O'Tea & JIGYASU

The term 'chai' doesn't refer to an actual kind of tea or a specific drink, but a style of preparing it. Chai tea is usually served with a milk or cream, and is heavily spiced. Common spices in chai are cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, and allspice.

Chai has come to North America, UK, Belgium from India, and has gained much popularity at coffeehouses and tea shops everywhere.

Masala Chai
A personal favorite. This is another basic chai recipe, but the hint of cinnamon makes a world of difference.

Kashmiri Chai Tea
The powdered almonds add a nutty touch.

Thai Iced Tea
Better for warmer weather, this iced chai tea is rich and creamy and lightly spiced.

Not only does India produce the most tea in the world, it grows some of the very best. Nearly every part of the country has a tea-growing region. Approximately 4% of the national income of India comes from its tea, there are over 14,000 tea estates.

The geography of India allows for many different climatic conditions, and the resulting teas can be dramtically different from each other.

There are 3 main kinds of tea produced in India:

Assam
Assam tea comes from the North Eastern section of the country. This heavily forested region is home to much wildlife, including the rhinocerous. Tea from here is rich and full-bodied. It was in Assam that the first tea estate was established, in 1837.

Darjeeling
The Darjeeling region is cool and wet, and tucked in the foothills of the Himalayans.
The tea is exquisite and delicately flavoured, and considered to be one of the finest teas in the world. The Darjeeling plantations have 3 distinct harvests, and the tea produced from each 'flush' has a unique flavour. First flush teas are light and aromatic, while the second flush produces tea with a bit more bite. The third, or autumn flush gives a tea that is lesser in quality.

Nilgiri
This tea comes from an even higher part of India than Darjeeling. This southern Indian region has elevations between 1,000 and 2,5000 metres. The flavours of Nilgiri teas are subtle and rather gentle. They are frequently blended with other, more robust teas.


Besides the different kinds of tea that come from India, there is also a very unique style of making tea. It's called chai. There are lots of various recipes to make chai, but the basic ingredients are: black tea, milk, sugar, and spices. It's the combination of spices that make chai so wonderful. The most common are cardamom, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and even pepper. If you're tired of plain tea, give chai a try.

Hello virtual void. Welcome to a blog about Tea. Yet another one? Yes - there's probably a healthy colony of tea blogs and sites out there. For one thing, it took some guesswork before finding a reasonable name related to tea for this blog that wasn't already taken by all the other tea connoisseurs, tea drinkers.

So what's O'Tea? It's just Indian tea, Ceylan teas, Chai (the third word being for the Tea+Spices that you find in India). It sounded neat. To me.

And the point is? Besides talking about tea, if you're reading this you'll probably have as good a chance of unraveling that question as I do.

But the original idea, as I sit here and drink a darjeeling high-mountain 2nd Flush, from one of my Indian Kettle or tea pots, is to write thoughts on teas, and present you my tea concept located in Brussels, Belgium - and reviews on what I find or happen to think of while sitting in front of a computer being woken up by the morning's pick of tea.

So, hope you enjoy. Feel free to leave a comment if one comes to your mind.

If you found it too virtual, you can also visit the shop located in 715 Chaussée de Waterloo - Galerie Bascule - 1180 Bruxelles for a warm cup of tea.