Thursday, August 18, 2005

The Technology of Tea

For most of us, tea technology has not advanced much since 1904, when Tom Sullivan came up with the tea bag. A dubious accomplishment to be sure - and apparently an accidental one on his part - but that's not really the point of this particular piece.

In addition to offering a great line of gourmet tea, Adagio Teas are also taking steps to bring tea technology into the 21st century. Take their gourmet tea bag, for example. Kind of a compromise between a "regular" tea bag and loose tea, it permits the leaves to expand more than in the standard issue tea bag, thereby allowing the use of a bigger leaf than you normally find in bagged tea.

Other innovations include the ingenuiTEA, a teapot that simplifies the process of brewing gourmet tea. Then there's the utiliTEA, an electric kettle with a variable temperature control to facilitate brewing at different temperatures. Last, but not least, is the triniTEA, a tea maker that not only boils the water, infuses the leaves and filters the tea into a carafe, but also keeps it warm. And no, it doesn't do windows.

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