong Tea is produced by scenting Oolong tea repeatedly with fresh rose petals.

The subtle rose and oolong flavor makes these a perfect start for a weekend morning. If you don't have any rose oolong on hand, just use plain oolong.

Oolong Scones
1 cup self-raising flour
1 ounce butter melted (1/8 cup)
1/2 cup boiling water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp rose oolong
3 tbsp rose petals (make sure they are pesticide free!)
1 tbsp skim milk powder

Infuse rose oolong with 1/2 of boiling water for 5 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour and sugar into a large bowl. Tear up the rose petals and add to the flour mixture.

Discard tea leaves from tea. Combine tea, skim milk powder and melted butter in a cup. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in tea mixture all at once, reserving about a teaspoon for glazing. Mix quickly into a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured board (using self-raising flour). Mix very lightly and form into 4 small balls. (Add a little more self-raising flour if the dough is too sticky to handle.)

Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper and pat down just a bit. Glaze over with remaining tea mixture. Bake for 12–15 minutes or until scones sound hollow when tapped. Serve warm.

Traditionally scones are served with jam and cream, but try these without the “extra” to enjoy the subtle floral flavor of these scones.