In sweltering Tucson, where the Maya clan has planted their stakes, we are feeling every excruciating second of summer. The average high temperature during the past week was a staggering 106°, and amidst sweaty brows and steaming asphalt we don’t even want to talk about hot tea anymore.

And so Manish doesn’t—in episode four of “Steeping Around,” he turns his attention to iced tea, introducing the first of a frosty four part series. We’re keeping the temperatures a little cooler over the next few episodes, examining every aspect of iced tea: its history, varieties, brewing, serving, and spicing.

“The history of iced tea is actually relatively short,” Manish begins. “Hot tea has been around for several thousand years; the Chinese have been making hot tea for a very, very long time.  But the popularity of iced tea really mirrors the availability of, well, ice.” The first notable mention of iced tea comes from cookbooks published in the mid 1800’s. Many recipes, called “Tea Punch,” featured chilled green tea amongst a few splashes of liquor. These cocktails likely packed the punch that they promised, and grew increasingly popular during and shortly following the time of US prohibition.

While housewives were chilling tea for nearly a century prior, the invention of iced tea is often mistakenly accredited to a man named Richard Blechynden who served it to the masses at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. According to the story, Blechynden’s free samples of hot Indian tea were a massive failure, as St. Louis was experiencing a summer much like the one that now plagues Tucson. In a fleeting attempt to reach the passersby of his booth, he tried something new: he ran the hot tea through frozen metal pipes, thus chilling it. By day’s end, he had served his final lingering samples of tea to a very cool and content crowd. “That golden brew was very much appreciated… and that’s the moment at which we notice iced tea’s popularity really take off.”

It’s popularity has continued to grow exponentially, particularly since the introduction of refrigerators to the average household. Today, over 85% of tea consumed within the US is iced. This includes bottled and packaged iced teas, available in most grocery and convenience stores. The large variety of shelf-ready teas vary greatly in quality and taste, and Manish offers his suggestions for those listeners looking for a more authentic product: most bottled teas use poor quality leaves and are very highly sugared, but two brands, HonestTea and ItoEn, are worth a second look. Brands such as these, which offer little or no sweetening and specify the variety of tea leaf used, like darjeelings or senchas, offer great promise.

In addition to the bottled and powdered iced teas, much of the tea consumed in this country is sipped at restaurants and is often a simple, unsweetened variety of iced tea. Certain regions however stand firm in their variations; in the South, for instance, you would be hard pressed to find a glass of iced tea that hadn’t been heavily sweetened. Southerners so love their “sweet tea” that on April Fool’s Day in 2003, the Georgia state legislature passed a tongue-in-cheek bill that made it a misdemeanor to fail to offer sweet tea in any restaurant.  Other variations on iced tea have begun to dot the surface of consumption as well, as coffeehouses are beginning to stretch into new markets and develop specialty menu offerings. It is not uncommon to find delicate varieties of jasmine teas, oolongs, and fine grade green teas adorning the average hanging chalkboard. “This is a trend that I hope will continue,” Manish muses.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t depend on coffeehouses, restaurants, or bottling plants to give us the chilly strength needed to drift through our summer days. Next week, Manish will unveil the tricks of making an exceptional cup of iced tea from home. Avoid the furnace of your car, the blistering walk across a parking lot, and the dizzying line in front of the hot coffee counter—rejuvenation awaits you, in your refrigerator.

Until then, stay cool! To listen to this week’s episode, click here.

It is not uncommon for a member of Maya Tea to be dubbed a “tea snob.” While the phrase, in its inclusion of the word snob, carries a negative connotation, it is not a label that we shy away from. Being a tea snob means that we understand the qualities and characteristics of a good cup of tea, and that we strive to ensure that every cup we enjoy embodies those things. In Steeping Around, our hope is that a bit of our snobbery rubs off on you. Every tea drinker, in our opinion, ought to sip on silky, smooth, sensational tea. With this in mind, “we’re going to go on our soapbox a little bit,” warns Manish Shah as he introduces his final tips for making an excellent cup of tea.

In his second episode, Manish emphasized the importance of water quality and proper portioning of water to tea leaves. This week, it’s all about “turning up the heat!” Manish focuses his tips on actual brewing techniques: heating water, required temperatures, and suggested steep times. And here’s where the so-called snobbery begins to peek out—microwaves are highly frowned upon as a method of heating your water.

For starters, it is very difficult to control the temperature of water heated in a microwave. Due to their unique heating process, it is very easy for water to quickly reach a temperature far too hot for tea. If, however, you do manage to get a cup of water to reach the right temperature, you are faced with another problem: once a cup is removed from the microwave, the temperature lowers at a rate significantly faster than that of water boiled stovetop. That’s not all—high levels of oxygen escape from microwaved water, leaving the resulting liquid a bit flat-tasting. It can also be unsafe…

We could go on and on.

On the contrary, heating your water over a stovetop is both easy and effective. For those of you who are beginning already to sputter about convenience, remember this: heating an equivalent amount of water over a stove takes only a few minutes longer than in a microwave. Those few minutes, in turn, add unique ceremonial value to your tea-making process. Amidst the hustle-bustle of day to day life, Manish advises his listeners: “We want you to enjoy your cup of tea. Enjoy the ceremony. Slow your day down a bit. Go ahead and heat your water… Give yourself a little time to tend to the water that will create that great cup of tea for you.”

And now, the nitty-gritty: different varieties of tea require different water temperatures and steep times to produce an optimal cup. For simplification, Manish divides tea varieties into five main categories: herbals, black teas, oolong teas, green teas, and white teas. As we go down the list, in this order, the temperature and steep time decrease.

For herbal varieties, which I will briefly mention are not in fact tea (but we will go into that later), you should use boiling hot water. Once the water has reached a rolling boil, remove it from heat and add your leaves. Allow them to steep for three to six minutes, depending on your strength preferences. Black teas should be prepared in the same manner. Oolongs should be brewed with bubbling water, not quite at boiling point. This usually occurs from 180-190°F. Allow the leaves to steep for two to three minutes. For green teas, heat your water to about 170-180°. You will see small bubbles starting to rise, one by one, on the sides of your pan. Steep for one to two minutes. Finally, for white teas, which are very delicate and should in turn be brewed delicately, use water that is only steaming. This will occur at about 150-160°, and you will begin to see small bubbles forming on the sides of your pot. Steep for only a minute.

If you are using a tea kettle, don’t worry—we haven’t forgotten about you. Place the kettle on your stove and walk away, as you normally would. Wait for the whistle, return, and remove your kettle from heat. If you are brewing an herbal blend or a black tea, go ahead and add your leaves. For oolongs, wait two minutes. By that time, the water will have reached an appropriate temperature. For green teas wait three minutes, and for whites, wait four. The same steeping times will apply no matter your method of heating.

Once you have allowed your tea leaves to steep for the correct amount of time, strain the liquid from them and into cups. Savor your sips—even the tea you have enjoyed countless times before will taste different, better. But don’t discard those soggy leaves just yet—you can use the same set of leaves for a second and even a third infusion. Manish details the art of multiple infusions during the Question of the Week segment of the show. To discover how exactly to pull flavor from your leaves time and time again, have a listen! And to all you future tea-snobs: Welcome. It’s nice on this side of the fence.

Click here to listen to the third episode of Steeping Around.

In order to gain a proper appreciation for the wonderful beverage that is tea, one must first have tasted an excellent cup. Unfortunately, most drinkers are unaware of the fine details that affect your infusion, and as such have sipped on teas that are bitter, sour, or simply unappealing. We aim to change this—and for this reason Manish Shah has devoted the first episodes of Steeping Around to the art of making an exquisite cup of tea.

“Surprisingly, the first tip that I give to most people about making tea has nothing to do with tea or the leaf itself,” Manish begins. Ninety-nine percent of any cup of tea is actually water, so it follows that water quality is of extreme importance. “It simply does not matter how expensive your tea or preparation vessel is, if your water is of poor quality, your tea will be of poor quality.” The ancient Chinese adopted very stringent guidelines regarding water used for tea. They required water taken from mountain streams caused by melting snow, and additionally that the water be collected from the center of the rushing stream rather than from the slower-moving banks. Today, very few of us have access to these pristine mountain streams, let alone the time or inclination to visit them before brewing our morning drinks, so how ought we determine the quality of our water from home?
Perhaps the easiest way to ensure your standards of water is to purchase it bottled. If you choose this tactic, beware: distilled water and even water processed by reverse osmosis will not optimize the flavor of your tea. Some mineral content is actually a good thing, as it balances and compliments the flavor of the leaf. Rather than seeking out the purest water available, look for natural spring or glacier water.

Now, while minerals are a crucial ingredient in your water, many of those present in average tap water will prove enemies. If you use your water at home, make sure that it is filtered. If it is filtered, make sure that you actually change your filter in some routine fashion. Here is the general rule of thumb: if your water tastes good to you at room temperature, your tea will taste good.

In addition to making sure that your water is of the right caliber, you must also determine that you are using the proper proportion of water to tea. In general, it takes about two to two and a half grams of tea for every cup of water. An important distinction: we are talking about an actual cup, six ounces, not the cup that you pull from your cabinet. “I challenge any of you to take the mug that you use to make tea and find out how much water it actually holds,” Manish advises listeners. It is common, especially in the United States, for tea and coffee mugs to hold anywhere from twelve to twenty ounces of water. Two grams of tea, or its teabag equivalent, will leave you with a thin, tasteless cup.

“But how do I know what two to two and a half grams of loose tea looks like?” you may be wondering. Not to worry—this is precisely the question that Manish answers during the ‘Question of the Week’ segment of the show. Two methods are suggested, each manageable from the comfort of your home kitchen, and neither involving complex scales, rulers, or immense effort. Press some tea leaves into the palm of your hand. For most varieties, you are seeking about enough to fill a half-dollar sized circle. For larger leaf varieties such as white teas, chamomile or peppermint, a slightly larger circle or a rounded top will do. Second, close your eyes. Place a penny into the palm of one hand and a small amount of tea into the other. When your hand with tea feels of close weight to the other, you have about two and a half grams of tea.

These are two of the most important aspects concerning the making of quality tea. Next week, tune in for two more. By the end of the next episode, your traditional morning cup of tea will never taste the same again. And that, my friends, is a good thing.

To listen to episode 2, click here.

During the month of May, as the tea business began to stretch and settle into its lethargic summer state, the telephone rang with an exciting new prospect: an online radio show, revolving entirely around tea. “We were approached by the Food Radio Network, and they had heard that I was a guy who knew a little bit about the tea industry… apparently they also figured out that I like to talk, probably a little more than I should,” Manish begins. Such was the start of our first episode, entitled “Warming the Kettle,” in which Manish verbally did just that- prepped the audience for the coming talk of tea.

Why devote a radio show to this one, simple beverage? Is there really enough to be said about tea? This was Manish’s first instinct, but upon a bit of thought and brainstorming the answer came as an astounding yes—frankly, there are many misconceptions and misunderstanding about the drink, and it would be our goal to shed them, one by one, and allow listeners to experience the simple joy that tea drinkers often take for granted. The tagline for the show, “Taking Back Teatime,” holds true. We do not expect listeners to settle in with fine china and bite-sized treats for a classy listen, nor do we hope for a ceremonial, spiritual listen. We are taking tea back to the basics—leaves, hot water, a cup, and most importantly, you—the person who will enjoy it.

So in order to “warm our kettle,” so to speak, Manish devoted the inaugural episode to introductions, as is customary. He slowly unravels a tale of his personal history, from New York to Tucson, from a degree in psychology to a career in marketing, and from Maya Tea’s humble one-product beginnings to the all-encompassing tea company that we have become. “The tea industry has changed a lot in the past ten years. When I first started out, everything was sort of standard—English Breakfast, Earl Grey—the variety and the creativity was just starting to blossom,” Manish reminisces. Now, the industry thrives on vibrant, varietal flavors and artistic blends, which he likens to the wine market. “When you try to choose a wine and you look along the shelves, there are numerous choices, all kinds of wine: whites, reds, different countries, different grapes, different years and appellations, and it goes on and on… but at the grocery store, you think ‘I just want a bottle of good wine’.” Manish intends to simplify the dense market that tea has become for his listeners. When it comes down to it, the ultimate purpose is enjoyment, and everyone deserves to enjoy an excellent cup of tea.

On that note, in the final segment of our first episode Manish turns his attention to tea itself as he answers the first question from the audience. Prior to the recording of the episode, we had asked our Facebook followers to provide us with a tea-related question which we could answer. For over a week, we had not one response. Manish began to sort through his memories for the more frequent questions that he has answered over the years, and at last he had settled on one: How ought a traditional coffee drinker transition to tea? Then, lo and behold, the following morning a question appeared on our Facebook page, written as follows: “If you were trying to change from being primarily a coffee drinker to drinking more tea, what teas would you recommend and what preparation methods?” The irony was not lost on us. And fatefully so, Manish answered the question. You will all have to give an ear, however, to uncover his answer.

Welcome to our radio show, and welcome as well to the first of a series of blogs recapping it. We look forward to “Steeping Around” with you.

To listen to “Warming the Kettle,” click here.